I made a beverage called Sima. Not really a wine, but a beerlike quaff. Ingredients were 1 gall water, two lemons, 1 cup sugar white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 packet Nottingham ale yeast. Combined in primary fermenter with airlock. After 7 days put 1.25 tsp of corn sugar in each champagne bottle and bottled. Put a few raisins in each bottle. When raisins plump, ready to drink. One week later cork blew out. Opened other bottles and those shot the liquid 20 ft. Question: Not long enough or too long fermentation? Should I have done secondary fermentation? Not put in the corn sugar in each bottle to make it sparkling? I followed the instructions in a book titled Strong Waters. It said to bottle after 4-5 days but I waited a week. Thanks for any observations. I did not check the gravity at all.