Joy of Home Wine Making Read Online Free PDF

this isn’t really necessary, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
    Boil the sugar or honey with one quart of the water, and let it cool, stirring a little to make sure the sugar dissolves. Add an extra half cup of sugar if you are using lemons instead of lemonade. Take the cans of juice out of the freezer to let them defrost.
    Sanitize the 1 gallon jug by boiling it in a large pot (such as a canning kettle or stockpot) of water for 1 to 15 minutes, or wash and clean it with a bottle brush, rinse, then swoosh it out with the Campden solution. To make the Campden solution, with the back of a spoon crush the tablets as finely as possible, and dissolve the powder in one cup of cool water, which you have placed in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake up the jar like mad to facilitate the dissolving. You will never get all the lumps out, but do the best you can and don’t worry.
    Pour this solution into the clean jug (a funnel makes it easy) and swoosh it around the inside, making sure you cover the entire surface, then pour it back out into the jar. You can reuse this solution as long as it still smells like sulfur.
    Another method is simply to soak the jug in a solution of unscented bleach and water for 20 minutes. An ounce or two of bleach to 5 gallons of water will sanitize the jug just fine. Rinse it out with really hot water to get rid of as much of the chlorine smell as possible. I worry that the chlorine will affect the taste of the wine, so I use the Campden method, but I have used bleach in emergencies.
    Cleanliness in winemaking is not quite as essential as it is in beermaking, but it is still very important.
    When the sugar water is still a bit warm, pour it into the jug, using a funnel that has either been rinsed in the Campden solution or boiled. Add the thawed apple juice and the strained lemonadeor lemon juice. Then add the plain, cool water up to where the neck of the jug starts to slant upward. Add the pectic enzyme if you are using it. Stir with a long wooden or metal stick, over which you have poured boiling water. A long chopstick also works fine. Put the piece of plastic over the top and secure it with the rubber band. Store it someplace out of the light and out of the way. Twenty-four hours later, take off the rubber band and tap the packet of wine yeast into the jug. Replace the plastic with a new piece, and put the rubber band back on snugly.
    Put the whole thing in a warm (75°F), preferably dark, place for one month to ferment. The temperature should be in the range of about 60-80°F. After the first day, you should see a bit of froth at the top of the liquid (or must , as it is called). This means the yeast is happily eating the sugar and making alcohol. It will be fairly active for the first couple of weeks, then it will settle down.
    After a few weeks, you will notice a sediment at the bottom of the jug, and nearly clear wine above. You need to rack the wine, or separate the good stuff from the dead yeast and sediment. To do this, sanitize another jug and the tubing. I strongly recommend that you use the sulphite solution for the tubing, rather than boil it.
    Then boil another cup or so of water.
    Place the jug of wine on a table, moving it carefully so as not to disturb the sediment. Put the empty jug directly below on the floor. Remove the plastic again, and carefully insert one end of the tubing down into the wine until it rests a few inches above the sediment and hold it there with one hand, or have a friend hold it. Squat down above the empty jug and suck gently on the end of the tube. Be sure to rinse your mouth out before you do this. (Some people swish out with vodka!)
    The wine should start flowing up out of the high jug into the tube, heading for the lower point of gravity, which just happens to be the end of the tube, which is between your lips. Quickly remove it from your lips, insert it into the empty jug, and let the wine flow into the jug. Try to avoid vigorous splashing. If you have to