wine making

Your reasons for making wine are many, we're sure. Perhaps it's the skyrocketing cost of wine. Perhaps it's the lack of quality or selection available in stores. Perhaps you are like us and like to know what the hell is really in the wine that you're drinking. Whatever.

There are two basic ways to begin making wine. One is to use a kit. This is a good, inexpensive, low risk way to learn to make your elixir of choice. Kits come in a variety of types and include instructions on how to make the wine.

The second way is to use real grapes. Much more challenging and expensive with less certain results (for the inexperienced) than a kit but the reward of a successful batch is beyond glee. 

candle making 101

A candle is a solid block of fuel (commonly wax) and an embedded wick, which is lit to provide light, and sometimes heat.

Today, most candles are made from paraffin. Candles can also be made from beeswax, soy and other plant waxes, and tallow (a by-product of beef-fat rendering). Gel candles are made from a mixture of paraffin andplastic.^{[citation needed]}

A candle manufacturer is traditionally known as a chandler. Various devices have been invented to hold candles, from simple tabletop candle holders, to elaborate chandeliers.

The heat of the match used to light the candle melts and vaporizes a small amount of fuel. Once vaporized, the fuel combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form a flame. This flame provides sufficient heat to keep the candle burning via a self-sustaining chain of events: the heat of the flame melts the top of the mass of solid fuel, the liquefied fuel then moves upward through the wick via capillary action, and the liquefied fuel is then vaporized to burn within the candle's flame.

The burning of the fuel takes place in several distinct regions (as evidenced by the various colors that can be seen within the candle's flame). Within the bluer regions, hydrogen is being separated from the fuel and burned to form water vapor. The brighter, yellower part of the flame is the remaining carbon being oxidized to formcarbon dioxide.

As the mass of solid fuel is melted and consumed, the candle grows shorter. Portions of the wick that are not emitting vaporized fuel are consumed in the flame. The incineration of the wick limits the exposed length of the wick, thus maintaining a constant burning temperature and rate of fuel consumption. Some wicks require regular trimming with scissors (or a specialized wick trimmer), usually to about one-quarter inch (~0.7 cm), to promote slower, steady burning, and also to prevent smoking. In early times, the wick needed to be trimmed quite frequently, and special candle-scissors, referred to as "snuffers" until the 20th century, were produced for this purpose, often combined with an extinguisher. In modern candles, the wick is constructed so that it curves over as it burns (see picture on the right), so that the end of the wick protrudes into the hot zone of the flame and is then consumed by fire—a self-trimming wick.