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To Fine Sherry

A method for clarifying sherry using isinglass, cider, wine, egg whites, and shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 439 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

To Fine Sherry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the finings

  1. Beat isinglass with a hammer until in small pieces.

  2. Soak isinglass in cider or perry for 24 hours until it becomes jelly.

  3. Mix the jelly with wine and whisk in the egg whites and shells.

Fine the wine

  1. Remove 4-5 gallons of wine to make room for finings and stir well.

  2. Add the finings mixture to the wine and stir for 5 minutes.

  3. Fill the container.

  4. Loosely bung the container.

  5. After 2 days, seal it tightly.

  6. It will be ready for bottling in 8-10 days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cider + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Wine + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  3. Cider + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Forms a jelly that binds to haze particles and drags them out of the wine.
Egg whites
Carry a positive charge that attracts and clears fine suspended particles from the wine.
Cider or perry
Softens the isinglass so it swells and turns into a jelly.

The step that matters

Whisking the finings into the wine. The finings must be evenly dispersed so every part of the wine contacts them. Uneven mixing leaves cloudy patches, because the fining agent can only clear particles it touches.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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