Joy of Home Wine Making Read Online Free PDF Page B

stop for a second, just pinch the tube firmly. Be sure to keep the bottom of the upper part of the tube in the liquid, or, of course, the flow will stop. Continue to siphon until just before the sediment begins to enter the tube. Then remove the tube from both jugs.
    Top up the wine by adding the boiled water to it until themixture reaches the bottom of the bottle neck, replace the old plastic with new. Add the rubber band. Don’t fill the jar all the way up to the top. You need room for the gases. If you taste the wine it will probably taste pretty raw, but don’t worry. Time is on your side.

    Racking from the primary fermenter to the five-gallon carboy using a racking tube. Notice the casual, but alert stance of the model, and the open-mouthed admiration of the rubber lizard. Wearing loose, older clothes is a good practice when racking or bottling.
    At the end of about two months (or sooner if the weather is warm), you should check the wine again. You can tell if the wine has finished fermenting (has eaten all the available sugar) by gently tapping the jug to see if any little bubbles rise to the top. If they do, it’s still fermenting. Be patient. There will be more sediment on the bottom of the jug, but not a whole lot. Later on you will acquire a hydrometer, and you can be a lot more scientific about the fermentation process.
    When at last the wine is finished fermenting, and fairly clear (one to three months), you can do several things. You can rack the wine again and drink it. It won’t be too bad. You can rack it and leave it in the jug for another six months and then drink it. It will be lots better.
    Apple wine tastes best chilled, though it’s awkward to store a whole gallon in the fridge. After you take some out of the gallon jug, the chances of the rest going bad rise quickly.
    You see where I am gently leading you by the hand, don’t you? Yes, the solution is to bottle it.
    B OTTLING
    Use old clean wine bottles, washed and sanitized. These days, they are mostly 750 ml, not the old fifths. You may have acquired some already. You can also get them from friends, caterers, some recycling centers, or, if all else fails, you can buy them rather expensively at the wine supply shop.
    There is no point in using a bottle with any dubious matter in it, nor is there any point in using a bottle that has been used to store Uncle Joe’s Karburetor Kleener, vinegar, frogs, lead paint chips, or anything else of that ilk. The world is full of wine bottles. Get ones that have held only wine.
    They must be the kind that came with a genuine cork. You want four or five. If they have mold on the bottom, or any specks of weird stuff, soak them in the mild solution of water and chlorine bleach we spoke of earlier, overnight, submerging them. Rinse outwith hot water until you get all the stuff out. Use a bottle brush if necessary. Or you can use the old trick of putting in a handful of dry beans and swishing them around inside with a little water to dislodge any crud. You can avoid all of this mess by rinsing out wine bottles after you use them, and storing them upside down in a wine carton to avoid the entrapment of curious centipedes and spiders.
    After getting them very clean, it’s best to sanitize them again, just before you want to bottle. Use the Campden tablet solution or the bleach treatment, if you must.
    Now you need a corker and new corks from the wine supply store. The corker costs about fifteen dollars. A package of corks costs about three dollars for twenty-five. NEVER use old corks. False economy. Corks are porous and should be used for wine only once. After that, they are cat toys and hat decorations.
    Buy the best-quality corks you can. You might have to buy a whole bag of twenty-five. Bring in your bottle and ask the clerk to help you figure out the right size. Sometimes you can get coated corks that do not need soaking, but they are not always easy to find.
    Buy a lever action corker while you are at it. There