5:53 AM

12/09/08 - Wine Holder

Another Great Wine Holder Article

How to brew cheap wine

Preface: I've never done this before, and i'm totally inexperienced about brewing. I did a little bit of research online and found this was the easiest and cheapest way to brew wine, which seems like the easiest of all alcoholic drinks to make. Follow these directions at your own risk

Like the title says, this method of brewing is not expensive (cost me roughly $12. This will make me 2-3 gallons of wine. maybe more), but the returns aren't for connoisseurs. This is for cheap-asses, college kids, and 15 yr olds who can't buy anything themselves. If you do it right, it's enjoyable, cheap, easy to do, and most importantly, alcoholic. Plus, it only takes a maximum of 2 weeks to fully ferment!!!

Step 1:
Buy ingredients. Get the cheap stuff. It doesn't matter what quality it is because it's hobo-wine.
I made a gallon jug of this. The recipe calls for:

2 cans of juice concentrate (room temp) I chose welch's concorde grape. You should be able to use any type of concentrate like strawberry, kiwi-whatever etc. Two juice concentrates makes 1 gallon.

2-3 cups of sugar

water

water container (I used a water jug that was 60 cents at the store, plus I got to use the water)

Active Dry yeast

bleach

funnel

rubber band

balloon

Step 2:
Sterilize everything you're going to use to keep the fermenting wine in. You don't want unwanted bacteria growing in your wine, it ruins it. Bleach out your funnel and your jug. Rinse well, and wash with dish soap. Air dry.

Step 3:
Go ahead and bring your water to a near boil. What I did was let the water boil just for a bit to kill anything in it (just in case), and then I took it off the heat and let it cool. I heated mine in separate pots because I didn't have any large enough to hold it all.

Step 4:

While you're waiting for your water to heat, go ahead and add your room temperature juice concentrate to the clean, dry jug. Use the funnel if you need it.

Step 5:
As the hot water cools, dissolve 2-3 cups of sugar in the water. Most recipies I've read say 2 is fine, but i added 3 so the yeast had enough nutrients and so that the wine would be sweeter. Stir while pouring.

Step 6:
Activate the yeast. Follow the instructions on the back of the packet. For me, I added 1 teaspoon of sugar into a separate bowl along with 1/4 cup of water at 100-110 degrees Farenheit. Add the yeast to the concoction and stir briefly. Let sit for 10 minutes. The yeast should be very frothy now.

Step 7:
Pour the dissolved sugar-water into the jug that's holding the juice concentrate. Your juice/sugarwater might be warm. Cool it off a little by placing the jug in the sink and fill the sink with cool water. When you introduce your yeast to their syrupy mix, it can't be too hot or it will kill the yeast and ruin your project. I waited until the jug was just warm to the touch. 80-90 degrees i estimate.

Step 8:

When the mix is cooled enough, add the yeast to the mix.

Step 9:
Cap the jug containing your sugar water, juice concentrate, and yeast and shake violently. Try not to spill. Do it enough just to mix everything up.

Step 10:
Remove the cap, place a balloon over the top to allow for expansion. The yeasties produce CO2, and it's got to go somewhere. You cannot introduce air to the mix or it will ruin it/make vinegar. Bad bad bad! Some people use valves, some make tubing that runs from the jug to a glass of water so air cannot get in, but it allows the CO2 to escape. I use a balloon.
Note: when using a balloon, make sure it doesn't over inflate and pop. Again, this will ruin your batch.
If you want you can put a rubber band over the ballon to further secure it. If you really want to i suppose you can tape it as well. I didn't.

Step 11:
Keep your jug in a relatively warm place (room temp). The yeast can handle 60 degrees, but i wouldn't want to chance it. Also, i wouldn't expose it to direct sunlight.

There it is! I just brewed it up tonight, now I just wait 10-14 days and then i can...

Step 12:
ENJOY!

When you're done fermenting, you can siphon the good stuff out while leaving the clumpy yeast in the jug. To repeat, just make sure to sterilize again and you're good to go.

Again, i'm way not a pro at this. I just thought some of you might want to try this with me and we can help eachother along. If you know what you're doing, post in here and give advice. I'd love to hear it.

Pictures and conversations can be found here: http://www.leftofme.com/how-to-brew-cheap-wine/

About the Author

Tom runs http://www.leftofme.com the source for beautiful Thai girls

Another short Wine Holder review

How to brew cheap wine

Preface: I've never done this before, and i'm totally inexperienced about brewing. I did a little bit of research online and found this was the easies...

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8:06 AM

09/08/08 - Burgundy Wine

A Burgundy Wine Artilce for Your Viewing

Cork Taint: Something to Wine About

Drinking wine is a pleasurable experience. It leaves us relaxed, at ease, cheerful, and packed full of antioxidants. But, it doesn?t come without its risks. While there is the risk of overindulgence, a hangover, or a Merlot stain on the brand new white carpet, there is also another risk that many of us don?t think about. This is the risk of cork taint. With the ability to stand between our wine and our enjoyment, cork taint can really contaminate the drinking experience.

What is Cork Taint?

Cork taint is a term that refers to an undesirable taste or odor found in certain bottles of wine. While no one knows for sure what cork tastes like, with cork not being a hot item listed on the menus of fancy restaurants, a wine is labeled to have cork taint when it tastes a bit off. Some people describe wine with cork taint as tasting of must or of mildew while others describe it as tasting like damp newspapers (why these people know what must, mildew, or damp newspaper even taste like is a whole different issue altogether).

Not everyone who drinks wine tainted with cork may realize it; some wines hide it better than others, attempting to cover the taint with flavor and body. Some people may also find that they are less or more sensitive to it: one person may not even notice that their wine is tainted while another person may take one sip, spit, and ? in soap opera fashion ? throw their wine glass against the wall, pour their bottle down the drain, and go and shoot JR.

What Causes Cork Taint?

While cork taint ruins the entire bottle of wine, the consumers can?t fairly blame the cork, causing tiny tear drops to drip from its pores. The cork alone is not at fault. Instead, the main cause of cork taint is TCA, or 2,4,6-trichloroanisole for those of you who majored in chemistry. When a wine contains TCA, it adopts the odor and taste for which TCA is famous: damp and moldy. TCA is harmless to humans ? ingesting it won?t cause a person to widen their eyes and grab their throat like someone who has just been poisoned ? but it is fatal to wine. Because TCA covers the wine?s natural aromas and flavors with the aromas and flavors of a foreign chemical, any wine with TCA is destined for a life in the drain of the kitchen sink.

Cork can often become tainted with TCA when fungus couples with the chlorphenol compound and becomes chloranisole. For any of you not wearing a pocket protector, this basically means that TCA can get on a cork when the cork is tainted with industrial pollutants present in things such as wood preservatives and pesticides. The role that industrial pollutants play has made cork taint more prevalent in the modern wine making world.

While TCA is the most common cause of cork taint, this is not always the case: sometimes TCA may be framed by other less common, lesser known, and more elusive compounds. Because these compounds have their own aroma and flavor, they can taint a cork as much as TCA. Cork taint can also occur, in a page out of wine irony, through the chlorine bleaching process used for sterilization.

How often does Cork Taint Occur?

Luckily, cork taint isn?t running rampant among the wine bottles of the world; bottles aren?t living in fear of perpetually becoming a victim. However, the rate of incidence is a bit up in the air. While some people predict that up to 5 percent of bottles are tainted, others predict that the number may be as high as 15 percent. As long as this number is above zero, research will be made to try and find a way to rid cork taint from the wine world.

While this research is conducted, a controversy between cork and other forms of stoppage (such as plastic closures or screwcaps) has arisen. The media attention given to cork taint has caused many consumers to seek other non-cork related products. This, however, could prove detrimental to the economy in places that rely on the production of cork, such as Portugal. It could also hinder the environment: many species of birds and animals build their habitats in the trees that produce cork.

What Are People Doing About Cork Taint?

With cork producers refusing to sit back and watch their product become replaced by synthetic manufacturing, a resolution to cork taint continues to be sought. Some producers of cork have found that harvesting the bark from the higher areas of cork oak trees and doing away with using chlorine for sterilization has helped lower the rate of cork tainted with TCA. There are even purification and filtration systems in development that may potentially remove the cork taint from wine and make the bottle consumable once more.

While this plague continues to affect the wine community, most major cork producing companies spend millions of dollars per year hoping to find a cure for cork taint. Through research and perseverance, it?s possible that cork taint may not be a factor in wines of the future. In the meantime, those of you who are affected by cork taint - those of you who have lost some bottles of your loved ones to this disease - can only wait and see and remember that potentially tainted wine is better than no wine at all.

Jennifer Jordan is the senior editor at http://www.savoreachglass.com. With a vast knowledge of wine etiquette, she writes articles on everything from how to hold a glass of wine to how to hold your hair back after too many glasses. Ultimately, she writes her articles with the intention that readers will remember wine is fun and each glass of anything fun should always be savored.

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Cork Taint: Something to Wine About

Drinking wine is a pleasurable experience. It leaves us relaxed, at ease, cheerful, and packed full of antioxidants. But, it doesn?t come without its ...

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