Homemade Black Currant Wine

This is a sweet fruit wine that we came up with after learning the basics of fermenting. We started the fermentation in mid-September and we're enjoying it now (mid-October). If we had any patience we would wait a couple more months and it would be much better, but we're very satisfied with it now. Cooking time is fermenting time. You'll need two special pieces of equipment that you can buy for under $3 and use forever: an airlock and a stopper (that fits your bottle neck). Both are available at brew stores.

• Ready In: 722 hrs
• Serves: 4
• Yields: 1 quart of wine

Ingredients

• 1  quart  black currant nectar or 1  quart  juice
• 1⁄2 cup sugar or 1⁄2 cup honey
• 1⁄2 cup boiling water
• 1⁄4 teaspoon champagne yeast (available at brew stores)
• 1  dash yeast energizer (available at brew stores)

Directions

1. Add sugar or honey to boiling water to dissolve.
2. Allow to cool to 105* F.
3. Add yeast and yeast energizer, stir, then cover with cloth.
4. While allowing the yeast time to wakeup (1 hour) sterilize the stopper and airlock.
5. Open the quart bottle of juice or nectar and pour out 1 and 1/4 cup of it (this doesn't need to be saved.).
6. Add the mixture to the juice/nectar, put the lid on and invert the bottle a couple of times to mix up the two.
7. Insert your sterilized bottle stop and then insert your airlock into that.
8. Add water to the airlock, enough to meet the watermark in both chambers.Place it in a warm area and let it sit until the airlock bubbles only every 3 minutes or so. (one to two weeks).
9. Once the fermentation has slowed down considerably, pour (or 'rack' with a siphoning tube) to a bottle of the same size. This will separate your wine from the 'lees' (the dead yeast that accumulate in the bottom of the bottle).
10. Remove 1 cup of the wine and taste test or dispose of. It's not needed at this point. If the fermentation went well it won't be sweet at all at this point.
11. Add another cup of warm sugarwater (1/2 water & 1/2 sugar dissolved) to the bottle and reinsert the stopper and airlock (sterilized again if necessary).
12. Let ferment until the airlock is bubbling once every five minutes.
13. 'Rack' again and at this point you can either drink the wine or let it age for another two months before enjoying.