Survival Arts

Sober Up and Die, or Mom's Prison Wine, by John Sebastian

The following long article was submitted to me a few days ago by John Sebastian, a member of the Smith2004 discussion list. He had originally written it up as a response to someone joking about homebrew, a discussion which was itself spun off a thread about the benefits of resveratrol, a constituent of some red wines.

Here follows the version John mailed me for publication here, which I have editted only for grammar and spelling, not content. Enjoy at your own risk! By the way, it seems that there's not much in the way of actual cost savings in this technique, given the reported cost of the grape juice concentrate alone. "Two-Buck Chuck" is a perfectly adequate "10 dollar wine with a 2 dollar price tag", for those who have access to a Trader Joe's, but John's technique should still appeal to the Basement Chemist in some of us.

- Russell, editor

Sober Up and Die
or
Mom's Prison Wine
or
How to Make a Simple Cheap Wine that is Untaxed (Well, Mostly)

By John Sebastian

Yeah, yeah, I know: "loving spoonfuls" and all that. What makes it worse is that I'm often told that I'm a dead ringer for Jerry Garcia. No, I'm not that "the John Sebastian", I am this "the John Sebastian".

Well, it was the damn driver's license, it was also the cost, and - oh yeah - it was also the sulfates and other crap. Come to think of it, it was also just plain stubborn independence. It was also my wedding.

Huh?

Okay I'll make myself clear, or I'll try.

You see, I live in Tennessee, so every time I purchased beer or wine I had to show my ID. For a while I got away with showing my PADI Divers Card, but eventually all they would take was the old ball-and-chain driver's license. Call me sensitive, but at age forty-seven, I sort of figured it's my business whether I purchase beer and wine.

Eventually after tiring of trying to give civics lessons to the clerks at the grocery stores, I started brewing beer - Sebastian's All Malt - but that is another story. This story is about how to make a dirt cheap wine that is as tasty as anything you could want, indeed, a wine that you don't have to humble yourself by producing the state's slave ID to purchase, and a wine that is largely untaxed... thus even tastier.

Then there is all the added crap in commercial wines: mostly sulfates, and who knows whatever other crap some idiot somewhere decided has to go into commercial wines; I think it's to make it travel better or somesuch. In short, storebought wine gives me a headache, leaves a bad aftertaste, and upsets my stomach... well I said I'm sensitive. So I'd just about stopped buying wine from the store.

And the cost! Jeeze and bullwilliker! Tax upon tax upon tax. It's worse in the Deep South. Why, I knew a fellow once who drank so much beer that he was able to retire on the price difference by moving from Alabama to Indiana. It's basically the same here in Tennessee, where every bluenosed preacher with the ear of a legislator is also just as likely to be your neighborhood bootlegger. Not only does the state drive you to drink, but the rat-assed bastards thrive off your glorious inebriation. Disgusting.

Then there was my wedding. Well, just what does my wedding have to do with anything? It has to do with my mom. You'll remember I'd been brewing beer for quite some time. On the event of my wedding to the gracious, lovely, young, vibrant, and intelligent Aubrey, it was my determination to provide Sebastian All Malt for the hundred and fifty or so guests... no mean feat.

So, I'm on the phone with my mom doing some of the necessities for the blessed nuptials. I mention making the beer, and mom - not to be outdone - decides to provide her homemade wine.

Well, both the wine and the beer were really big hits, so I asked mom how she made her wine. That which follows below is basically her recipe without the sugar. It's not all that different from how prisoners in jail make wine, hence "Mom's Prison Wine".

But why "Sober up and Die"? Because red wine is good for you. Really good. It's magic: it has resveratrol [Editor's note: this is only true for certain red wines made from particular grapes grown under specific conditions.]. But that is really another story.

OK John! Enough. How do you make Mom's Prison Wine?

I was hoping someone would ask...

Obtain four cans of frozen concentrate for each gallon of finished wine. Make sure it's marked "100% grape concentrate"; don't buy the fructose syrup with fake grape-like stuff in it. I use generic concentrate. My cost for the concentrate to make about five gallons of finished wine is around U.S. $25.

This can be made in a one gallon glass or in food grade plastic jugs. I make mine in a five gallon glass carboy, but any food grade container that can be sealed will work fine. One 5 gallon unused plastic paint bucket and a lid that can be sealed - available at home despot or lowes - will also work.

My mom - from whom I got this recipe (thus Mom's Prison Wine) - uses empty communion wine bottles (gallon sized) - from the local Catholic Church. Quite comic, as she serves from the same bottles.

First, thoroughly clean the vessel. A little bleach in water will do, but it must then be completely rinsed in tap water to remove the bleach. [Editor's Note: if you're going to follow this suggestion of John's, be sure your bleach is unscented, i.e. contains only a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite with no additives.] You can buy a gentle oxidizer at a wine making shop, as it's quite a bit easier to use than bleach: one simply rinses the empty vessel with it. To sum this all up: just clean and sanitize everything that will touch the wine and do so in a manner that is not toxic or otherwise affects taste.

Clean and disinfect anything that the wine will come in contact with: lids, tubing, water locks, etc. Wash your hands. Did I mention to clean and disinfect?

Add the frozen concentrate to your vessel (if you use a narrow-mouth container it helps to let the concentrate melt a bit). Fill with water to the appropriate gallonage, leaving a little room for froth, since the yeast will also need a little O2 (atmospheric oxygen) to get started.

Add a package of yeast. A good wine yeast costs $2 or so at a local wine maker's shop. I only use the best yeast, which stays alive up to a very high alcohol content. I know I am being extravagant here. The yeast is one of my costlier items. My mom uses braking yeast, but hey, it works.

Now you need some way for CO2 to exit your vessel, while excluding air, so we will use a water lock.

If you use the paint bucket for a vessel, simply drill a hole in the lid and stick some aquarium hose in the hole. Seal the gap with goo (e.g. epoxy, wax, Shoe Goo: anything non-toxic that will seal and hold the hose in the hole). The other end of the hose will go into a jar filled with water, fixed so gas will bubble out but air will not enter. A little tape may be needed to hold the hose in place. This simple water lock must be set above the vessel containing the future wine.

Of course, you can also buy a water lock called a "bubbler" that sits directly in the lid hole. A bubbler lets the CO2 out or your wine... but since the object of this exercise is to make a fine and inexpensive wine, the aquarium hose in the glass of water works just fine.

If you are instead using a jug or a carboy, use a cork with a hole drilled through it and vent off the gas through the tube in the cork.

As with the other technique, the object is to let the CO2 out of the bottle and to keep O2 in the air from getting back in and causing your yeast to make vinegar instead of alcohol.

Now, a lot of folks at this point would add gobs of sugar, but I have found this totally unnecessary... unless you like syrup. Diabetes runs in my family and I don't need to risk it. Believe me, my very, um, scientific testing - mostly done on weekends - shows without a doubt that there is quite enough sugar in the grapes to provide the yeast with everything they need.

Now seal up the entire mess.

At this point, when everything is sealed up and the water lock is in place, set the carboy down in the basement so that if any froth runs out the water lock, it's easy to clean up (WARNING: this stuff stains like crazy). The yeast has to work at moderate temperatures (too hot and you bias the yeast toward vinegar, too cold and the yeast works too slowly) for at least two weeks. You can let it go until it almost stops bubbling, down to the rate of about one bubble a minute. How long this takes depends on temperature, sugar content, pH, nutrients, and whether and how well you sing to your yeast and so on.

If your lock does froth up during this two weeks, simply remove it, clean it, and recharge with water, then set it back on the brew.

Now you siphon the wine off into sterilized containers - I use empty 2-liter pop bottles - trying to leave as much of the sediment behind as possible. You can use any food grade container that will seal against air. Remember, oxygen is the enemy; a little air in the bottle is necessary, but not much.

At this point your wine is quite alive and will be drinkable in another two weeks. The longer you wait the dryer a wine this will produce. Why, I've had some wines as old as three months!

Another warning: this process produces a gaseous wine. Use some sort of screw cap (back to the two liter cola bottles) so that you can slowly release the pent-up pressure. I open mine over a stainless steal bowl and take the first glass from the overflow.

You will have sediment in the bottom of your wine bottles, so when you serve, do so gently and try not to pour the dregs into a glass of wine. The dregs taste awful: that`s why they are called the dregs. In fact, if your wine lasts longer than mine, you'll need to pour it off into new containers or the dregs will eventually give a bitter taste to your wine in, say, three months.

I believe you will fine the finished product to be just about as good as any wine you can reasonably buy on the market. I quite prefer my wine: it has no sulfates or any other added agents. There is a difference you can both taste and feel the next morning.

You may have noticed how utterly simple this process is, and yes, it's quite true that wine making can be as complicated as you want it to be. One can adjust pH and nutrients, measure specific gravity, and on and on and on.

But you know, I've made at least a hundred gallons without all that expense and bother. It's really quite hard to keep grape juice around and not have it turn into wine. So, clean and sterilize your equipment, keep air out of the mix, and enjoy your untaxed wine [Editor's note: this is, to my understanding, all perfectly legal, as long as you don't publicly attempt to sell the product].

Let me know if anyone gives this a shot. I don't think I forgot anything, but please just ask here if you have a question.

And remember: sober up and die! This stuff is good for you, as long as you keep your blood sugar under control.

John Sebastian

Posted by Russell Whitaker at October 10, 2003 11:31 AM | TrackBack