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off taste.
    MORE IDEAS
    Here are some other ideas for making some simple, but very nice, wines in the beginner’s mode.
    Get a few more gallon jugs. Follow the apple recipe, but substitute ordinary frozen grape juice (purple or white, or both), orange juice, pineapple, cranraspberry, or whatever for the apple juice and lemonade. Easy, huh? Some you will like better than others, but having four or five nice light wines around isn’t such a bad idea and you need to use up those corks.
    Another idea: once you have the first batch of apple wine going, try making another batch with two, count them two, 12 oz. cans of juice, plus only the one 6 oz. can of lemonade, and sugar and see what you get.
    After that, make up the frozen apple juice recipe with only the one 12 oz. can of juice, but with two lbs. of sugar instead of one lb.
    These last two might take longer to ferment out, since they will have more alcohol, but when they are done and you compare the three it will be a good way for you to learn the different ways you can change flavors and strengths.
    While you are at it, I suppose you could also try 12 oz. of lemonade by itself, though all lemonade might be a bit acidic, as might limeade.
    You never know…there was this batch of mead I made once, which was mostly limeade and came out really fine. (I did it on a bet, OK?) You’ll find the recipe further on. Look under ReinConation Citrus Melomel.
    Be aware that a lot of the frozen juices these days are not 100 percent juice. Many are merely flavored corn syrup, and aren’t going to be very flavorful. Check the ingredients list to make sure you are getting as close to 100 percent fruit juice as you can. Reading labels is a good habit to get into.
    I’ve tried a few of the “tropicals” with mixed results. If you look closely at the ingredients you’ll notice that “white grape juice” is a key ingredient. This is tropical? Nothing wrong with it except that it’s bland, and so is the bit of pineapple, guava orbanana that is mixed in with it. I can’t see any sense in making bland wine.
    CANNED JUICES
    Using canned juices is a bit more tricky, because a lot of them either have been cooked to death or have preservatives in them. The preservatives might inhibit your wine yeast. Some of the aseptically packaged concentrates have promise, though. I’ve used them a few times to pick up a five-gallon tutti-frutti that lacked zest.
    If you want to try to use canned juice, buy some and drink it first to make sure you like it. If you think it tastes flat and metallic now, it’s going to taste really flat and metallic later on. Silk purses and sow’s ears and so forth.
    A lot of the old British winemaking books from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s have exuberant recipes for canned juices, but I think much of the enthusiasm was due to the cheapness of the resultant wine. Wine and hard liquor are heavily taxed in Britain, and were thus expensive. Beer was cheap, and there was no tax on homemade wine. Also, frozen fruit juice was not widely available at the time.
    If you think the juice has any preservative in it, heat it up gently on the stove for a few minutes (do not boil) and let it cool down again. Heating up is NOT a foolproof way of getting rid of the preservatives, but it ought to improve your fighting chances.
    CANNY APPLE WINE
48 oz. canned or bottled apple juice (any brand)
1 6 oz. can frozen lemonade or the juice of two lemons, strained (remember, don’t use bottled lemon juice)
1 lb. of sugar (two cups) or 1½ lbs. mild honey
1 gallon of water, boiled and cooled while covered
1 packet of wine yeast (champagne or Montrachet)
1 teaspoon pectic enzyme (optional but recommended) water
5 Campden tablets (optional but recommended)
    Proceed as you did for the frozen apple juice in Chapter 2, merely adding less water to the mixture, since you already have it in the apple juice. It should ferment out just as fast as the frozen variety.

    If you want to try using other