I like to brew wine; It's only a hobby but I'm obsessed!
This is the place to be if you want to see what another brewer is up to or want some encouragement to start or diversify. I've posted heaps of recipes (clicky) and 2 wine-making vids (here for wine made from cartons of juice blog / youtube, and here for Blackberry wine on the pulp blog / youtube).
If you're new here then do explore, take this link for tips about where to find what you're interested in.

Monday, 26 July 2010

Recipe; Blueberry & Cranberry Rosé

So I have 4 empty DJ's and two empty 5 gallon fermenting bins, and I'll be bottling some wine soon, all of which means I have enough capacity to get some wine on the go again!

Recipe (3 Gallons)

3 Litres Reg Grape Juice
3 Litres Blueberry & Cranberry Juice
2 Kg Sugar
Nutrient
2 Teaspoons Pectolase
3 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
Gervin D Yeast

And now a gratuitous picture.



I made some movie clips of the whole process, which I'll edit together sometime. In doing so I forgot to take snap shots. By the time I remembered the washing up was done ... so that's why you have an image of 6 cartons of upside down juices ... all rinsed and ready for recycling (I'll just polish my halo :-) )

Method

Basically chuck everything into your sanitised fermenting vessel, make up to 3 gallons, measure the gravity and add a sugar or water to get it where you want it. This recipe came in at 1077, I'm happy with that so I made no adjustment. Give the whole lot a really good sloshy stir to get some air dissolved. Chuck in the yeast, cover it up, stir sloshily at least once daily for a few days then follow your normal procedure of moving to secondary vessels, racking, degassing, stabilising etc etc.

Thoughts

This is a light wine, it'll be ready to drink in as little as 6 weeks. Tho perhaps 8 is a more reasonable expectation. But as with all wine it will improve with age and you'll notice that week on week with wines like these (2 litres of juice per gallon and OG 1070-1080).

I've made an instructional vid (aimed at beginners) for starting this wine. Clicky to watch 

Edit 19th Sept 2010: Final gravity turned out to be 997, meaning 10.9% ABV.
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2 comments:

  1. Wine is Fine4 December 2010 at 22:54

    Hello Critterwines
    Just a short note from someone across the pond to say thanks for such an awesome site. I am finaly happy to be able to view such easy wine making instructions that even I could follow and appreciate. I started the Blueberry Cranberry Rose and a Wildberry as well, both are 3 gallons....Ohhhh boy I can't wait =)

    ...again Thank You, for all of your hard work and devotion for that the rest of us can benifit from your years of wine making knowledge.

    George Ramsay & Victor Lively
    Canada

    ReplyDelete
  2. Critter Wines5 December 2010 at 02:19

    Hi GR and VL.

    Thanks for taking the time to write me and express your appreciation. I'm sure your wine will delight you. The Blueberry & Cranberry is the best quick brewing, early drinking wine I have made (better than kits even) and I have a glass of it in front of me now. I hope the Wildberry works out too.

    I'm glad you find my instructions easy to follow, i hoped they would be. Winemaking is easy, the waiting is the hard bit. That and resisting the temptation to do more than is needed.

    I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, and now you are too. I hope you like the view and that your dabbling becomes a hobby which in turn becomes a passion.

    cheers

    ReplyDelete

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