How I Make Wine

[Charlotte 0'Neil]

How I make wine

I don't have all the right equipment so my method is a little catch as catch can. I usually start by taking some fruit out of the freezer -- as much as will fill the white plastic bucket I have -- probably about 1 1/2 gallon size. (Fruit that cannot normally be frozen can be frozen if what you are going to do with it is make wine.) When they have thawed I pour boiling water over the fruit and then let set a day. Pour (Not enough to cook them so they are still mostly raw, but the hot water helps draw more juice out). I then squeeze the juice through a cheesecloth/muslin filter into a 3-gallon plastic container. (Note: elderberry twigs become soft and pliable after freezing, so the juice can be squeezed through a cloth filter without the stems interfering, eliminating the need to fork the berries off the branches.) Either repeat or get more fruit from freezer.  Add some yeast starter to this, usually in the form of something I have brewed recently. Meanwhile, I boil a kilo ( 2.2 pounds) of sugar in a liter (close to a quart) of water until dissolved, and at some time when it is cool enough I add it to the 3-gallon container.

I cover the opening of the 3-gallon container with an airlock, which is a piece of plastic I cut from a plastic grocery bag secured with a sturdy rubber band. After about a month or when I get around to it, I decant into wine bottles which I cover with a smaller piece of plastic secured with a sturdy piece of rubber (which is a slice of a bicycle inner tube in my case) and stick it someplace out of the way.

When I first started, 6 years ago, I drank them after 3-6 months, but by making more wine or other fermented beverage than I needed I have finally got to the point where I am now drinking 2 year old wine (without having to exercise restraint).