Recipe; Apple Wine

So yesterday I wrote about collecting apples and the process of getting juice from them. Today you get the recipes. Now the Apple wine recipe.

Recipe: 1 gallon

• Freshly Pressed Apple Juice  (OG 1050)
• 600 Grams Sugar
• 1/4 Teaspoon Wine Tannin
• 2 Teaspoons Pectolase
• Yeast Nutrient (Brupak, Nutrivin)
• 1 Campden Tablet
• 3/4 Teaspoon Tartaric Acid
• 3/4 Teaspoon Citric Acid
• Gervin D Yeast

OG 1091

Method

Because my fermenting bin is full i'm starting this in a 1 gallon demi-john, so the method needs a little planning. Dissolve a crushed campden tablet and 2 teaspoons of pectolase in something like 4 litres of apple juice. Cover and leave overnight. Next day dissolve the sugar in the apple juice and all the other ingredients except the yeast, stir well to mix. Remove about 500 ml and put it in a plastic bottle in the freezer. stir the remaining juice sloshily to get some air into the mix. Then add the yeast.

Stir sloshily daily for a few minutes for a few days. When the ferment starts to quieten down (probably a few days) defrost the frozen juice, no hurry so just leave it out at room temperature. Then add it to the Demi-john. When the ferment stops rack off the sediment, degas, stabilise and leave  to clear. You may need to use finings for this, or leave it somewhere cold, or just wait with plenty of patience. Chances are that this wine won't be worth drinking anytime soon, 6 months at the earliest, more likely 1 year.

Discussion:

The OG for this wine is not low. I'm not making a quickie wine and the body of the apple juice was superb. The tannin addition will hopefully give the wine an edge. There is plenty of acidity too. So i think it will handle being 12-13% ABV. I used GervinD as it's an acid reducing yeast. It'll metabolise a significant chunk of malic acid, this is the harsh acid so reducing it will help to soften the wine. The citric acid added will give a little citrus fruitiness.

I put some juice in the freezer because this leaves a big airgap in the demijohn, which i'll appreciate if the initial fermentation is vigorous. This would result in a very messy airlock and carpet.

I've never made a pure apple wine, but the resulting haul of juice from Saturday meant that i didn't have capacity make only quickie wine. Most of my Demi-johns are full already! So rather than 10 gallons of quickie wine i made 5 and 1 gallon pure apple wine. I really have no idea what to expect of apple wine. I can't see why it shouldn't work, i guess you don't hear of it because apple juice is used for cider here in the uk.