what is inmate brewing

Mankind has been making wine for 1000's of years. The ability to turn humble fruit juices into alcohol is a time honoured tradition that has been passed on through man kinds history.

The Myans made alcohol, the Egyptians made alcohol. The French made alcohol. The methods and techniques have been refined for thousands of years and we now have wines made from a plethora of juices, fruits and other ferment able goods.

Wine has been a huge part of civilisation and was made extremely popular by religion. The comparison between red wine and blood was not lost on early religious groups. The symbolism of blood and wine has been prominent in many different religions including the Christians, comparing red wine to the blood of Christ and the ancient Egyptians who used it to symbolise blood and sacrifice.

Inmate brewing is named that because it is easy to make with the minimal of resources. Making wine in prison is not easy because resources are scarce, but some criminals are able to scare up the essentials to make alcohol. The makers of alcohol in prison are respected and can make a pretty profit in prison.

I will now show you how you can make prison style wine from home. You will have access to the resources that inmates do not so will be able to make a brew that is stronger and far tastier.

The basic ingredients required to make wine are as follows:

• A container
• Water
• Sugar
• Juice
• Yeast

The container

The container used to make the wine is easy to get hold of. Most super markets have 5 litre water bottles available. The plastic kind are the best to begin with. When fermenting your wine in the bottle you should not screw the cap on tight as this can cause the build up of gas to destroy the bottle.

Water

Tap water is fine

Sugar

In home brewing there are various different sugars available. Although standard granulated sugar is easy and cheap to get hold of.

Juice

4 litres of your favourite fruit juice is required for the wines flavour. It is a good idea to start off with a really cheap apple juice for this trial.

Yeast

Yeast is the most important ingredient. Yeast is a living organism and is a massive part of wine making because the yeast is the stuff that turns the sugar into alcohol. Yeast eats the sugar and excretes two by products. The two by products are alcohol and co2. This is why a plastic container is a good idea. The yeast will eat as much sugar as possible and will convert the sugar into alcohol. The higher the sugar content the more alcohol produced. It is also the case that the more sugar the higher the co2 content. When making alcohol in a 5 litre plastic bottle. Do not fully screw the cap down. Place the cap lightly on the container and this will allow the co2 to escape thus negating the bottle from bowing out and cracking.

There are many different types of yeast and all of the have a specific purpose but for this experiment we will just use bread yeast. This does not create the most pleasant flavour or the strongest alcohol content but it is really cheap and easy to get hold of from a supermarket.