My Simple White Wine Recipe

I have made this wine several times and it always turns out very nice. It is a dry, tart not so sweet wine and I would say that it is more than drinkable. :) This recipe is for 1/2 gallon so you can adjust accordingly.

1 pack frozen concentrated apple juice
1/2 pack of quick rise bread yeast
1 cup sugar
1 balloon
1 1/2 gallon container (Glass is good)
1 small box of raisins
1 funnel ( or a steady hand)

The first thing you need to do is add your raisins, sugar and concentrate to your container. This is where the funnel starts to come in handy. once you have added these, then you will want to fill it up the rest of the way with luke warm water but leave an inch or two of room at the top of the container. Shake or stir well until these ingredients are thoroughly mixed. once you have done all of this then you can add your half a pack of quick bread yeast. You are wanting the over all temperature of your liquid to be around 65-70 degrees to accommodate the yeast. You can mix the yeast in if you want, but even if you just let it float it will still do its thing. Now take your balloon and poke a hole in it with a needle or something sharp. Then you will need to stretch the opening of the balloon over the container you are using for making your wine. Now, just set it off somewhere where it wont be disturbed like a closet or under the sink and let nature take its coarse. In case you are wondering about the balloon, yeast makes alcohol by eating the sugar and creating 2 types of by products.(waste) One is carbon dioxide which is what you don't want so as the pressure builds in your container the hole in the balloon will allow the gas to escape. The other by product is, yep you guessed it, alcohol. The trick is to let the carbon dioxide out without letting oxygen in and lucky for us the balloon with a hole in it does this perfectly! Within a few hours your limp lifeless balloon will be standing at attention and full of gases that are coming from your home brew. It will stay this way the whole time the yeast is working but once the fermentation process is complete the balloon will deflate and fall over. At this point I like to pour my concoction through a coffee filter and leave as much sludge at the bottom as you can. Now, it is drinkable at this point but if you let it set for about another week with a lid on at room temperature most of the haze will be gone and it will have a cleaner taste. This isn't rocket science so give it a try. If you finish your home brew and are not happy with it, make some changes! Add some cinnamon, less yeast, more yeast, less sugar, more sugar, etc. That is the fun part, fine tuning your brew. I hope this helps you get to brewing and please let me know what your results are. I would live to know how it goes! :)