For about 3 months I've been toying with the idea of making Ginger & Lemon Grass Wine. Partly because I like a cordial with that combo. Partly because I'm very much enjoying Lemon Grass tea at this point in time. So, Yesterday I got it started.
Recipe; 5 gallons
5 Litres White Grape Juice (Tesco, not from conc)
5 Litres Apple Juice (Sun Grown, from conc)
3.5Kg White Sugar
125g Fresh root Ginger
125g Crystallised root Ginger
35g Dried Lemon Grass
2 Tsp Citric Acid
5 Tsp Tartaric Acid
Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
5 Tsp Pectolase
3 Campden Tablets
2 Tsp Yeast Nutirent (Brupak, Nutrivin)
Make up to 5 gallons with water.
Yeast (Gervin number 5, GV5)
OG 1078
And here's a piccie of all the base ingredients
The eagle-eyed will recognise this as a quickie wine. 10 litres of juice for 5 gallons of wine is the give away. So I'm hoping this'll be ready to drink in 8 weeks or so with it's relatively low OG of 1078. The eagle-eyed will also have seen the strip of paper. This is my notes, hole punched in top corner and through it goes an elastic band that loops over the airlock.
Method
Fill a big saucepan with around a gallon of water, add the sugar, get it on the stove and dissolve the sugar. Meanwhile prepare all your "fresh" ingredients.
You only need a potato peeler and a knife. Peel and crush the ginger, then slice it finely. Roughly chop the crystallised ginger. Finely chop the lemon zest after making sure to remove all the pith. Weight out the Lemon Grass too. Bag them all up. I used 2 muslin bags, you really want the ingredients to have plenty of space, like a big tea bag would look.
By now your sugar will be dissolved and the water hot. Pour this into your fermenting bin and pop the lid on. It'll ensure sanitation at that temperature. Put another gallon of water into the pan and add the ingredients in the muslin bags. put the lid on the pan and bring to the boil.
While this is happening measure out the acids, pectolase, nutrient and crushed campden tablets. Dissolve in either apple or grape juice. Add the juices to the fermenting bin. By now your pan of "tea" may be boiling, so decant the liquid off. Put another gallon or so of water into the pan, with the ingredients in muslin bags, cover and bring it back to the boil. Simmer, very gently, for an hour. Then add the lots to your fermenting bin. Top up to 5 gallons with cold water, and finally add the last ingredients, those dissolved in fruit juice. Give it all a good stir, cover tightly and leave overnight.
Next day stir well to mix through. The stir sloshily to get plenty of air into the mix. Yeast needs this to bud (multiply) and form a healthy colony. I use a whisk. Measure the gravity, you want 1070-1080. Mine came in at 1078 so I was happy. Then add the yeast. I used Gervin Number 5 (GV5). It's low foaming, ferments down to 8'C, which leaves plenty of leeway for autumnal nights in an unheated room. Tho I hope it doesn't get quite that cold in the next week or so!
From here on its the usual routine. Stir sloshily daily for a few minutes on each of the next few days. Then move to a secondary fermenting vessel (under airlock). When it stops fermenting (probably between 1 and 2 weeks, but don't worry if it still keeps going) rack off the sediment (siphon), degas, stabilise and leave it be to clear - under airlocks of course.
Update 15.11.11
Right now I'm just writing in my thoughts, as I do from time to time on my notes. Feel free to snoop ;-) but be warned ... these notes are influenced by a glass or two of this wine.Bottled the first 2 gallons, so that's only 6-7 weeks since starting it.
It's table wine quality, really. Big white,
with fruit flavours, especially citrus like (no surprise there), which
means acidity (but not too much), astringent, and has body. if you spent
around £5 per bottle on a selection of white wines and compared it to
this then this wouldn't come last! Next time, more ginger tho.
final gravity 994, which means 11.4% ABV. It's got nice nice balance to it, and i reckon that it'll come together very well in the next few weeks. But right now it's still a delight.
sounds fantastic for summers on the deck with good friends
ReplyDeleteHi Anon
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. Should you give it a try then you won't be disappointed. Ginger is a bit magic; invigorating when the summer sun has you flagging, but as the sun goes down it is warming and counters the chill in the air that comes quickly.
of course the big bonuses are that it's easy to make, ready to drink pronto and quality is not sacrificed in achieving either.
cheers
I am new to wine making, less than 40 gallons under my belt, but one thing about the usual fermenting procedures strikes me as unsatisfactory for quick to drink wines. Almost every thing I ferment turns out to be less than I expected in flavor. Lemon wine such as Skeeter Pee is OK, but much of the lemon flavor vanishes in the fermenting process. The very process of fermentation seems to remove or destroy much of the flavor I was hoping for in a quick wine. I guess what I am saying is I want my pineapple wine to taste like pineapple and have some alcohol in it so I am not just drinking fruit juice. With this in mind it seems the goal for me would be to ferment some sugar water into alcohol and then just add fruit flavoring such as concentrated pineapple juice or say in your case lemongrass and ginger. Of course the fruit juice will add sugar and the mixture of the two would need to be stabilized to prevent secondary fermentation, especially when bottled. Does this make sense to you or am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteHi D.i.T,
Deletewelcome to the world of wine-making. I hope you stick with it.
You've hit on a problem that many of us have noticed. When fermentation gets going properly it's vigourous. The result is that lots of the more volatile flavours get blown off and carried away. Hence they're not in your finished wine.
What i try to do is add these most-likely-to-be-lost flavours after the initial fermentation. Say 4-7 days after pitching the yeast, depending on quickly the fermentation starts. This works well for the likes flavours you hope to infuse (ginger, elderflowers, herbs, zest etc).
As you correctly observe if this means you're also adding sugar (including if it's in fruit juices) then more thought is needed.
Personally, i steer clear of chemicals if possible (inc campden tablets and potassium sorbate). I let my wines ferment fully and only bottle when i want to drink it. Or when i need empty DJ's.
If you're going to add fruit juice late in the fermentation then it'll probably ferment vigorously. So, as you say, you'd need to stabilise. Which means you'll end up with quite a sweet wine. I've never tried doing this, so i'm not the best person to advise you. However there are loads of homebrew forums, and knowledge is freely shared there. Google for a bit and you'll soon find one that focuses on wine (rather than beer). Someone there will have experience doing what you want to do.
Also, if you're making a quick wine you need to make sure the alcohol content stays a little lower than the usual 12.5% (or more). It gets a little tricky to stay on top of this when you're adding sugars part way through. It's just maths and a hydrometer, but it's all extra work.
There may another solution tho ... there are so very many fruit juices around, if one doesn't work out as well as you like then just try another. I recently experimented with making a batch of pink grapefruit wine and another of tropical fruit juice. I wasn't optimistic about the latter but it turned out to be like a sauvignon blanc! I'll make it again! The former is very tasty, of grapefruit, but quite acidic.
Sometimes, very occasionally, i'll bottle a finished wine with a sprig or two of something to infuse a flavour. This worked very well with Lemon Grass (which is a breeze to grow cos it's mint family, pretty hardy too). Nothing i'd tried previously captured it's flavour. It looks quite magic too, especially in a pale bottle.
I hope this helps. I haven't really given you a solution to your question. But some of my thoughts may be useful.