hokey, I put this up for vegandreamer from [email protected], but maybe other people will try it too :o)

This is a recipe I've mostly pinched from a book called 'Wine Making the Natural Way' by Ian Ball. If you're seriously going to get into winemaking it's worth getting a book (or maybe a couple so you can compare different people's tips and tricks). There are also a lot of perfectly respectable recipes floating around on the internet of course, though it's handy to have a book so you can refer to it in the kitchen while you're brewing your potions.

Equipment you will need

• A demijohn to ferment in, or some other food-safe narrow-necked vessel that holds about a gallon of liquid.
• bungs and bubble-valve things, (although you *can* put a square from a plastic bag over the neck of the demijohn, secured with 2 elastic bands in case one breaks. Bubble-valves look cool though, and aren't very expensive)
  
• A big container to do your initial fermentation in. I have a home-brew plastic bucket with a lid which works very well because that's what it was designed for, but anything that holds at least a gallon and a half, and has a wide enough top to add reasonably bulky things like whole sultanas, and can be stirred easily will do.
• A funnel (I made mine from a plastic bottle ferfree by cutting the base off. works fine.)
• A bendy rubber tube for racking* wine from the solids that collect.
• A bottle brush might also be handy
• Sodium Metabisulphite or campden tablets made into a solution with water to sterilise all your equipment. Just follow the instructions on the packet. Don't forget to rinse after sterilising!
• Something to strain the liquid from the solid after the initial fermentation. A section of clean sterilised tights is fine, or you can use a fine-ish sieve.

Ingredients - to make 1 gallon (4 1/2 litres):
ripe strawberries - 3 1/2 lbs (tip: weigh them *after* you've sorted through and removed the manky ones/cut out the manky bits. Depending on their condition you may need to buy 4lbs to account for spoilage)
Sultanas - 12 oz
Sugar - 1 3/4 lbs
Tea, strong 1/2 mug
Oranges - 2
(if your strawberries seem very ripe you may want to add extra acidity - e.g. the juice of a lemon)
1/2 teaspoon malt extract
1 sachet of all purpose wine yeast (or if you think you're going to make lots of wine you can get a tub of wine yeast. Bread yeast won't do though, as it stops fermenting after it gets to a reasonably low level of alcohol)
Water to 1 gallon.

Method - stage 1

Discard the green stalks and leaves and wash strawberries. Mash them up in a bucket or big bowl (you can use the vessel you're going to do your initial fermentation in)

Rinse sultanas in warm water, then chop them up or mince them. Add to mashed strawberries and cover.

Warm 1 pint of water in a large saucepan. Stir in sugar and malt extract. When dissolved cover and allow to cool. Then pour into bucket with the mashed strawberries and sultanas. Cover.

Make tea, strain and allow to cool. Discard leaves or bag. Squeeze oranges. Add tea and orange juice to the rest of the mix in the bucket. Add your wine yeast. Top up tp 7 pints (4 litres) with cold water. Allow at least 2 inches (5cm), preferably more, at the top of the fermentation vessel for frothing and foaming. Cover. Leave in a warm place for 10 days. Stir twice daily.

(Don't worry if it smells horrible at this stage. This is natural and the smell bears no resemblence to how the finished wine will smell and taste.)

Stage 2

After 10 days remove the fermenting wine from its sediment and strain into a narrow-necked 1 gallon fermentation vessel (demijohn or similar). Throw away the solids collected in the strainer. Top up to the neck with cold water. Seal with bung and bubbler (or plastic bag / elastic band combo).

Leave to ferment to dryness (by this I mean that the sugar should all have been fermented and turned to alcohol - you will know when this has happened by the taste, and also because if you have a bubbler type of valve on your demijohn it will have stopped bubbling). This should take about 4-6 weeks. Try to keep the temperature fairly even. An airing cupboard works well if you have the space.

Wait 2 weeks after fermentation has finished then rack* wine from its sediment into a narrow necked 1 gallon storage vessel (another demijohn, for example). Top up to the neck with cold water (or wine of a similar colour and flavour, if this isn't the first batch you've made). Fit a cork/rubber bung/bung and water bubbler combo and keep it somewhere fairly cool for 10 months to clear and mature.

After 10 months the wine should be clear and ready for bottling, however, if you can leave it for longer it apparently achieves perfection after 24 months in the storage demijohn. This amount should fill 6 1/2 bottles. Make sure you sterilise and rinse your bottles before siphoning the wine into them from the demijohn. I cork my bottles with plastic corks from Wilkinsons that cost about �1.30 for 10, but you could get proper corks if you wanted to be flash.

Once bottled the wine ideally needs a further 2-3 months to condition in the bottle. Personally, I've drunk most of mine already, and it's only been bottled for about 3 weeks. Oops.

enjoy.

*Racking. Removing the liquid wine from the solids (lees) that will have dropped to the bottom of the demijohn. Clear glass demijohns are a good idea, as you can see where the solids stop. Use a rubber tube to siphon off the wine from the lees into a clean container by positioning one end of the tube about an inch from the top of the lees, sucking the wine to the end of the tube, then placing your finger over the end of the tube and then quickly putting that end in the clean demijohn. Put the clean demijohn lower down than the one with the wine and lees in and hopefully the powers of suction and gravity and whatnot will help you transfer your wine minus the lees to the new clean container.

I get the feeling I haven't described that very well. Oh well. If you have any queries you can probably find a great explaination using the power of Google. or you could e-mail me: [email protected]

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