Olde Gutrot's Wonderfully Wicked White Wine

Crush the grapes into in a sterilised fermentation bin using your hands, a sterilised rolling pin or a sterilised potato masher. Do not put them through a blender or juicer as you can damage the seeds, releasing tannin which will make your wine very bitter. As a rough guide, 1kg of grapes will yield up to 1 litre of juice.

Fill with 1 gallon boiling water and seal with the lid. Leave for four days, stirring twice daily.

To establish the sugar content, take a sample of the crushed juice, place it in a trial jar and take a hydrometer reading. The ideal reading will be between 1.080 and 1.090, but you will often find it is more likely to be around 1.040, or approximately half of what is ideally needed. If you do need to add sugar, then you can work out how much by consulting this poisoner's alchemist's scroll.

Add the appropriate amount of sugar, wine yeast, 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and a teaspoon of pectolase.

Store somewhere warm for five days, stirring twice daily.

Strain into a sterilised demijohn using a sterilised plastic tube. Top up with water and/or concentrated grape juice. Cap with the lid fitted with a sterilised airlock.

Store the wine for at least 3 months or until clear.

Many wines will ferment out dry, in other words, the yeast will use up all the available sugar, turning it into alcohol. Before bottling, you should taste your wine and determine if it is to your taste, or if it is too dry. Some hydrometers come with markings indicating the level of sweetness, but if yours doesn’t, then use this as a guide:

• Dry 1.000 to 0.0990
• Medium: 1.005 to 0.995
• Sweet: 1.015 to 1.005

If sweetening, first add a crushed Campden tablet to prevent further fermentation. Add a small amount of sugar and re-taste. Keeping adding small amounts of sugar until the desired amount of sweetness is obtained.

Siphon into sterilised wine bottles. Avoid disturbing the sediment or transferring it into the bottles.

Can be drunk immediately, but is considerably more flavoursome if left for a year.