Farmer.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2014, 7 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Farmer.

GIIAPE E .0 XOM V. . niAMT.!' 'A -■ HOW PURE, CSFERMENTED m>E IS MADE. Excepting its preparation from th? fresh fruit whenever required, the various mode? really resolve themselves into two—by boiling, and by treatment with snlphur- The former process makes it sweet and syrupy; the latter piooerres its tenuity. Oil of mustard, sulphurous and sulphuric acids, and other substances may be nsed, but the easiest and most direct treatment is by sulphur itself. Sulphur is an article that is exceedingly wholesome for various conditions oi the body, and is not without its great use in the wine. We proceed to detail the two modes; previously mentioning, however, that them Is another mode similar to the one first mentioned—expression of juice from the fruit when required, and that it consists simply in expressing tbs juice and carefully laying it by in a cool place:—For the boiling process ripe fruit only will answer. If the fruit is sour or unripe there will be too mueb acid in the liquid; it will ;blacken any metal it may come into contact with, and will fce a dirty, turbid, ill-looking liquid As the juice in thi.easc is boiled, a copper or enamelled vessel is necessary. Squeeze the fruit between r. Her? and ran the juice into the boiler, or squeeze it through a sieve, keeping back all unrip" fruit, stalks, and skins. Heat should ce raised in the boiler as the juice flows in, and as the liquor boils skim eff ali scum thatrisc.-. When the seeds sink to tbs bottom take the vessel from the fire and allow the contents to eooL Strain off the liquor, first through a sieve or colander, then through a doth until perfectly clear. Put it into bottles (filling to the bottom of she neck), place tne bottles, so filled, in a boiler, with straw between and under them. Fill the boiler with cold water as high as the liquor in the bottles. Put fire under the boiler, and boil about an hour. Then take out the bottles, and, while hot, cork and seal them. Wine mads in this way has the true flavour of the grape, and becomes bright and sparkling. It does not intoxicate, and it keeps good lor years. It will be observed that, in making this wine, it is necessary to have the juice raised from its natural heat aa rapidly as possib'e. The reason is that the seeds (germs) of fermentation attach it between the beat of 50 degree? and 150 degrees. By excluding the air after the vegetable and animal life in the juice is destroyed, it will keep as safely as preserves. The same process is again thus differently described by a writer in the .V u York Tribune :

Many churches in Ohio have long ceased to nse fermented win: at communion. Tae only difficulty in its miouf.-itturo is to procure good and well riper,tu grapes. Such sorts as Hartford, Ives, Concord, and Isabella, will not make good wine oi any tied. The Delaware is peed, but is improved by mixture with Catawba or Iona; and as tue Delaware with me is usually gone before ihi latter kinds are ripe, I commonly use C itaw ca or lona, or both, along with Salem or others of the Rogers hybrids. But remember lh : ,t all must be rip;, for poor fruit will no: yield good juice, and unftimcmcd wine is only pure grape juice kept from fermentation. I use a common hand apple mil! and press, pawing tea grapes through the mill to break the berries, then pressing oat the j lice. Next pat it into a copper kettle and bring it to a boil, and when cool pass it through a filter of six inches or more of clean sand and charcoal ;it is then ready for bottling. Now take a fiat bottomed wash-boiler and lay an old cloth in the bottom, and stand it full of the bottles filled np to their necks, leaving a little room for expansion ; pour water into the boiler to half the height of the bottles, and bring the water to a boil; then remove the bottles and cork tightly while hot, covering the tops with melted eealing-w&x; then put away in the cellar. I have bad such bottles i - tbrnurh summers without a sign of fermentation.”

..v 10. owing two extracts relate to tho nc.t Lei ieg process, and are taken from A u*tralian journals:—

Dry your fleshy crapes, sneb as the Muscat and Alexander, by tying the bunches and hanging them in sheds or lofts; do cot bruise them by any ratans. The n it fle-rhy forts carefully pack in heirs with bran or sawdust, so that they wili not bruits each other, cover the tep, do not lumber the burs about, but, et them be still in a dry, cool place. < mo gentleman in Franco ir.iis has his wine fresh from the hunch at ail times from one fruit season to another. Tskj ihe next less fleshy sorts and press the juice Ir-m them when ripe, and put 1 lb. of w hite sugar to every 1 lb. cl juice, and boil them tharp fir half an henr in a clean copper or cr. ■.•soiled preserving pan ; this mates ihe very best of j i!y I ever eat or drank. Thi J can ir eamn with bread, padding dumplings, . ■, and mixed with water makes a pleasant retresfliiv drink. This wine I could eat with jty and praise be ft re the Lord, as the ancient Jew did eat his wine in the sanctuary of hi- God. In order to have no waste, take the stalks and hu*ks from which you have taken this juice, aud put to every pound of them half a pint of water, and bod them together for half an hour, and then strain the liquor from them, and to every two nir.ts add ball a pound of sugar, and boil sharp for half an hoar; then bottle, cork tight, and use it immediately with water or otherwise. Take the most liquid sorts of grapes, press the juice out, and then boil away oca-third, and then bottle this concentrated juic; and carry it where you like, or use it when and as you like. Yon may warm this and eat it a* you do milk with bread; this is the kind the ancients mixed with milk, and therefore, the mixed wine in a commended sense in the Bible, “Come, bay wine and milk without money and without price.” Many travel--lat tall as that tbonsands mainly live on this wine countries. They ray the poorer people pat in floor as they boil it lot their i nsd, and then eat it with their bread; hence J (ha earn lor bread, the oil tor cake and i ' aaatntinc, and wine lot food, was God’s pro- i ▼Wen far millions in ages past, and is for i IbMfaßfcaow. Bene* tin land (bat flowed

with milk and honey literally was, with milk and syrup, wine. The husks of this juice may be done with as those in No. 3,

Take of liquid sorts and press them clean, or strain it well end put in bottles, tightly cork end pirch or seal them, and cover them in a tub with water, or cover them with wet sand air-tight; do it straightway from the vine, then you may nsa it as you require, to eat with bread as milt, or with milk. Bat this is best to drink, and most fit for the Lord's Supper. Casks of this may be done in the same way, but when you taka the cask out of the water or sand, you must either use it or boil it down as No. 4. The husks from these also may be done with as those in No. The Bible reader wil! see that this pure juice of the grape was that which the ancients used to press to fill the cup. Gen. ttl, 11.

The same kind of juice put into air-tight flasks and boiled in a copper a few hours will keep until opened. This is one method recommended by Baron Liebig, the great chemist.

These methods I have tried myself, and exhibited at my (Riv. D. Allen) lectures, in Melbourne and Sydney, nine years ago. I have in my hou--e at this moment the pure unadulterated juice of tho grans, nnfet-ir.cnt.-d, yet extracted upwards of eight years ago. It was prepared thus: The grapes were taken when ripe and separated from the stalks; they were (hen put in a boiler, without any water, sugar, or other ingredient, and boiled until the skins sank to the bottom of the pure juice of the grape thus extracted. This liquor was then strained through flannel bags, three separate times, and bottled. The next morning the battles were placed in the boiler, up to their necks in water, and the water boiled; they were then taken out, eoiked, and sealed. Wine thus prepared will keep any time, the longer the better, a sediment forms at the bottom in time, and makes the wfno a clear rich colour. I have given this reelpo to one or two medical gentlcmfn, among many others, and all agree that it is unsurpassed in its strengthening, non-stimulating, fcut nutritive properties. Toured in milk (which it does not curdle) it is a delicious beverage, and for invalids benefited by the grape cure it must be a priceless l oon. A little in water makes a wholesome drink for children, and I am sure if those who have large vineyards would forth such an article, it would meet with a ready sale.— Waveiilt.”

The process of heating the must in a closed ves.-el placed in boiling water is thus described by Lisbig ; —“ If a flask be tilled with grapejaitc, and ba made air-tight, and then kept for a few hours in boiling water, or until the contained grape juice has become throughout heated to the boiling point, the minute amount cf oxygen contained iu the air, which entered the flask with the grape-juice, becomes absorbed during the operation, by the constituents oi the juice, and thus the cause of further perturbation is removed. The wine does not now ferment, but remains perfectly sweet until the flask is opened again, and its contents brought into contact with the air. From this moment, the same alteration begins to manlfo.-t itself which fresh juice undergoes. After a lapse of a few hours, the contents-of tho flask are in full fermentation, and this state may be again interrupted and suspended ns at Fites, by repealing the boiling.” Farther, there is the opposite process of cooling the must by p',urging a cask of it in water. In the ancient mode by boiling, Columella says : —.S jina people boil away a fourth part, and others a third, of the must, which they pour tocether into pewter vessel?, and, doubtless, if any one would reduce it to one-half, he would make better t ipa, and eo far more useful that, instead ol defntUtm. sop?, might be used to Besson the must made from the produce of old vineyard?.”

We may now proceed to view the other mode—the treatment of the juice fay sulphur. Its object is to secure the continued preservation of the wi.ic, by separating the noxious rebalances generated" in the grape juice after it is expressed from the fruit, and thereby preserving the really useful and nutritious parts, i’or this purpose, the vapour of sniph.tr is applied to the wine in the cask; ihc action of this vapour not only neutralises and dcsUovs tfce fermenting principle, existing as ytt undeveloped in the must fresh pressed from the grape, leaving untouched tae saccharine part, but it operates equally upon the quantity of ferment remaining in the wine, which has already undergone fermentation, leaving ite component substances altogether until.cted. Dy this means, a Bound wine, though ou the very point of changing after sulpbnrieation, might be kept a hundred years.— Standard Temperance Liiirm if.

To make a tun butt. Fill the butt within four inches of the bung, let into the bungl.uic with a pi-.ue of wire a small cupful of burning brimstone, hold it in that empty sp-.ee uve or ten miuutes, pull it out and imn,-' I lav iy pit in the bung air-tight, and the wine will keep for any length of time. This km i of wine, merchants on the Continent keep for years, and many use it to mis with fermented wine, and so make what they call sp-rkhug win*-, highly esteemed. The folio .■-ini: description of the sulphur tr -itiorc: is b> Me. Ribert Tinner, who con-tnlu.-Ld it to the Addaidr Ohsercer: —“The principle is derived from Baron Liebig’s letter on ‘ Chemistry,’ which I have practised for year?, eo I can sgcik from experience of the beneficial eficct it has to preserve the wines from acidity. Tnu sacciiatometcr is my guidu when to stop the fermentation ([ use the brewer’s saccharomcter). When tile specific gravity of the must is icduced to 10 deg. (wo cal! water nothing, consequently we ate guided by the ti'ares oa the soale), wa stop the fermentation by applying sulphur in the following manner sulphur the hogshead by burning a etnp of calico dipped into melted brimstone. Then we fill the cask half full with wine: take a pair of bellows and blow the sulphur out of the cask, so that we can burn the. second mate ain the cask. Wo generally take a sail! at the bung-bole of the Cask to &;c:-rtf,i'i whether the su'phur is all blown out, and the c t--k tided with pure air sufficient for the second match to burn. After we bum the see md match we bung up tnc cssk and give :t a good shaking, then we fill up the c-i-U as quickly as possible, and bung it up ti o ht. In large casks we bore two spile holes in the bead of the cask, so wa divide the c.v-k into three parts; then we burn three watches in each cask. But I prefer the hogsherd to larger casks. We are cartful to let the sulphur escape only through the tuba of the funnel, or it we rtin it in with a syphon we bind a cloth around the pipe at the" bung-hole to prevent tue escape of the sulphur. After we stop the fermentation we let it be a fortnight, then ws rack it, burning two matches in each hogshead as at the first. Tuen we rack i; three or lour times, burning civ match in each ctrk. Wuea the wine is clear we put tnc finings in, and get it bright before the spring. I believe it is necessary to give it two more rackings—one before the vintage, and anot her before the next spring. After bunging the cask up tight wo look after it a short time, lest the fermentation should not be slopped. How we ascertain this, is by placing our ear on tho cask and lookfng at the bung to i.-ee if there are any bubbles around it. By no means loosen the bang until positive the fermentation is not stopped, if not stopped we rack it out without delay. In stopping the fermentation remember that cxyg'-n is life, therefore he careful to keep it out oi the cask.”

It is evident from all the preceding that pure, unfermented, non-alcoholic wine has been known, and commended, from the most ancient times ; and is in constant, and even increasing use, in many part* of the world at tha present day ; and further, that there are nameroas, safe, easy aud inexpensive ways of making it. Bat however valuable may be the nourishing and dietetic properties of the pure wine, the trae juice of the grape, and however poisonous the deleterious effects of alcoholic wine, the compound that sails under false colours to kill and to destroy ; there is

little doubt that the latter holds the ground now—to what effect only medioal gentlemen are aware. Custom and fashion are in favour of it; and ignoranoe lends it her powerful aid. Pure wine, the true juice of the grape, however, has made soma undoubted headway among English-speaking peoples. Boienoe, too, embodied in the medioal faculty of Great Britain, Europe, and America, has spoken out in numistakeable language as to the injurious properties of alcoholic wines. Fashion and custom will not be allowed to bold sway where human life is at stake; and from the progress already made towards the dawn of a new era, we may predict a complete, though late victory. Error always dies very hard ; but it must ultimately give way to truth. And here, self-interest, the lust of gain, the greed for money, is conjoined with error. To hr coot i nun!.