Drinks
GWIN YSGAW
Welsh recipe
Add a pint of berries to a pint of water, and a little pickling
spice placed
in a small bag. Boil for 20 minutes, stirring and bruising the
fruit.
Strain.
To every quart of liquid add 1 lb. of lump sugar.
When cool add 1½ozs. yeast to every gallon, allowing the yeast to float
on a piece of toast.
Leave to ferment for 10 days. Stirring twice a day.
Pour the sweetened yeasted liquid into a clean cask, jar or bottle ( depending on the quantity ) until it is filled to the top.
Keep any surplus in a bottle for topping
up the water receptacle during fermentation. Stand the
cask (or jar or bottle) on a tray in a warm room. Fermentation
soon begins and froth will pour out over the side of
the container.
Fill up again from the surplus bottle until a froth
no longer forms. Insert a cork into the container,
loosely at first, but when the fermentation is over and no
bubbles of gas are seen, then cork tightly.
If you want a really clear wine it should be racked
from time to time, i.e. pour the clear wine from the old
bottles, into clean ones, keeping the yeast deposit to re-clear
in the old bottles.
The wine should be kept for six months without sampling.
( Alternative method ).
7 lb. elderberries (stripped and stalked)
6 cloves
½ oz. yeast
3 lb. loaf sugar
1 lb. seedless raisins
½ oz. ground ginger
3 gallons boiling water
Place berries in large vessel and cover with boiling water and
leave for
24 hours. Mash fruit and strain through a jelly-bag.
Put in a preserving pan, add sugar, ginger, raisins
and cloves.
Boil slowly for one hour, skimming all the time.
Let liquid cool and add yeast.
Pour into an earthenware vessel and leave for two weeks
to ferment.
Bottle and cork and let wine stand for at least three
months.