Would boiling the ribena get rid of the preservatives
I have bought 4 litres of the stuff and do not want to waste it

thanks

"Paul" > wrote in message
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>I have just started out and on following the recipe below nothing is
>happenning, After adding the yeast the next day I added some yeast nutriant
>but still nothing, help. I am new so any advice welcome
>
> thanks
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> RIBENA WINE
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> Before I explain how easy it is to make wine with ribena let me point out
> that this famous syrup of excellent quality could well be added to
> fermenting 'musts' made up from of the fruits to get special results. The
> rate to add it would be one to two bottles per gallon.
>
> When making wines from dried fruits the addition of one or two bottles of
> Ribena per gallon would make a vast improvement to the flavour and quality
> of the wine.
>
> Similarly, when making wines from fresh fruits that give a red wine, one
> or two bottles or Ribena could well be added to make up for other fruits
> in this wy, you mar disregard the SO2 preservative (more about this later)
> because the amount in the Ribena will not be enough to stop fermentation,
> but it would be best to add it at the vigorous fermentation stage-during
> the first ten days.
>
> If you propose to use Ribena in this way, bear in mid that each bottle
> contains approximately eight ounces of sugar, so you should reduce
> accordingly the amount of sugar in whichever recipes you are using.
>
> Undiluted Ribena is not readily fermentable, because it contains just
> over seven pounds of sugar per gallon and is Preserved with 350 parts per
> million SO2-either of which is capable of preventing fermentation.
>
> Obviously, our aim when making wine with Ribena will be to reduce the
> amount of sugar to about three and a half pounds per gallon, by using half
> Ribena and half water. In doing this, we shall reduce the SO2 preservative
> to around 175 parts per million. This amount is unlikely to prevent
> fermentation, though it could do so.
>
> My trials with ribena were carried out with the above point borne in mind
> and it will be seen that I began with a good deal less than equal parts or
> Ribena and water, gradually bringing them up to equal parts.
>
> Because I did not want to overwork the yeast by giving it too much sugar
> to work on at the start, and because I wanted to reduce the SO2 content to
> below 175 parts per million (without heating with the risk of spoiling the
> flavor of the syrup), I decided to work to the following method. The
> method, incidentally, met with the approval of V. L. S. Charley, B.BC.,
> PH.D., technical director of the Royal Foresty factory of the Beecham
> group and one-time director of the Long Ashton Research Station, Bristol.
>
> All water used in the process was first boiled and allowed tocool
> naturally.
>
> STAGE 1:
> Two bottles of Ribena were diluted with twice the amount of water (four
> Ribena bottles full). Yeast in the form of a nucleus was added and the
> mixture allowed to ferment for ten days.
>
> STAGE 2:
> After ten days' fermentation, two bottles of ribena and one Ribena bottle
> of water were added and the mixture allowed to ferment for a further ten
> days.
>
> STAGE 3:
> After a total of twenty days' fermentation, two bottles of Ribena and one
> more bottle of water were added. Fermentation was then allowed to carry on
> to completion, taking, in all, three months. The result was a good, round
> wine flavored delightfully but not too strongly of fresh blackcurrants.
>
> At stage 3 it was borne in mind that, while most of the SO2 would have
> been driven off during fermentation by adding those last two bottles, I
> was, in effect, bringing the total SO2 content up to 175 parts per
> million. fearing that the yeast might be just a little weakened at this
> stage I decided to drive off the SO2 in the last two bottles by raising
> the temperature of the to 70 deg. C. If you want to do this and have no
> suitable thermometer, stand the bottles in a saucepan of water and slowly
> raise the temperature until the Ribena in the bottles has increased in
> volume enough to reach the rims of the bottles. The temperature is high
> enough to drive off the SO2 and the heat should be cut off at once. The
> caps of the bottles must be removed before heating. The whole of
> fermentation was carried out in narrow-necked bottles plugged with cotton
> wool, fermentation locks being fitted after ten days. Racking was not
> carried out until one month after the last addition. Monthly racking
> followed until fermentation ceased. Even at this early stage the wine was
> nice to drink, but it had improved vastly at the age of six months.
>
> At first it might seem expensive to make wine with Ribena, but against
> the cost one should set the fact that no sugar need be added and that one
> has a top-quality product all ready for the job in hand. Apart from this,
> there is no expensive fruit to buy, no messy crushing-in fact nothing much
> to do at all. And, most important of all, Ribena has been treated with a
> pectin-destroying enzyme, which means that you could boil it if you wished
> without fear of pectin clouding the finished wines. Such boiling would, of
> course, drive off the SO2 and give you a wine flavored slightly to cooked
> blackcurrants.
>
> It will be seen that a sweeter wine may be made by using one bottle more
> of Ribena or one less of water, while a dry wine would result if less
> Ribena were used. A dry wine would lack the fuller flavour, but this would
> be offset to some extent by to dryness.
>
> If eight bottles of Ribena are made into one gallon by adding water, the
> gallon will contain roughly four pounds of sugar and the equivalent of
> four pounds of blackcurrants. This amount of fruit is ample for a gallon
> of wine and, provided one likes a fairly sweet wine, this proportion of
> sugar to fruit is not too much. On the whole, I feel that seven bottles of
> Ribena would be the limit you could use to make a gallon of wine without
> it being too sweet.
>
> It will be clear that my trials with Ribena, using six bottles to make
> just under a gallon of wine, have been most successful and I do urge
> readers to have a go.
>
> A point to bear in mind is that a good light wine is often made with as
> little as two pounds of blackcurrants to the gallon, therefore, if you
> made four bottles of Ribena into a gallon of 'must', you would have used
> the equivalent of two pounds of blackcurrants and two pounds of sugar.
> This would give you a wine of about twelve percent of alcohol by volume.
> Such a wine would be dry, but by adding half a pound of sugar during the
> process you would get a sweeter wine of one or two percent more alcohol.
>