Cindie,

Good news! It won't! It won't calm down. And it's no obsession. It's worse,
much worse. Do you have children? Planning to get children? DO IT NOW, while
you still have the time. After another few batches of countrywine your hobby
will be soaking up your sparetime like a V-8 does petrol. ;-).
A hint for an easy and very very tasteful wine:
25 liters of wine:
5 liters of elderberry flowers
25 liters of water
2,5 kilo unsulfited raisins
6 kg sugar
2,5 grams sulfite
3 grams vitamin C
3 teaspoons yeast nutrients
1 teaspoon tannin
40 grams tartaric acid
120 grams citric acid
5 grams pecto-enzyme
yeast

Cut off the flowerpetals, toss into primary; dissolve 5 kg sugar in 5 liters
of water; pour the water over the flowers; add 19 liters of cold water after
half an hour; dissolve in 1 liter of water sulfite, yeast nutrient, acids,
pecto-enzyme, vitamin C and add that; dissolve tannin into a little wodka or
other form of alcohol (is easier to dissolve) and add to primary. Toss in
raisins and leave for a day. Add yeast. Stirr twice a day. After six days
sieve out the solids. Press lightly and dissolve 1 kilo of sugar in
presswine. Toss into primary. When fermentation is over, siphon into
secondary; add kieselsol and two hours later gelatin; prepare bentonite and
as soon as ready, add bentonite. Stirr vigourously. When the wine is clear,
rack into smaller DJ and add 2,5 grams of sulkfite and 2,5 grams of vitamin
C. Use rest to clear again and tasting. Ready for Christmas. And one thing
is certain: spring is early that year!

Ed in Holland

"tovaryn" > schreef in bericht
oups.com...
> Thanks Ray!
>
> Jack Keller's Niagara was the first batch. It's still sitting in a 3
> litre bottle under an air lock (the rest has gone to racking and
> tasting). It'll probably never make it into bottles because we'll just
> keep sampling and moving it to smaller jugs.
>
> I'm building up to a wine kit. When I brought up the subject of
> winemaking back in January, the DH and I chose to go with the little
> batches of country wine to start.
>
> I want to make dandelion next (because my granddad loved dandelion).
> Then strawberry because we have ours in the garden. Then chokecherry
> (because my great aunt made wonderful chokecherry wine) and apricot
> (because my great gran made kicking apricot wine).
>
> This is currently an obsession; it will calm... I hope we stay
> with it though.
>
> Sometime in the late fall or so maybe I'll get a couple of bigger
> carboys and I'll get a grape wine kit. By then, we should be tired of
> fussing with the little batches.
>
> Probably a good thing we're not doing a larger kit now. We'd surely
> ruin it with fussing over it.
>