Basic techniques for the homestead winery.

Dr. Salsbury's homemade wines even have fancy labels, created on his home computer. The Kartoffelwein in the foreground is made from potatoes.

Making wine is both a science and an art form. It can be as simple or as complex as a person wishes. The subject is so vast that one can actually get a college degree in wine making from some universities! It is a satisfying hobby for the amateur and an excellent way to store over-ripe or excess fruits and berries without refrigeration. Regardless of personal preferences for sweet or dry, dark or light wines, the basic procedures are identical. Wines can be made from fresh fruit, commercial concentrates or frozen juices. Recipes per se can be a hit-or-miss situation because of the variations in the sugar content and acidity of the fruit being used. If one is to attain consistency and avoid disaster, it will be necessary to invest in a few basic pieces of equipment. A friend and I produce about 400-500 bottles a year. We don't drink that much and give a lot of it away. The fun is experimenting with different fruits and techniques. We've produced wines that will rival the better of the commercial products and we've had our disasters. I'm not claiming that our procedures are the best, but I will try to point out a few of the pitfalls we have encountered.

Quality wines are traditionally made from grapes. Grapes fall into two basic categories, Vitis vinifera, the so-called "wine grapes," and several species of "table grapes." Of the 32 species which contain about 8000 named grape varieties, the Vitis vinifera is by all standards, the most important. For the most part, it accounts for almost all the wines produced around the world. These grapes possess the proper balance of sugar, tannin and acids necessary for fine wines. The table grapes, such as Concord, Niagara, etc., are either lacking in, or contain excessive amounts of one or more of the acids found in "wine grapes." The Thompson seedless is a member of the "wine" grape species, but is generally lower in sugar and acid than the other vinifera. Really good wine grapes are not cold tolerant and will not withstand the temperatures in our region (Zone 5). There are French hybrids such as Chamberlin, Saval, and others that are excellent Vitis vinifera varieties that will survive colder climates.

Quality in -- quality out

You can't make good wines from bad fruit! Although the basic procedures in making wine are almost identical regardless of type, the ratio of fruit to water varies considerably. This is where a recipe book will be most helpful. The most versatile recipe booklet I have found to date is entitled Winemaker's Recipe Handbook by Raymond Massaccesi. It is a paperback pamphlet containing 101 grape, fruit and vegetable recipes. The book lists wild fruit growing in about every section of the country. The book plus all the necessary supplies and equipment needed for wine or beer making is available by mail order from E. C. Krause, PO Box 7850, Independence, MO 64054. Phone: [phone]. FAX: [phone]. Write or call for a free catalog. If you are really serious about getting into the hobby, they list a number of excellent "how to" books in their catalog that can be quite helpful. Do not buy the one entitled Progressive Wine Making ($16.95). It deals primarily with the chemistry involved (one whole chapter on pH alone) and has little to no practical instructions or recipes.

Equipment you will need and approximate prices:

Recipe book -- $3.00

Open topped and closed fermentation vessels -- Price variable

Air lock(s) and suitable cork(s) for vessel $1.35 & $1.00 respectively

Triple scale hydrometer -- $7.50

Plastic or glass hydrometer jar or graduated cylinder -- $5.00 -- $20.00

pH strips for determining acidity -- $4.30

Bottle corker (unless you intend to use screw-top bottles) -- $20.00 -- $30.00

Common household strainers, i.e. window screen type -- Variable

Fruit press -- Nice to have, not totally essential

Bottle brush -- $3.50

Supplies needed (depending on recipe)

Wine yeast

Yeast nutrient

Campden tablets 

Natural grape tannin (for fruit/vegetable wines)

Acid blend (not normally needed for most grape wines)

Pectic enzyme

Stabilizer -- if sweetening the wine

Wine corks -- #9

In the beginning you will need suitable containers for fermentation and racking. Wines are normally allowed to ferment in an open topped container with loose cover for the first three days, then transferred to a container that can be sealed with an air lock. The supplier lists a six gallon Screw-Top Poly-Fermenter with faucet, air lock and stopper for about $22.50 that would serve both purposes. If you have suitable equipment, use only non-reactive containers such as glass jugs, carboys, plastic drums or barrels. You should also start a notebook and record dates, ingredients and volumes that went into each batch. If you end up with a real good vintage, it's nice to know what you did.

DAY 1 -- Step 1: Preparing The Mash. The recipes in the booklet mentioned earlier are for about one gallon of wine and require anywhere from three to six pounds of fruit per "gallon batch." Weigh the fruit in order to determine how many "batches" you will have in order that you can calculate the other ingredients to be used. Fruits with pits are usually de-pitted. Dark wines obtain their color from the skins, and hence are usually fermented for two to four days with the pulp. White wines and certain fruits are best if not fermented with the pulp. (See end of article.) Thoroughly mash or grind the fruit and place it in the primary fermenting vessel (open-topped) container. NOTE: The best sterilizing solution available is plain Clorox bleach. Wipe all your equipment down with a 1:30 dilution of Clorox and water. Then rinse. This was the preferred disinfectant for wiping up virus spills in our lab.

Step 2: Add the required water.

Step 3: Add the required sugar in small aliquots, stir thoroughly until dissolved and measure the sugar content with a hydrometer. They are inexpensive and will give you the specific gravity of the solution and the potential alcohol that will result. Continue to add sugar until the hydrometer reaches a potential alcohol reading of 13% which is sufficient to prevent molds from forming during aging.

Step 4: Measure the acidity (pH) of the solution. Narrow range pH dip sticks are available from source above. The one with a pH range of 2.8 to 4.4 is probably the best choice. You simply dip them in the solution and compare the color change to a chart on the side of the vial. Dry dark wines should measure a pH of approximately 3.0. White sweet wines should have a pH of 4.0. If it is too acid (pH too low, which is rare), you can add powdered calcium carbonate (chalk) or water in small increments until the pH rises. Calcium carbonate is also used to remove the highly toxic oxalic acid from rhubarb wines. If the pH is too high, which is normally the case with fruit wines, add small increments of acid blend, containing citric, malic, and tartaric acids (a mix of natural fruit/grape acids) stir, and continue measuring the pH until it reaches the proper level. Wines without the proper acid content are flat and lack character!

Step 5: The recipe may also call for the addition of yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme and/or grape tannin. One of the yeast nutrients lacking in most all wines is nitrogen. Nitrogen allows the yeast to reproduce more readily, ferment faster and produce higher levels of natural enzymes that allow the wine to clear and mature more quickly. Yeast energizer is often used in vegetable wines and mead. In addition to the natural yeast nutrients lacking in these products, it provides lipids which the yeast cells need to bud and produce new cell walls. Without it their reproduction is severely limited. Pectic enzyme breaks down the natural pectin in the juice and really helps to make a sparkling clear wine. Tannin is one of those "hidden ingredients" that gives wine its distinctive character and that subtle "squeak" on your teeth. Grapes and dark-skinned fruits often have sufficient tannin in the skins. Peaches, etc., do not. This is where the recipe book helps immensely.

Step 6: Control the fermentation by adding one crushed campden tablet ("water purification tablets") for each gallon of wine. This destroys all the natural molds and yeasts that are present in the fruit that may cause it to spoil or have bad flavors. This problem occurred in epidemic proportions in Europe during the late 1800s. The 19th century French scientist Louis Pasteur's reputation came about not for his brilliant contributions to medicine, but for his discovery of "pasteurization" which solved the spoiled wine problems. This earned him the title of "savior of the wine industry." Cover and allow to set for 24 hours after adding the campden tablets.

DAY 2: Add the yeast. For best results, use only a commercial wine yeast, do not use bread yeast! The most common choices for general use are Star (brand) Montrachet or Lalvin (brand) K1V-1116. Other strains are available for specific use in red, white and champagne wines. Allow to ferment in the open container for three days. During aerobic fermentation the yeast cells are primarily multiplying.

DAY 5: The wine has now fermented under aerobic conditions for three days and it is time to transfer it to a closed (air tight) container(s). If fermented with the pulp, siphon or strain (as the case may be) the pulp off the liquid as completely as possible. Press, drain or wring in an old pillow case, as much of the liquid from the pulp as you can and add it to the container. An old milk-strainer without pad setting in a large funnel is ideal for draining pulp if you don't have a press. Attach an air lock. An air lock can be as simple as a hose connected to the stopper with the end in a container of water. Don't use a balloon over the neck of the container unless you like things that go "bang" in the night. Commercial air locks mounted in a rubber stopper are much easier to use and are virtually fail-safe. Purchase the "Hobby #1 air lock," not the "twin or triple bubbler lock." The latter are almost impossible to clean if you get a "foam over." Under anaerobic conditions, the yeast changes it's metabolism and begins to produce more alcohol. It is very important that you set the container(s) up on a counter or table that is high enough to allow you to siphon the wine off the sediment at the end of fermentation. A plastic siphon tube equipped with the little cap on it that prevents turbulence from sucking up the bottom sediment (see equipment supplier) is indispensable. We prefer to use a 3/8" rubber hose for siphoning and bottle filling. They are much more flexible than plastic tubing and can be very easily pinched off if you need to stop the flow for any reason. After fermentation is complete, allow the suspended "guz" to settle for a week or more before siphoning off to the racking containers. Some wines settle faster than others, so wait until you can see a definite sediment layer in the container. The trick is to get it off the yeast as soon as possible with the least amount of suspended fines as possible.

Making rose

Many dark-skinned fruits lend themselves to a "second" fermentation, i.e. the production of a rose wine. Our rule of thumb is to strain, but not press the pulp from the first fermentation and leave it in the primary fermenting container. We add approximately half, or slightly less than half, as much water as was required in the beginning. Go through the primary steps again of measuring potential alcohol and pH (which should be about 4.0). If it's naturally lower than that, we don't worry about it. The secondary fermentation may take as much, or more, sugar than was required in the beginning. It is not necessary to re-inoculate with yeast. Allow the product to ferment in the open container for another three days in order to pick up the color from the pulp. Wring the pulp as dry as possible and transfer to a closed container with air lock as previously described. In our experience to date, the rose wines always come out sweet even though the hydrometer reading indicates that it should be "dry." Since hydrometers function by specific gravity (SG), we have been wondering if the low levels of alcohol from the primary fermentation are not lowering the basic SG of the solution just enough to cause us to over-sugar it. I have since purchased a spectrophotometer and we're going to compare the two.

Racking the wine

This may be the most critical step in the production of quality wines and may also create the greatest problem for the frugal homesteader in terms of equipment. I was extremely fortunate in that I was able to procure a number of five-gallon and 12-gallon glass Pyrex carboys, plus a peristaltic pump that allows me to "siphon" the jugs without elevating them, when they closed out one of our labs. Commercially the carboys are, respectively, about $30.00 and $60.00 apiece! Screw-top glass jugs will work, but they are a pain if producing any quantity. Thin-walled plastic jugs such as milk cartons will allow oxygen to penetrate the wine and may cause it to oxidize or turn to vinegar, and besides, you can't see the sediment layer when siphoning prior to bottling. Most dark wines, such as Damson plum, elderberry and others may be improved by adding 1/4 ounce of white oak chips or toasted oak chips at this time. (Toast the chips in an iron skillet like you are browning hamburger.) I set my jointer to take about a 1/16 inch or more cut and collect the chips from clean oak boards. In a few days they will soak up and sink, becoming part of the sediment in the bottom.

Racking allows the suspended "fines" of pulp and residual yeast to settle out. Some may rack the wine two to three times before bottling. This may require 8-10 months. Just because it may look clear earlier, it probably isn't! Air is wine's greatest enemy. Fill the racking containers as full as possible, well up into the neck in order to exclude the air. Either attach an air lock (be sure to keep checking on the fluid level) or a closure that will not "pop off" during temperature changes. In the beginning, when we had a container that was only partially full, we would throw a small piece of dry ice into the container. This would evacuate all the air, replacing it with carbon dioxide. (The bubbler really goes crazy with this technique.) We now evacuate the air by overlaying with carbon dioxide gas. A nitrogen gas overlay or the inert argon, nitrogen or argon/carbon dioxide gas from a MIG welder will work also. Hold the tube just above the surface of the wine and slowly bleed the gas into the container. With the opening partially covered by the stopper, hold a lighted match at the opening while you are bleeding in the gas. When all of the oxygen has been evacuated, the inert gas will extinguish the flame. This is how you will know that the container is full of inert gas and not air. Place the containers in a non-freezing environment and at a handy elevated height. Make real sure that your shelf or table is strong enough to support the weight! They must not be moved or jarred until you have carefully siphoned off the sediment just prior to bottling. Otherwise, no matter how careful you are, you will stir up the "guz" in the bottom and your wine will have sediment in it. It's very tempting to "sample" the jugs and/or bottle tot; early. Sampling allows air into the jug and bottling too early will not allow all the sediment to clear. We found this out the hard way. We now bottle our wine just prior to picking the current year's vintage.

Bottling

Siphon the wine out of the racking containers into a clean container so you won't have to contend with the sediment during bottling. This is where a glass racking container is most helpful, because you can see the sediment layer. If using a non-glass vessel that you can easily look down into, carefully tip the vessel as you are approaching the bottom and you can see the liquid slide off the sediment. If you don't have glass carboys, seriously consider the screw-top fermenter with faucet mentioned previously. You don't need a siphon tube with this one. You can attach a hose to the faucet, crack it open slightly and slowly drain the wine off the sediment. Wine should be corked, not capped like soda or beer. Our bottles (several thousand of them) were obtained by "dumpster diving" re-cycling bins, soaked, de--labeled and sterilized. Be sure to look for dried mold spots in the bottom of the bottle. A little undiluted Chlorox is a great aid in removing them. We prefer the short-necked dark green "Cabernet-type" bottles over the ones with the long tapered necks. Because of their smaller diameter, you can get six of them in a wine rack in the same space as five of the latter. You will need a bottle corker and #9 x 1-1/2 inch corks (available from the supplier). Commercial wineries use the higher quality 1-3/4 inch corks, but they are expensive, i.e. $29.00 per hundred versus $14.00! Many wine makers add a stabilizer at this point (available from the supplier). The bottles should be filled approximately 1/2 - 5/8-inch into the base of the neck. After corking, there should be about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of air space between the cork and the contents. Properly filled, you will get right at five bottles per gallon of wine. Count out the approximate number of corks you will need and place them into a container of very hot water to soften. Some recommend bringing the water to a boil, but we have found that it tends to over-soften them. However, the "softness" required will depend entirely on your corker. I've got a big mechanical one that will drive a cold moistened cork. Drive the corks to about 1/4 inch below the mouth of the bottle. This gets them well into the hour-glass shaped constriction in the neck that secures the corks. Allow the bottles to set upright for a week or more for the corks to dry and seat. Then lay them down for aging.

Sweetening

Some handed-down home grown recipes for sweet wine call for excessive sugar to be added at time of fermentation. One cannot control the exact degree of sweetness one wants this way, because the amount of residual sugar left after fermentation is complete depends on the ability of the yeast to ferment excessive sugar. It also raises the alcohol level to the maximum level that the yeast can tolerate, sometimes 16% to 17% or so. Excessive alcohol in wines tends to distract from their bouquet and flavor. Wait until bottling time to sweeten your wine. You must use a stabilizer at this point. Just a few live yeast cells left in solution will wake up and start fermenting again, i.e. turning your product into Champagne, and blow the corks in the process! Have all your wine in a single container. After adding stabilizer, add sugar in small increments. Stir well. Sugar is very lazy about going into solution at this stage. When you can see that it is totally dissolved, taste it. You can always add more, but you can't take it back if you over-do it!

Aging

Aging involves a highly complex set of chemical reactions between the various components of the wine that is still not fully understood by the "experts." In brief it involves oxidation, reduction and the production of esters (the flavor and aroma molecules). The "big boys" usually accomplish the oxidation step by aging in wood that "breathes." The formation of the esters is much slower, so when the wine has been judged to have sufficient oxidation, it is bottled. The oxidation step is essentially stopped while the ester formation continues in the bottle. We amateurs do not have the privilege of either the skill or expensive white oak barrels! But wine will oxidize in the bottle, because a tiny amount of oxygen can and does migrate through the cork. Dark wines will usually take at least two and often three years to be drinkable. Whites and some of the rose wines are ready at bottling time or shortly thereafter. Whites often "go around the bend" after two to three years or so.

Tricks of the trade

Fermentation temperatures do make a difference. Wines fermented cold or at cooler temperatures retain more of the actual fruit flavor from whence they came. The skins and seeds of some fruits and grapes tend to impart a bitter taste to the wine. If pressing the pulp, it is best not to press the seeds and skins too tightly.

If the recipe calls for the addition of raisins, we use frozen concentrated white grape juice (not grape juice cocktail) as a substitute. One-half pint (eight ounces) grape concentrate will substitute for about 1/2 cup raisins. If using grape juice, error on the heavy side.

"Instant" wines can be made that are drinkable a few weeks after starting the ferment (see recipe book). Their alcohol content is much lower (approximately 6%-7%) and hence do not age well. They should be consumed within six to eight months.

The good, the bad & the ugly

The most frustrating part of making wine is that you don't know if you did it right or wrong until it matures two or three years hence. Your experience may not necessarily mimic ours, but here's a few of our successes and failures. We do not sweeten any of our wines at bottling, except that destined for a few ladies who have donated fruit to our cause and prefer a sweet wine. In order to conserve on Jd's editorial space, I'm not including the recipes except for the Potato. Purchase the recipe book mentioned earlier, it's worth every penny. It will tell you how much water to use and if you need to add tannin, pectic enzyme, etc.

Apple: Mill or mash the fruit to a fine pulp and press out the juice. Re-suspend the pulp in a container with the amount of water to be added. Stir and re-press. This will extract additional juice from the pulp. Discard the pulp and ferment the juice only. We tried making a "dry" apple wine fermented on the pulp for three days before pressing. In short, it was terrible. After aging for over a year, we poured it out and gave the earthworms a party.

Apricots: Should be dead ripe and juicy. Remove stones, press and ferment only juice.

Berries, e.g. blackberries, raspberries and similar fruits: Crush fruit and ferment with pulp for three days. Blackberry (dry) is one of our consistent winners. Pick only the ripest berries and store them in the refrigerator or freezer until they quit bearing. It is very drinkable at one year. Add 1/4 ounce white oak chips per gallon to racking vessel.

Cherries: If doing just a few, de-pit them, otherwise leave them in. Crush and ferment on pulp for three days.

Currants: Crush and ferment on pulp for three days.

Elderberry: Crush fruit and ferment on pulp one to three days. Elderberry (dry) is one of our finest, but requires aging. At one year of age it is awful! At two to three years of age it begins to rival a very good Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. It is a most flexible fruit for wine making. The more you sweeten it, the more "fruity" it becomes and is drinkable much earlier. A friend of a friend made one that had an excellent taste and aroma at four months of age. It was so sweet it was like drinking liquid jelly! The supplier mentioned earlier has a book with over 115 different recipes for elderberry wine. We add 1/4 ounce white oak chips per gallon to the racking vessel. Picking 40-60 pounds of elderberries a year as I do, it can be a real pain to strip them off the clump. To save time, I break off the individual stems, stick them way down into a clean five-gallon plastic bucket, and "whackity-whack" the clump back and forth against the sides like ringing a bell. When ripe, they will completely shatter off the stem. (Be sure to keep checking for bugs and trash before they are covered up!) This greatly simplifies the picking process. Dump the bucket when it gets about a third full, in order to reduce the number of berries that tend to bounce out. When making elderberry wine, a thick gummy very sticky resin-like crud will build up on the utensils and stick to the sides of the fermenting containers. Hot soapy water or even waterless hand cleaner will not begin to cut the stuff! The best solvent for this gum I have found to date is charcoal lighter fluid. It dissolves the gum immediately and cleans up easily with soap and water.

Gooseberry: Crush or grind through a vegetable chopper, ferment on pulp for three days. Our gooseberry (dry) is a real winner! We use domestic gooseberries picked as ripe as possible and mash them through a hand-crank food chopper. They produce a beautiful rose-colored wine. Quite drinkable at one year. No one can identify it as gooseberry, based on aroma and first tasting. To ripen them as much as possible, spread them out on newspaper at room temperature until they turn pink/purple. Conversely, a very fine crisp white table wine can be made by using green gooseberries. Their acid content is slightly higher and less of the fruit flavor will be imparted to the product.

Grapes: White wine grapes should be crushed, pressed and only the juice fermented. A white wine can be made from colored grapes by this method. When making red wines, crush and ferment on the pulp for three days. Most wines made from "wine grapes" have no additional water added. The concord recipe calls for the addition of water. Concord was not one of our better efforts. We prefer "dry" wines. I have tasted some excellent concord wines, but they are almost always sweetened. We made two vintages, plus a rose for each. The rose was quite good at one year, excellent at two years. The primary wine was not. At four years of age, we got the courage to give it a try, and it wasn't bad at all. We may try fermenting only the juice next time.

Peaches: Remove the stones, press and ferment only the juice.

Pears: Contrary to logic, pears should be "firm ripe," not mushy full ripe! Crush, wash pulp with water as for apples, press and ferment only the juice. Fermenting the pulp will impart a very poor flavor. We made all these mistakes on our first Bartlett Pear (dry) and it was not very good.

Plums: Green gage, sloes and related fruits. De-pit, crush and ferment on pulp for three to four days. The pulp from dark plums can be used to make a rose. Our Damson plum (dry) is quite harsh and undrinkable at one year. It improves dramatically by two to three years. Plums are a real "pain" to pit. It took two of us over 10 hours to pit 25 gallons. We let them get as ripe as possible after picking. We pop the pits by squeezing them over a clean container to collect the pulp and juice. About half the pulp sticks to the seed. We throw the pits into another container. The pulp sticking to the seed will very quickly soften and almost liquefy. We then "knead" the pits by squeezing them in our fist and throw them into a milk strainer without the pad. The pulp drains nicely through the large holes and the seeds are essentially clean.

Our Sand Hill Plum (dry) is similar to Damson, in that it is quite harsh at one year. They are a very sweet (absolutely the best plum by far that I ever tasted), small wild plum that grows in abundance in western Kansas. And would you believe that some dummy wants to declare them a "noxious weed" and eradicate them! The rose is fantastic at one year. We attempted a "blush" wine from the rose pulp. When tasted in the racking bottles at about six months, the rose was quite good, but the blush (almost clear in color) was not! We concluded that it was going to be a loser. Sometime afterwards, I didn't catch the fact that the air lock had gone dry. At bottling time, it had obviously oxidized, was much darker than the rose, and had a funny taste that was not too unpleasant. We added stabilizer and a small amount of sugar. After tasting we suddenly realized that we had a very delightful rose port-type wine! My friend exclaimed that we should do this one again. Only then did it dawn on us that it was a fortuitous accident and we have no idea how to repeat it!

Green Gage Plum: A friend of mine, who was an expert semi-professional wine maker, made a green gage plum wine that was out of this world. It was included as the unlabeled "wringer" in a contest that included 10 gold medal winning California wines. It tied for second place against the best of California's best. Everyone thought it was a white varietal of some kind, and none of the judges could identify it. I planted some trees five years ago that almost got killed in a hailstorm. They are still recovering and I have yet to try my hand at it. If you have access to green gage, Japanese-type or lighter colored plums, you really should give them a try. You may be in for a big surprise.

Potato wine sounds like a joke, but it is anything but! It starts out almost black and comes out pale yellow. It also foams like crazy for the first several days, so use a large container! We tried a batch last year just for the heck of it. We certainly didn't anticipate the outcome. I allowed a wine fancier (who prefers dark reds) to have a blind taste one day. After tasting it, he asked what it was. I said, "You tell me." He replied that he couldn't identify it, but he stated, "This is excellent! You don't need to make any other variety." It is quite drinkable at bottling time (six to eight months). Best if served refrigerator cold.

Recipe for 5 gallons of potato wine:

10 pounds white potatoes
Acid blend to pH 3.5-4
3 cans (11-1/2 or 12 ounce)frozen
concentrated white grape juice
2-1/2 teaspoons tannin
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
1 package Champagne yeast

Wash potatoes, do not peel, and slice thinly. We use a French fry cutter. Boil potatoes in five gallons of water until the potatoes are fully done. Strain and place water in fermenter. Allow to cool overnight and complete the remaining steps. The potatoes can be frozen and used in soups, mashed, slop for the hogs, etc. How's that for getting twice your money's worth?

Tomato: I took the tomato wine recipe from the book and made up five gallons. It sounds like another joke, but it isn't. When tasted at about four months of age, I thought it was quite refreshing, others downright good! At one year we thought it was getting a little "whang-ie." At two years it's hardly drinkable. I'm giving the earthworms a party with what I have left. It's good wine if bottled and consumed very early.

Persimmon wine was a complete failure. Even though they were quite ripe, the end product still had quite a "pucker" factor and probably shriveled the earthworms when I poured it out.

D. L. SALSBURY, DVM WELLSVILLE, KANSAS