1919 Home made beverages

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Beverages

Alcoholic

C. (41 to 59° F.) the product will be a wine rich in bouquet, but poor in alcohol. The wines of Spain, the south of France, Austria and Hungary are produced at the higher temperature, and those of Germany, for the most part, at the lower one. The fermentation is carried on in large wooden vats. In some places vats of sandstone or brick are used for this purpose. The fermentation of white wines, such as those of the Rhine and Gironde, is effected in new and perfectly clean casks or hogsheads, the bungholes of which are left open to allow the escape of the carbonic acid. Opinions differ as to whether air should be admitted or not during fermentation. The process is undoubtedly quickened if the must be aerated. The aeration is sometimes per- formed by a bellows fitted with rose nozzle. During the operation of blowing in the must is to be kept at a low temperature to prevent the volatilization of the bouquet. When the opposite method is followed various devices are in use for excluding the air, or at any rate an excess of it. In some cases the vat, being provided with a suit- able lid, has a hole or is arranged with a tube for the escape of the carbonic acid. Koles and Bamberger ac- complish the same end, without letting in the external air, by means of a glass tube bent twice at right angles; one limb of the tube passes through the bunghole into the vessel of water. In another contrivance the lid of the vat is fitted with a valve, which, opening only outward, allows of the exit of the carbonic acid. Red wines are fermented in large and, in most cases, open vats, fitted in the inside with perforated shelves, which, being below the surface of the liquid, prevent the husks rising to the top and setting up acetous fermenta- tion. After the completion of the fermentation of Bur- gundy wines, in some places it was formerly the filthy custom for men to enter the vat and by their vigorous movements to mix the contents. It is satisfactory to learn that this particularly objec- tionable practice is getting very much into disuse. 148