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Clan of Vintners : Knowledge

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Arlon:
 This thread will be for Myself and any future Vintners/Brewers/Distillers to write down Clan recipes, techniques, and other such miscellania that we don't want to get lost in case of house fires, catastophic hard drive failures, and other such freak accidents. (Not to mention that My short-term memory is notoriously hideous, and committing such things to memory alone would be an invitation to disaster LOL)
 I will also list things like Clan chores, for slaves and Free alike, since I would like to see the Clan grow at least a little eventually. And if not, then at least My successor, should I ever retire, will not have to start from scratch. (Thinking ahead for a wonder...) ;)


    ----Arlon

Arlon:
OK, first of all a repost of one from the old Brewer's clan, since we really don't have a separate Brewer clan anymore :

Anisette, is very easy to make. It resembles the flavor of black licorice and is quit good in mixed drinks. Tastes just like DeKuyper's® Anisette.
Anisette
15.7 oz. (466 ml.) 100° proof Vodka (non-flavored)
7 drops anise oil
9.6 oz. (284 ml.) simple syrup
1 tsp. (5 ml.) glycerin (optional)

Prepairing a very large batch of this in the clan wagon and takeing severial cases fod bottles alcohol and folowing the in structions fro the ancient scrolls they are prepaited for delivery.

• Add alcohol to the bottle in which the anisette will be stored; add anise oil and shake vigorously until all oil is dissolved (1 min.) Add the rest of the ingredients and again shake well. Presto—it's ready to drink!



Never know, I might whip up a batch of this stuff one of these days, if there's a demand for it LOL.
  ---Arlon

Arlon:
Basic Winemaking Process

 This is the basic process by which I make wine, and is the process I recommend for anyone who may follow in My footsteps. It is simple, and very compatible with the low-tech Gorean/Tuchuk winemaking equipment. The process works well with jsut about any fermentable fruit (I first used it with Ka-La-Na, with very good success). Many thanks to Winemaking.com (of all places LOL) for the information presented here (with suitable editing appropriate to our Home).


  Whether you participate in the actual process or not, the first step after picking (or, um, 'acquiring' in the proper Tuchuk fashion) the fruit, is to crush them into a mass of pulp called must. There are numerous methods of doing this; the traditional way is in a huge vat by barefoot slaves with very very clean feet  :P.

  The next step is to press the must. There is a small press in the Vintner's Wagon for this purpose. At this stage, most (NOT ALL!) of the stems are removed to control the amount of tannins in the juice. The extracted juice is then poured into a vat.
(Tannins are a bitter byproduct of fruit skins and stems, especially grapes, but they greatly assist in clarifying the wine. More info in the next post)

  Step three is the settling and racking process. During this stage the sediment separates from the juice and settles to the bottom of the vat. Over a period of time the juice is racked, or transferred, usually by siphon, into different vats and allowed to settle further.
 (I rack four times, one day between rackings, before going on to the next step)

  Step four is the actual fermentation process, where the juice becomes wine. Special yeasts are added to the juice, to convert the natural sugars in the juice to alcohol. Once the yeast dies, it is cleared out of the wine by adding a fixer (usually bentonite), which clings to the yeasties and then settles down to the bottom of the container. When the wine is racked, the sediment at the bottom of the vat (or other container, I used carboys for the first few batches) remains behind, resulting in an unencumbered wine, ready to age or bottle.

Finally, the wine is ready to Bottle. Sterilization at this step is critical! Siphon the wine from the vat or carboy into the bottles; I am working on a filter funnel thingy so that any remaining sediment can be filtered out, and so that the remaining bacteria in the wine do not become active. At this stage the wine is drinkable, thus I often sample the wine at this point to determine its quality.


   ---Arlon

 

Arlon:
Some further notes on the winemaking process .....

I never remove all the stems because some tannins are needed to clarify the wine and give it more body. Too much will make the wine bitter and cause it to take far longer to ferment, but I try to keep about 5-10% of the stems and skins in the must.

Do not discard the skins after pressing, since they can still be used again, with added water and sugar, to make seconds, which although usually not as full-bodied only take about half the time to make.

And of course, always use clean, sterilized bottles and corks; nothing can ever be TOO clean.



     ---Arlon

Arlon:
 With respect to Meads.... these are perhaps the simplest things a Vintner makes, and by far the quickest at only about 15 days. My basic recipe is a near-literal translation of "Sir William Paston's Mead", courtesy of the SCA website: I substitute tospits for lemons, otherwise it is essentially the same.
 The recipe I am trying for the batch I started tonight is basically the same, but i added a few things to it (cinnamon, ginger, chamomile, and a hint of ramberry -- the latter because I had extra ramberries that I did not wish to waste). It already smells tasty, and should produce a very interesting and hopefully popular mead when it is finished. I will post both recipes later, since it's after 3am here right now.


...Arlon

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