So this is an old favourite wine as my regular readers will know. I wish i could copy last years wine cos it was great,and i wish i could copy a recipe from 3 years ago cos after those years of laying down the wine was exquisite. Alas, it was not possible. But with experience you get good enough with you art to adapt. So this is an adaption, and so plays it's part in the evolution of the wine. I'm confident enough in my abilities to brew 5 gallons of it anyway. And if you like a curry, and also like a crisp interesting wine then give this a go. It's a match made in heaven.
Recipe: 5 Gallons
10 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure oressed)
3.1 Kg Sugar
200g Fresh Root Ginger
200g Luponde Green Tea (East Afrikan, fairtrade, suki-tea.com)
Zest of 3 Lemons (organic)
Zest of 2 Limes (organic)
5 TSpoon Citric Acid
5 TSpoon Pectolase
4 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV5, lees from previous brew)
Water to 5 Gallons
Original Gravity 1075
There should be a picture of mine here, but my phone isn't talking to my laptop, so here's a link to suki-tea.com
http://suki-tea.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/350x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/i/file_7_18.jpg
Method
Remove the lees (sediment) from the fermenting bin and keep in a sterilised sealed container like a bottle. Lots of hit liquids will be added, they'll kill the yeast, and you want it alive
Pour the red grape juice into a fermenting bucket.
Add the sugar to a pan of water (1 gallon is enough), dissolve by bringing to the boil. Then pourinto fermenting bucket.
Put the tea into two muslin bags, add a gallon of water, bring to a simmer, turn off heat, decant liquid into fermenting bucket, cover bucket. Refill pan with another gallon of water, bring to simmer, turn off heat, tip pan contents (including muslin bags of tea) into fermenting bucket, cover bucket.
Dissolve citric acid and pectolase in warm water, add to fermenting bucket with cold water to make the volume up to 5 gallons.
Cover and leave overnight.
Next day add yeast nutrient and yeast (lees set aside) to fermenting bucket. Cover and leave for a few days. After 5-8 days move to secondary fermentation vessel under airlock. Remove muslin bag of green tea and add muslin bag of finely chopped zest of lemons and limes and also finely chopped peeled root ginger.
After a further week or so remove bag of zest and ginger, rack to demi-johns, and leave under airlock until fermentation stops. Then, if you wish, stabilise with campden tablets, potassium sorbate and add finings. Or wait for the wine to clear in it's own time. It should be quick, like within a couple more weeks. Bottle when you need the demi-johns or when you want to drink it. This should be ready to drink 6-8 months after pitching the yeast. So, for me this means June, cos i started it in December.
Discussion
So i couldn't find white grape juice and i was gutted to be honest. Green tea and ginger wine that looks pink or red just doesn't seem right. But having said that there really needn't be that much difference. You can get a white wine from red grapes after-all. So i reckon the red colour in the grape juice hasn't come from a long exposure of red grape skins and juice. As it would cost money for this i reckon i have good grounds for my hope being well placed. In other words this is like pouring boiled water onto a teabag, the colour comes out way before the flavour. So i got over the visual deception obstacle. Besides if the skins are left in the juice for a log time it only mean more flavour and more astringency. so i'll live with that and give it more time to age is that is the reality. Maybe it'll take a year to age? It's no big deal is it.
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Passion Fruit Quickie; Recipe
At the end of last year i made a number of different quickie brews. One stood out from amongst the crowd, passion fruit. So i decided to do it again, but by the time i got around to starting it i found that i couldn't source the same ingredients. I was committed by then, so i had to adapt, and the result is a different recipe to last years, but the method is the same. I'm optimistic, with good reason, to expect a good result, and that's why i've made 5 gallons (30 bottles) of it. These wines, quickies, are a brewer's delight, they make something astoundingly good quality, in a 6-8 weeks, very cheaply. So you get to drink table wine while you let the best stuff age. Believe me, you won't be disappointed by the quality of these wines so don't hesitate to try one! This is not prison hooch, it's great quality. And if you're doing time but shouldn't be then you can probably pull this off, or something similar enough.
Recipe, 5 Gallons
5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure, pressed)
5 Litres Passion Juice (Rubicon)
3.3 Kg sugar
5 TSpoon Citric Acid
4 TSpoon Pectolase
3.5 TSpoon Yeats Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV5).
Water to 5 gallons
Original Gravity 1075
And a piccie of the ingredients
Method
Pour the juices into a fermenting bin.
Dissolve the sugar in hot boiled water (1-2 gallons is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve pectolase, citric acid in warm water and add to bucket.
Add water to 5 gallons.
Stir sloshily for a few minutes (i use a whisk) to add air to the mix, yeast needs dissolved oxygen to bud (breed).
Add yeast nutrient, stir and then sprinkle yeast onto the surface.
After a few days decant to secondary fermentation under airlock. The after another week or so, when the fermentation has slowed or stopped, rack to demi-johns. At this point add, if you wish, campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. You'll find instructions on the packets and they are easy to follow, there's no special kit or practices required. wait until the wine has cleared and if you need the demi-johns or want to drink the wine then bottle it. Or keep it natural, and wait to ensure the fermentation has finished before bottling. You'll be bale to tell if it's a good tim because the gravity won't change for a few weeks and will be below 1000. like 990 - 998.
Discussion.
The fruit juice i used turned out to have 1/2 as much passion fruit in it as last years choice. I didn't know when i bought it. Nevertheless this wine is really a crisp white/blush or even rose of table wine quality with a hint of passion fruit. "Hint" is the crucial word. So i'm not worried.
The choice of yeast wasn't the same as last year. i was caught having to use what i had in the cupboard. But seeing as i've had good results with GV5 before i didn't hesitate to use it again.
Recipe, 5 Gallons
5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure, pressed)
5 Litres Passion Juice (Rubicon)
3.3 Kg sugar
5 TSpoon Citric Acid
4 TSpoon Pectolase
3.5 TSpoon Yeats Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV5).
Water to 5 gallons
Original Gravity 1075
And a piccie of the ingredients
Pour the juices into a fermenting bin.
Dissolve the sugar in hot boiled water (1-2 gallons is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve pectolase, citric acid in warm water and add to bucket.
Add water to 5 gallons.
Stir sloshily for a few minutes (i use a whisk) to add air to the mix, yeast needs dissolved oxygen to bud (breed).
Add yeast nutrient, stir and then sprinkle yeast onto the surface.
After a few days decant to secondary fermentation under airlock. The after another week or so, when the fermentation has slowed or stopped, rack to demi-johns. At this point add, if you wish, campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. You'll find instructions on the packets and they are easy to follow, there's no special kit or practices required. wait until the wine has cleared and if you need the demi-johns or want to drink the wine then bottle it. Or keep it natural, and wait to ensure the fermentation has finished before bottling. You'll be bale to tell if it's a good tim because the gravity won't change for a few weeks and will be below 1000. like 990 - 998.
Discussion.
The fruit juice i used turned out to have 1/2 as much passion fruit in it as last years choice. I didn't know when i bought it. Nevertheless this wine is really a crisp white/blush or even rose of table wine quality with a hint of passion fruit. "Hint" is the crucial word. So i'm not worried.
The choice of yeast wasn't the same as last year. i was caught having to use what i had in the cupboard. But seeing as i've had good results with GV5 before i didn't hesitate to use it again.
Blackberry & Elderberry 2nd run. Recipe
When you make a wine "on the pulp" of a fruit then you should always consider if the left-over pulp could be used again. Often there is plenty of flavour and body in that pulp. I'm still on the journey of getting the best from it, but i can tell you that some of the very best wines i have made have come from using the pulp again. This is delicious for two reasons. 1. It's very easy cos you use the lees (sediment) from an earlier brew to kick-start your new brew, and it's cheap cos you don't need to buy more yeast, and neither do you need to find new fruits.
This wine exploits these considerations. But be mindful that 1 kg of fruit pulp used for a second time will not be as productive as it was the first time. Half or less is is a reasonable assumption. Adjust your volumes accordingly and enjoy experimenting with me
Recipe: 1 gallon
Lees from Blackberry & Elerberry Wine
5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pressed, chilled)
270 grams sugar
Water to 1 gallon.
Original Gravity 1084
soz, no gratuitous picture!
Method
Very briefly, much more so than is usual, so if you're new to this blog don't be discouraged, look up any method from before this one and you'll find way more detail. ... When you're left with the lees of an on the pulp brew like this one then do something with it. Add some grape juice, sugar and water to it (possibly acids or nutrient too). Then let it rip again. After a few days move it to secondary fermentation, a few days later rack to demi-johns. Stabilise by the ways you prefer, bottle when you need to. Enjoy.
Discussion.
I've tried doing second run on the pulp fermentations numbers of times. And i always like the results. However i am still experimenting and pushing the boundaries. with this brew i decided to try using lots of grape juice and have the pulp flavour prop it up. i Don't know how it'll work. 2015 will tell that tale.
This wine exploits these considerations. But be mindful that 1 kg of fruit pulp used for a second time will not be as productive as it was the first time. Half or less is is a reasonable assumption. Adjust your volumes accordingly and enjoy experimenting with me
Recipe: 1 gallon
Lees from Blackberry & Elerberry Wine
5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pressed, chilled)
270 grams sugar
Water to 1 gallon.
Original Gravity 1084
soz, no gratuitous picture!
Method
Very briefly, much more so than is usual, so if you're new to this blog don't be discouraged, look up any method from before this one and you'll find way more detail. ... When you're left with the lees of an on the pulp brew like this one then do something with it. Add some grape juice, sugar and water to it (possibly acids or nutrient too). Then let it rip again. After a few days move it to secondary fermentation, a few days later rack to demi-johns. Stabilise by the ways you prefer, bottle when you need to. Enjoy.
Discussion.
I've tried doing second run on the pulp fermentations numbers of times. And i always like the results. However i am still experimenting and pushing the boundaries. with this brew i decided to try using lots of grape juice and have the pulp flavour prop it up. i Don't know how it'll work. 2015 will tell that tale.
Blackberry & Elderberry, Recipe
Because the garden doesn't produce an abundance of big juicy sweet blackberries, but nature makes an abundance of smaller more sour blackberries, i like to have more than one recipe. This one is a result of an evolving process. I've been improving my blackberry wines every year for over 20 years. And this is part of that evolutionary process.
You're going to get a different wine when you use wild, foraged, blackberries than when you use something cultivated. even if that cultivation is as simple as pruning a wild bush (which is what i do). So you'll need to tweak the recipe to make something you enjoy.
I enjoy a big red wine, lots of body, acidity, astringency and alcohol, in balance. And balance is the key. Miss one part of it and your wine will be unremarkable, not great. Miss two and it'll be a flop. So aim for all 3. elderberries are great for adding balance. Go cautiously tho, the more you add the longer you'll have to wait for the wine to age. Pure elderberry wine takes years to age, the more the better. 5 years is what you should be looking at. Reduce the ratio to something like 33% and the time comes way down, around a year being enough. At 15% 6 months may do it.
For this recipe i've taken a punt on laying it down for a year minimum, and maybe more like 2. I got this brew going in September. It should come in around 13% ABV, so it needs time at that strength, and its so worth it. You may want to pop it open after 6 months, and you'll enjoy it cos you made it. but if you wait then you'll be making fine wine. It's so worth it. Need some replacement for disciple with that? Make lots of quickie wines. They are delicious, cheap, easy, quick. check out my recipe list page and look for those with "quickie" or "Q" in the heading.
But now, onwards with a recipe and method for making blackberry wine with some elderberries.
Recipe 2 Gallons
3.00 Kg Blackberries
1.35 Kg Elderberries
2.2 Kg Sugar
4 TSpoon Pectolase
1 TSpoon Citric Acid
1 TSpoon Tartaric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (lees from last brew, GV11)
Original Gravity 1092
I didn't take a picture of the ingredients, so here's a close-up picture of the material of a coat that was bought for me this year. I used this image in a DVD wallet that i made this year. Big up to Rob Walker for that idea, and big up to Mrs Critter Wines for buying me the coat.
Method
I'm assuming that you're familiar with my blog, so i can give a short-hand version of the method. However, if you're not then don't despair, got to my index page (click) and find an earlier version of the wine, the method will be laid out there, more fully.
Mash your berries and put into the fermenting bucket. This is on the lees of the previous wine. So you will have decanted or siphoned that wine from its sediment. The sediment contains live and healthy yeast tho. So you can use it again. But be cautious, it is a living colony of biological critters. If you heat it up too much it'll get wiped out!
Dissolve sugar in hot boiled water and add to fermenting bucket. when it's cooled enough.
Dissolve pectolase and acids in warm water and add to fermenting bucket..
(for a more natural version use lemon juice at rate of juice of one lemon for a 1 teaspoon of citric acid)
Add yeast nutrient and stir. You'll have healthy colony of yeast there already. Just measure the
gravity after stirring well and cover it up.
After a few days (4-7 depending on season - cos using frozen berries works just fine) it will be a good time to decant into secondary fermentation under airlocks. After another week or so rack into demi-johns. At this stage you can add things like campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. Or you can wait for time to pass, the fermentation to run it's course and stop. The wine to clear and patience to pay dividends. Then bottle it when you want to drink it, or need the demi-johns. Then lay it down of it's bottled with corks.
Discussion.
I've used a high proportion of elderberries to blackberries this year. I'm aiming for a big wine and prepared to wait for it. i'm thinking 1-2 years and happy with it cos i made a few gallons of blackberry earlier this year, form last year's frozen berries.
You're going to get a different wine when you use wild, foraged, blackberries than when you use something cultivated. even if that cultivation is as simple as pruning a wild bush (which is what i do). So you'll need to tweak the recipe to make something you enjoy.
I enjoy a big red wine, lots of body, acidity, astringency and alcohol, in balance. And balance is the key. Miss one part of it and your wine will be unremarkable, not great. Miss two and it'll be a flop. So aim for all 3. elderberries are great for adding balance. Go cautiously tho, the more you add the longer you'll have to wait for the wine to age. Pure elderberry wine takes years to age, the more the better. 5 years is what you should be looking at. Reduce the ratio to something like 33% and the time comes way down, around a year being enough. At 15% 6 months may do it.
For this recipe i've taken a punt on laying it down for a year minimum, and maybe more like 2. I got this brew going in September. It should come in around 13% ABV, so it needs time at that strength, and its so worth it. You may want to pop it open after 6 months, and you'll enjoy it cos you made it. but if you wait then you'll be making fine wine. It's so worth it. Need some replacement for disciple with that? Make lots of quickie wines. They are delicious, cheap, easy, quick. check out my recipe list page and look for those with "quickie" or "Q" in the heading.
But now, onwards with a recipe and method for making blackberry wine with some elderberries.
Recipe 2 Gallons
3.00 Kg Blackberries
1.35 Kg Elderberries
2.2 Kg Sugar
4 TSpoon Pectolase
1 TSpoon Citric Acid
1 TSpoon Tartaric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (lees from last brew, GV11)
Original Gravity 1092
I didn't take a picture of the ingredients, so here's a close-up picture of the material of a coat that was bought for me this year. I used this image in a DVD wallet that i made this year. Big up to Rob Walker for that idea, and big up to Mrs Critter Wines for buying me the coat.
I'm assuming that you're familiar with my blog, so i can give a short-hand version of the method. However, if you're not then don't despair, got to my index page (click) and find an earlier version of the wine, the method will be laid out there, more fully.
Mash your berries and put into the fermenting bucket. This is on the lees of the previous wine. So you will have decanted or siphoned that wine from its sediment. The sediment contains live and healthy yeast tho. So you can use it again. But be cautious, it is a living colony of biological critters. If you heat it up too much it'll get wiped out!
Dissolve sugar in hot boiled water and add to fermenting bucket. when it's cooled enough.
Dissolve pectolase and acids in warm water and add to fermenting bucket..
(for a more natural version use lemon juice at rate of juice of one lemon for a 1 teaspoon of citric acid)
Add yeast nutrient and stir. You'll have healthy colony of yeast there already. Just measure the
gravity after stirring well and cover it up.
After a few days (4-7 depending on season - cos using frozen berries works just fine) it will be a good time to decant into secondary fermentation under airlocks. After another week or so rack into demi-johns. At this stage you can add things like campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. Or you can wait for time to pass, the fermentation to run it's course and stop. The wine to clear and patience to pay dividends. Then bottle it when you want to drink it, or need the demi-johns. Then lay it down of it's bottled with corks.
Discussion.
I've used a high proportion of elderberries to blackberries this year. I'm aiming for a big wine and prepared to wait for it. i'm thinking 1-2 years and happy with it cos i made a few gallons of blackberry earlier this year, form last year's frozen berries.
Big Garden Blackberry Wine, recipe
Again, it's been a long time since i did a brewing blog entry. But hey it's not easy finding the time and while i appreciate the donations (i really do, and thank you muchly to those who donate) they are few and far between, so my focus needs to go on efforts towards putting bread on the table .. cos wine alone is not enough.
But now i've got time to update the blog, just before the year is out. So here's a recipe from August. Using blackberries that i lovingly tend in my garden. Making sure that each cane has fewer berries to nurture than would have happened if nature were left to her own devices. And this means the berries are bigger, sweeter and juicier. Onwards then, with the recipe and method ...
Recipe, 2 Gallons
3.6 Kg Blackberries
2 Kg Sugar
3 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure pressed)
2 Campden Tablets (crushed)
3 TSpoon Pectolase
2 TSpoon Citric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11).
Original Gravity 1100
Method.
You've probably followed my blog for some time so i'll do the condensed method version.
Mash your berries and tip into a fermenting bucket.
Dissolve sugar in boiled hot water (2 litres is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve campden tablets, pectolase and citric acid in warm water add to fermenting bucket.
Add grape juice to fermenting bucket. Rinse bottles and add rinsings.
Cover and leave overnight.
Next day make up to 2 gallons with water or sugar solution to achieve your desired original gravity if 1100 isn't strong enough (perish the thought!). Then stir sloshily (i use a whisk) and add yeast nutrient and yeast then cover. Stir sloshily daily for a few days.
After a few days decant to demi-johns for secondary fermentation under airlock. Then when fermentation has quietened down or stopped rack, leaving sediment behind, into demi-johns. Then be patient and wait. If you want you can wait for the fermentation to stop and then add campden tablets and potassium sorbate and finings. But if you want something close to chemical free then check the gravity when it's stopped fermenting (gravity doesn't change week to week). If it's in the range of 990-998 ish then it'll be done and you can probably get away without further additions.
Bottle your wine when you need the demijohns. not before. Your wine will mature better in bulk than in bottles. If you use a cork then leave the bottles upright for 24-48 hours and then lay them down. If using screw caps then standing upright is good.
Discussion.
Blackberry wine is delicious but without the addition of some grape juice it is not to everyone's tastes. Grape juice will make it into something that everyone will recognise as wine, but will be surprised by, cos it tastes just a little different.
Also, by adding grape juice, you add additional body and nutrients, which means you can up the alcohol content. so if like your red wines big and balanced, like an Aussie Shiraz (as i do), then this is the way to go. This recipe will make a wine around 14% + ABV. So when i said "perish the thought of adding more sugar" i meant it!
But now i've got time to update the blog, just before the year is out. So here's a recipe from August. Using blackberries that i lovingly tend in my garden. Making sure that each cane has fewer berries to nurture than would have happened if nature were left to her own devices. And this means the berries are bigger, sweeter and juicier. Onwards then, with the recipe and method ...
Recipe, 2 Gallons
3.6 Kg Blackberries
2 Kg Sugar
3 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure pressed)
2 Campden Tablets (crushed)
3 TSpoon Pectolase
2 TSpoon Citric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11).
Original Gravity 1100
You've probably followed my blog for some time so i'll do the condensed method version.
Mash your berries and tip into a fermenting bucket.
Dissolve sugar in boiled hot water (2 litres is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve campden tablets, pectolase and citric acid in warm water add to fermenting bucket.
Add grape juice to fermenting bucket. Rinse bottles and add rinsings.
Cover and leave overnight.
Next day make up to 2 gallons with water or sugar solution to achieve your desired original gravity if 1100 isn't strong enough (perish the thought!). Then stir sloshily (i use a whisk) and add yeast nutrient and yeast then cover. Stir sloshily daily for a few days.
After a few days decant to demi-johns for secondary fermentation under airlock. Then when fermentation has quietened down or stopped rack, leaving sediment behind, into demi-johns. Then be patient and wait. If you want you can wait for the fermentation to stop and then add campden tablets and potassium sorbate and finings. But if you want something close to chemical free then check the gravity when it's stopped fermenting (gravity doesn't change week to week). If it's in the range of 990-998 ish then it'll be done and you can probably get away without further additions.
Bottle your wine when you need the demijohns. not before. Your wine will mature better in bulk than in bottles. If you use a cork then leave the bottles upright for 24-48 hours and then lay them down. If using screw caps then standing upright is good.
Discussion.
Blackberry wine is delicious but without the addition of some grape juice it is not to everyone's tastes. Grape juice will make it into something that everyone will recognise as wine, but will be surprised by, cos it tastes just a little different.
Also, by adding grape juice, you add additional body and nutrients, which means you can up the alcohol content. so if like your red wines big and balanced, like an Aussie Shiraz (as i do), then this is the way to go. This recipe will make a wine around 14% + ABV. So when i said "perish the thought of adding more sugar" i meant it!
UPDATE and sign off on this wine
I opened the last bottle of this yesterday, March 2021. It's 6 & 1/2 years old. Wow. Time did some magic with this wine. It was already a decent wine to enjoy from about a year after pitching the yeast. However if you copied this recipe and laid some down then you're in for a treat.
First off let's say that time improving this wine is not a surprise. It's strong at 14.1%. There is also plenty to it, not only the blackberries, but the grape juice too. Time will help everything come together with seamless edges.
First impressions. There is a small amount of fine sediment in the bottle. It's been lying down, to keep the cork moist, so the sediment is where you would expect it to be rather than in the bottom of the bottle. The sediment is very stable. Even 2 days after opening it's stuck tight on the bottle and hasn't sneaked into my glass. The cork was deeply stained about 15% the way up. 2 Days after opening the cork is still very "deformed" into the shape of the bottle neck.
Next observations. The wine is a beautiful deep purple and clear. Amazingly there is still a very slight frizz to the wine. It is very slight and you could easily miss it. So whether you like a frizz or loath a frizz you'll only notice if you're looking for it.
It's a big, fruity, dry and rounded red. If, like me, you make 10's of bottles every year then laying some down is worth it. The addition of grape juice seems to have been vital learning. In future if all i have is blackberries i'll defo add grape juice. Not only for drinking while young (1-2 years old) but also for laying down.
Saturday, 6 September 2014
Many thanks Aleksandr
It's been a while since i updated my blog, what can i say, i got very busy, i apologise. But today i got a notification that someone, Aleksandr, had made a donation. Thanks heaps Aleksandr, i appreciate it, you motivated me to update my blog. There's still 2 more recipes/methods to come (one blackberry, the other blackberry and elderberry) but i have just added this year's elderflower wine recipes and methods. A total of 20 gallons, or 120 bottles. So read on.
Recipes, 4 of them! This Year's Elderflower Wines
So, I'm sorry, this is meant to be a blog, kinda like a diary, and it's months since i updated it. But i'm still here, still brewing, just been busy. Anyway, you're here for wine talk, not for practicing forgiveness ... so i'll crack on.
Summer time, seriously one of my strongest associations with summer is elderflowers. I love their smell and i love making wine with these delicious gifts of mother nature. As regular readers, or brewers who only come here for elderflower wine tips, you'll know that i made 20 gallons (120 bottles) last year. And this year was the same.
This year's haul of elderflowers
My plan was to use the quickie wine base, but only use grape juice (no apple juice). However there was a grape juice shortage in the UK. I thought it may have been a local issue, but a friend on the other side of the country had the same problem. The only supermarket stocking it in June was Asda. Not that i'm plugging Asda, my aim is to point you in their direction if the same problem occurs next year. So, as it turned out, i made 10 gallons with only grape juice, and 10 gallons with both apple juice and grape juice. Same as last year then.
Here's this years recipes.
Recipe 1. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
5 Litres White Grape Juice. Asda, pressed, long life
5 Litres Red Grape Juice. Asda, pressed, chilled
5 Teaspoon Citric Acid
4 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
2.9 Kg Sugar
GV5 Yeast
Elderflowers, 3 litres.
OG 1071
Method
Same old same old, you've seen it many times before.
Collect flowers on a dry sunny day. Drop them into a plastic bag and tie it. Leave overnight. Next day shake the bag for 5-10 minutes. Flowers and pollen will drop off the sprays. If your brew isn;t ready for them then put the flowers/pollen in the freezer.
Dissolve sugar in hot water. Pour into fermenting bucket. Add fruit juices. Dissolve citric acid in a little water and add to bucket. Add yeast nutrient and water to make the volume upto 5 gallons. Measure gravity and record it. Stir vigorously or use a whisk. The aim is to get air dissolved in the must cos the yeast needs it at the budding (reproducing) stage. Then add the yeast.
Stir daily, briefly. After about 5-10 days decant into a fermenting barrel under airlock. Add the elderflowers (in muslin bags). Leave it be for a week or so. Adding flowers late is good for 2 reasons.
After another week or so, when the fermentation has slowed right down, remove the flowers and rack to demi-johns. Then leave it be and in 4-6 weeks it'll be bright, crisp, light, clear and ready to drink. Something like 10-11%ABV. Don't be tempted to make it stronger by adding more sugar, it'll take longer to age and won't be any better quality.
Recipe 2. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
The ingredients and quantities are exactly the same as the above recipe. With one exception the method is the same too. The exception is that when i decanted the wine (in recipe 1) into the fermenting barrel is used it's lees to start recipe 2. The lees is essentially just a ready made healthy yeast colony that is raring to get going!
Be sure that you don't add hot liquids to the lees, else it'll probably kill the yeast. And save yourself something like £1.00 in the process! Hey count the pennies and the £££'s take care of themselves.
Recipe 3. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
As for recipe 2, i.e. on the lees, but a few little changes, nothing to be confused by tho.
Original Gravity (OG) 1065
Due to not being able to find enough grape juice i used a mixture (50:50) of white grape juice (5 litres) and apple juice (5 litres). The apple juices were 3 litres of Rio D'oro and 2 litres of Fruit Hit. There's nothing special about these brands (well the latter is organic and fairtrade), any apple juice will do as long as it has no artificial additives. Artificial sweeteners will not ferment so if you a juice containing these you'll end up with disgusting sweet wine. Preservatives will probably prevent your wine from fermenting. Whether the juice is pure pressed or from concentrate is only of concern if you're of the opinion that fluoridated water is bad for you. Cos diluted concentrated juices will probably use tap water, i.e. fluoridated. But pure juice won't.
As a result of using apple juice you'll probably want to make another addition. Pectic enzyme (pectolase). Apples contain pectin, and this will make it most unlikely that you'll get a clear wine without some intervention. Pectin hazes are not easy to get rid of. Having said that there will be nothing wrong with the wine anyway, it's just that clear wine is easier on the eye. My pectolase was out of date, so i doubled the usual quantity i use. i used 10 teaspoons of it.
Also as a result of using apple juice i needed to add more sugar. This is because apple juice does not contain as much sugar as grape juice. i used 3.2 kg of sugar.
And finally i used 4 teaspoons of citric acid and 1 teaspoon of tartaric acid. i reckon the apple juice adds a little different flavour compared to grape juice alone. and as citric acid tastes like lemon juice i dropped some and added the clean tasting tartaric instead. It's the dominant acid in grape juice.
Recipe 4. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
As for recipe 3 but with 3.4 kg sugar added to raise the original gravity a little, to 1071.
BUT!!!! Something happened which resulted in an unintentional experiment. I forgot to take the elderflowers out of the secondary fermentation barrel when i went on holiday. It was some 5 weeks later that i removed them. and then another 2 weeks passed before i racked the wine. I feared that i had spoiled it with my forgetfulness. But I'm pleased to say that all worked out fine. This last batch has been ready to drink for 2 weeks and it's just fine. It was started on 30th June.
Summer time, seriously one of my strongest associations with summer is elderflowers. I love their smell and i love making wine with these delicious gifts of mother nature. As regular readers, or brewers who only come here for elderflower wine tips, you'll know that i made 20 gallons (120 bottles) last year. And this year was the same.
My plan was to use the quickie wine base, but only use grape juice (no apple juice). However there was a grape juice shortage in the UK. I thought it may have been a local issue, but a friend on the other side of the country had the same problem. The only supermarket stocking it in June was Asda. Not that i'm plugging Asda, my aim is to point you in their direction if the same problem occurs next year. So, as it turned out, i made 10 gallons with only grape juice, and 10 gallons with both apple juice and grape juice. Same as last year then.
Here's this years recipes.
Recipe 1. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
5 Litres White Grape Juice. Asda, pressed, long life
5 Litres Red Grape Juice. Asda, pressed, chilled
5 Teaspoon Citric Acid
4 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
2.9 Kg Sugar
GV5 Yeast
Elderflowers, 3 litres.
OG 1071
Method
Same old same old, you've seen it many times before.
Collect flowers on a dry sunny day. Drop them into a plastic bag and tie it. Leave overnight. Next day shake the bag for 5-10 minutes. Flowers and pollen will drop off the sprays. If your brew isn;t ready for them then put the flowers/pollen in the freezer.
Dissolve sugar in hot water. Pour into fermenting bucket. Add fruit juices. Dissolve citric acid in a little water and add to bucket. Add yeast nutrient and water to make the volume upto 5 gallons. Measure gravity and record it. Stir vigorously or use a whisk. The aim is to get air dissolved in the must cos the yeast needs it at the budding (reproducing) stage. Then add the yeast.
Stir daily, briefly. After about 5-10 days decant into a fermenting barrel under airlock. Add the elderflowers (in muslin bags). Leave it be for a week or so. Adding flowers late is good for 2 reasons.
- The early days of fermentation are very vigorous and it blows-off lots of the delicate elderflower flavours ... straight out of the airlock.
- The secondary fermentation stage is much gentler, and there is alcohol present. So you get better flavour extraction. And that means you need way less elderflowers, which means less time spent collecting and processing them.
After another week or so, when the fermentation has slowed right down, remove the flowers and rack to demi-johns. Then leave it be and in 4-6 weeks it'll be bright, crisp, light, clear and ready to drink. Something like 10-11%ABV. Don't be tempted to make it stronger by adding more sugar, it'll take longer to age and won't be any better quality.
Recipe 2. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
The ingredients and quantities are exactly the same as the above recipe. With one exception the method is the same too. The exception is that when i decanted the wine (in recipe 1) into the fermenting barrel is used it's lees to start recipe 2. The lees is essentially just a ready made healthy yeast colony that is raring to get going!
Be sure that you don't add hot liquids to the lees, else it'll probably kill the yeast. And save yourself something like £1.00 in the process! Hey count the pennies and the £££'s take care of themselves.
Recipe 3. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
As for recipe 2, i.e. on the lees, but a few little changes, nothing to be confused by tho.
Original Gravity (OG) 1065
Due to not being able to find enough grape juice i used a mixture (50:50) of white grape juice (5 litres) and apple juice (5 litres). The apple juices were 3 litres of Rio D'oro and 2 litres of Fruit Hit. There's nothing special about these brands (well the latter is organic and fairtrade), any apple juice will do as long as it has no artificial additives. Artificial sweeteners will not ferment so if you a juice containing these you'll end up with disgusting sweet wine. Preservatives will probably prevent your wine from fermenting. Whether the juice is pure pressed or from concentrate is only of concern if you're of the opinion that fluoridated water is bad for you. Cos diluted concentrated juices will probably use tap water, i.e. fluoridated. But pure juice won't.
As a result of using apple juice you'll probably want to make another addition. Pectic enzyme (pectolase). Apples contain pectin, and this will make it most unlikely that you'll get a clear wine without some intervention. Pectin hazes are not easy to get rid of. Having said that there will be nothing wrong with the wine anyway, it's just that clear wine is easier on the eye. My pectolase was out of date, so i doubled the usual quantity i use. i used 10 teaspoons of it.
Also as a result of using apple juice i needed to add more sugar. This is because apple juice does not contain as much sugar as grape juice. i used 3.2 kg of sugar.
And finally i used 4 teaspoons of citric acid and 1 teaspoon of tartaric acid. i reckon the apple juice adds a little different flavour compared to grape juice alone. and as citric acid tastes like lemon juice i dropped some and added the clean tasting tartaric instead. It's the dominant acid in grape juice.
Recipe 4. Elderflower wine. 5 gallons.
As for recipe 3 but with 3.4 kg sugar added to raise the original gravity a little, to 1071.
BUT!!!! Something happened which resulted in an unintentional experiment. I forgot to take the elderflowers out of the secondary fermentation barrel when i went on holiday. It was some 5 weeks later that i removed them. and then another 2 weeks passed before i racked the wine. I feared that i had spoiled it with my forgetfulness. But I'm pleased to say that all worked out fine. This last batch has been ready to drink for 2 weeks and it's just fine. It was started on 30th June.
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Recipe: Blackberry Wine 2014
I had a busy autumn and winter so the blackberries picked last year stayed in the freezer for an age. Mrs Critterwines had her patience tested while i dilly-dallied. But finally in mid March 2014 i got busy. I know one friend (hey Craig!) still has blackberries in the freezer and is going to make this wine, so i'll give a pretty much full account of the recipe and method i used. Also why i did stuff as i did. If you're new to making a fruit wine on the pulp then you'll appreciate this. If you're not new to fruit pulp wine making then bear with me, after all you probably only need the recipe, and that's coming first.
Recipe: 4 gallons.
7.550 Kg Blackberries (frozen)
4 Kg Sugar
5 Teaspoons Pectolase
3 Campden Tablets
1.5 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV1)
Water to make liquid volume to 4 gallons
OG 1091 (i'm expecting a wine around 13% ABV)
Note on Ingredients:
Blackberries - wash them to remove bugs, leaves, rotten fruit etc... drain them a while, bag them and tie up the bags. stick in your freezer. if the bags are likely to get encrusted in ice then weigh them first cos doing so afterwards will be a technical complexity that you won't want to be bothered with when you're ready to brew. You need to take notes like this because when you make a stunning wine you'll want to repeat it.
Sugar - no need for any fancy brewing sugar. plain white sugar does the job. I use silver spoon cos it's local. if i didn't use that i'd use something fair-trade. Some folk say that beet sugar (silverspoon) isn't as good as cane sugar, that it has a very slight earthy taste. Personally i can't tell the difference and i've been brewing for over 20 years, and have tried both extensively. if you're a reductionist materialist (i'm not) then you'll probably argue that they are chemically identical, so there would be no difference. if you're not then you'll have plenty of reasons for insisting it could make a difference. Tho that doesn't mean we can pick it up reliably. The debate will run on and on for some time.
Campden Tablets - These help with 2 things. First of all they'll stun any wild yeasts on the berries. This means your chosen yeast will be able to breed (bud) and establish a healthy colony before the wild yeasts come to. You want your yeast to do the fermenting, not take your chances with a wild yeast. More on this later in the yeast section. The second thing it does is a little chemistry. I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and they're not important. The effect is that it helps with something called esterification. ester are powerfully fruit smelling/tasting molecules. The molecules that gives pear drops or pineapple chunks their flavours are esters. Campden tablets release sulphites, probably the most common food preservative out there. Some people are sensitive to it, most are not. Using campden tablets at this stage of a fermentation (i.e. at the start) probably results in nothing detectable remaining when the wine is ready to bottle. This is about the only stage i use campden tablets at these days. But if you;re new to brewing then i recommend you use it when you bottle too. Most novice brewers bottle too soon at some stage and get exploding bottles or bottles popping their corks. Using campden tablets will reduce the risk of this happening, greatly.
Pectolase - This is an enzyme, a biological catalyst. It breaks down pectin which can cause you problems with getting your wine to clear properly. Lots of fruit has pectin in it and if clear wine maters to you then use it. You can leave this out if you're funny about adding chemicals, but you'll often end up with hazy wine. Personally i am funny about chemicals, but i still use pectolase.
Tartaric & Citric Acids - Acidity is one of the qualities of wine that makes it wine. Grapes are very acidic, most other fruits are not as acidic, so we need to add more to get that wine like feel and quality. Brewers have a limited choice of acids to add to their non-grape wines. Citric (lemons), Malic (Apples) and Tartaric (grapes). Citric tastes like lemons, malic is harsh tasting and doesn't taste like apple, tartaric is pretty much clean tasting. This means tartaric acid won't interfere with the flavour of your wine, which can be important. But sometimes the lemon flavour of citric acid enhances the other flavours.
Personally i like lemon with blackberry, so i use more citric than any other acid. If you're into natural acids then the juice of one lemon is roughly equivalent to 1 teaspoon of citric acid.
Yeast Nutrient - yeast is a complex little critter and we don't know much about it at all. However we know that it needs more than sugar to be happy and healthy. One of the things it needs is nutrients. Grapes have plenty of yeast's favourite nutrients, but other fruits don't. So we have to give them a boost. Yeast nutrient contains some minerals but also vitamins. More expensive nutrients will smell a bit like marmite cos they have lots of B vitamins in them. The one i use is getting into the more expensive options. And don't worry, that strong B vitamin smell won't be in your wine. The yeast will gobble up all those vitamins.
Yeast - One of the most important choices you'll make when it comes to making wine. I chose to use GV1 (Gervin number 1) because i've used it before and i'm always happy with the results. The reason i chose it first time around was because it's low foaming (won't make a foamy head which invariably oozes out of fermenting bins and/or clogs up airlocks and is generally a pain to deal with). It's also a quick starter, which means that you'll soon see signs of fermentation. and thats good because the faster it gets going the less chance there is of your wine getting infected with a wild yeast. And it also ferments down to lower temperatures than many other yeasts. Great if you're fermenting in a cool room in the winter! Yeast strains usually come with a simple description of what they are good for. i.e red wines, white wines, low foaming, temperature range, acid metabolising or not, alcohol tolerance and so on. Picking one is quite easy. Just read the packet, you'll look like you know what you're doing even if you don't, and the descriptions really are very simple to follow.
A word on wild yeasts. Many novice brewers, especially those who are suspicious of food additives and so on, want to brew with a wild yeast, the yeast naturally present on the fruit. It sounds great and i'm sure there are plenty of commercial wine-makers doing this. However, those wine makers are in the business of ensuring that they get the desired yeast on their grapes. I don't know how they do it but i wouldn't be surprised if there were chemicals involved. Most importantly they know that any old random wild yeast is not the way to make good tasting wine. Candida is a natural yeast after all.
The reason it matters is that yeast doesn't only make alcohol and carbon dioxide. it's a little living critter of some sort (no-one knows precisely what it is!) and makes other waste products. some of which taste good, some don't. different strains make different products. Added to that is the fact that at different temperatures the same yeast will make different products. And different yeast strains have different alcohol tolerances. Ones that tolerate alcohol levels up to around 13% are not particularly common in nature. That's wine territory, so if your yeast will not tolerate alcohol above 5% then you won't get wine strength, you get beer strength. and chances are you added enough sugar to make wine. so you'll end up with a sweet fruit juice with some token alcohol content.
So combining the lack of control (through not knowing your yeast strain) over by-products, temperature requirements and alcohol tolerance means you're definitely shooting blind. If you don't mind this then go for it. Know tho that the chances of repeating a fortunate success are very slim. Natural yeast populations will vary year on year. I should add that if you go the wild yeast route you will almost certainly still like your wine. That's one of the joys of wine-making, even a failure is passable quality for the home-brewer, especially the novice or dabbler. But when you brew plenty, over many years, then you will wonder what you ever saw in those early brews when you didn't take advice. On the other hand if you want to make a wine that is fully natural and removed from artificial chemical or biochemical ingredients and processes then you have to go for it. You'll probably end up fermenting with honey, which i haven't done. Good luck with that journey, it's a whole other specialist world and if you want to try it then this blog won't help you.
Method:
Day 1 - Before bed remove your blackberries from the freezer and allow them to defrost overnight. pic below shows frozen berries in 5 gallon bucket, with my hand for scale.
.jpg)
Day 2 - unwrap the berries and tip them into a big container. mash them with a potato masher of your bare, washed, hands. do it til you're bored stiff. the more you do it the better. it may take 15 -30 minutes
for a few kgs. Don't be tempted to use a blender. you could split seeds and these have a strong bitter flavour which you won't want in your wine.
Once thoroughly mashed to pulp tip into your super clean fermenting bucket. Add crushed campden tablets, pectolase, sugar (dissolved in water). Stir well, cover and leave overnight. this is the stage when natural yeasts will be stunned by the sulphites (they be dozy from just coming out of the freezer anyway!). and the pectolase will start working on the pectin.
Day 3 - Add tartaric and citric acids, dissolved in water. Also yeast nutrient (quantity according to instructions on the packet). Then add water to what you think will make about 4 gallons of liquid. If your vessel has marking on it then i'd take it up to 4.5 gallons cos the berries take up room and will be removed eventually. Stir it very well, and even use a whisk to make sure that you get plenty of air dissolved in the liquid, like beating eggs. Yeast needs oxygen to reproduce (bud). And the sloshy stirring will also drive off sulphites, giving your yeast the best chance to make a flying start. Measure the gravity with a hydrometer and record it. Then add the yeast, cover and leave overnight.
From here on you may want to stir the must, sloshily, one a day for the next 3 or 4 days. Especially if the fermentation hasn't started. But aside from that keep it covered.
Day 8-10 - Decant or siphon your wine into a secondary fermentation vessel, fitted with an airlock. Leave as much pulp behind as you can. Do it gently cos there will be a lot of sediment in the primary fermentation vessel. thats the one that you started your wine in. You want to leave most of that sediment behind because there's lots of dead yeast in it. Make sure the airlock is fitted properly. Forget about your brew. It may ferment for a week longer, or maybe a few weeks.
Finishing off
When it's finished fermenting rack the wine into demijohns, with airlocks. Leave as much sediment in the secondary vessel as you possibly can. Your wine is now in the conditioning stage, and it does need that time. The flavour will be much better if you leave it for some months. You really don't have to do anything else, but you may want to do some other things.
1. You may want to degas the wine. This will help the wine to clear. dissolved carbon dioxide adds to the density of water, and this will make it a little harder for particles to drop and form a sediment. Suspended particles are what stops your wine from clearing of course. If you don't degas then your wine may have a slight fizz to it, called a frizz. Personally i like it in rose and white wine, but don't with reds. so i degas reds, and this is a red.
2. You may want to stabilise your wine chemically. i.e. add campden tablets (1 per gallon) and potassium sorbate (1 teaspoon per gallon). The former will stun any still living yeasts. The latter will stop yeast from budding. Both are common food additives but some folk don't like consuming them. These additions pretty much guarantee that there will be no further fermentation. Which is reassuring when it comes to bottling. These days i rarely use them.
3. If your wine doesn't clear after a few months then you have some options. First for me is degassing. If that doesn't work then i stabilise. If that doesn't work then i wait til winter and put the demi-johns outside on a cold night. sometimes the cold will make suspended particles drop to form a sediment. If it still doesn't work then i usually just put it away and forget about it for a couple of years. but you could try using finings. I've had success with chitin based finings (source: shellfish). You can also get gelatin based finings (source: pigs skin usually i think). Or you could try Irish moss (seaweed). Personally i wouldn't bother with trying anything else. Bentonite (clay) is good when used at the start of a fermentation, but at the end it can strip lots of flavour and colour too. You can also try filtering, but it's a bit fiddly unless you have an uber kitchen with lots of space.
Bottling
Once your wine is at least 6 months old, but preferably a year, then you can bottle it. Tho don;t bottle it unless you want to drink it or need the demi-johns for making more wine. Before you bottle it measure the gravity. it should be low. like 990 - 998. if it's higher than this then you have residual sugar and there's a chance your fermentation will start again in the bottle. if you stabilised this won;t happen. but if you didn't then its not worth risking bottling. exploding bottles are no joke. if you must bottle use corks, at least there's a chance to release the pressure if it does start fermenting. don't use screw caps, they won't blow. If you must use screw caps then use plastic bottles cos they won't explode, they'll expand massively before they pop. but storing wine in plastic for a long time is not a good idea.
And that's all folks, it was a long one. But it's good to go deep from time to time.
EDIT: Drinking it, 6 months later.
So time has passed and the wine is ready, properly ready. deliciously blackberry, will mellow around the edges a little with time. i.e. it's a bit sharp, but it's just balance cos it's not an all round big wine, so it won't do your stomach in! That's just my opinion tho, Mrs Critter Wines doesn't agree, and neither do other folk who've tried it.
Many brewers pretty much dismiss a straight blackberry wine, saying that elderberries improve it. Well it depends on your tastes to be honest. If you only like a big bodied red wine then go with elderberries. But if you also enjoy something a little subtler then give this a try sometime. I enjoy both, depends on my mood, food etc. And sometimes i just want a drink so anything will do!
Blackberries foraged in autumn 2013, with some ale sampling as a reward. Mrs critterwines almost features, but doesn't want to be a celebrity ;-)
Recipe: 4 gallons.
7.550 Kg Blackberries (frozen)
4 Kg Sugar
5 Teaspoons Pectolase
3 Campden Tablets
1.5 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV1)
Water to make liquid volume to 4 gallons
OG 1091 (i'm expecting a wine around 13% ABV)
Frozen blackberries, bagged
Blackberries - wash them to remove bugs, leaves, rotten fruit etc... drain them a while, bag them and tie up the bags. stick in your freezer. if the bags are likely to get encrusted in ice then weigh them first cos doing so afterwards will be a technical complexity that you won't want to be bothered with when you're ready to brew. You need to take notes like this because when you make a stunning wine you'll want to repeat it.
Sugar - no need for any fancy brewing sugar. plain white sugar does the job. I use silver spoon cos it's local. if i didn't use that i'd use something fair-trade. Some folk say that beet sugar (silverspoon) isn't as good as cane sugar, that it has a very slight earthy taste. Personally i can't tell the difference and i've been brewing for over 20 years, and have tried both extensively. if you're a reductionist materialist (i'm not) then you'll probably argue that they are chemically identical, so there would be no difference. if you're not then you'll have plenty of reasons for insisting it could make a difference. Tho that doesn't mean we can pick it up reliably. The debate will run on and on for some time.
Campden Tablets - These help with 2 things. First of all they'll stun any wild yeasts on the berries. This means your chosen yeast will be able to breed (bud) and establish a healthy colony before the wild yeasts come to. You want your yeast to do the fermenting, not take your chances with a wild yeast. More on this later in the yeast section. The second thing it does is a little chemistry. I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and they're not important. The effect is that it helps with something called esterification. ester are powerfully fruit smelling/tasting molecules. The molecules that gives pear drops or pineapple chunks their flavours are esters. Campden tablets release sulphites, probably the most common food preservative out there. Some people are sensitive to it, most are not. Using campden tablets at this stage of a fermentation (i.e. at the start) probably results in nothing detectable remaining when the wine is ready to bottle. This is about the only stage i use campden tablets at these days. But if you;re new to brewing then i recommend you use it when you bottle too. Most novice brewers bottle too soon at some stage and get exploding bottles or bottles popping their corks. Using campden tablets will reduce the risk of this happening, greatly.
Pectolase - This is an enzyme, a biological catalyst. It breaks down pectin which can cause you problems with getting your wine to clear properly. Lots of fruit has pectin in it and if clear wine maters to you then use it. You can leave this out if you're funny about adding chemicals, but you'll often end up with hazy wine. Personally i am funny about chemicals, but i still use pectolase.
Tartaric & Citric Acids - Acidity is one of the qualities of wine that makes it wine. Grapes are very acidic, most other fruits are not as acidic, so we need to add more to get that wine like feel and quality. Brewers have a limited choice of acids to add to their non-grape wines. Citric (lemons), Malic (Apples) and Tartaric (grapes). Citric tastes like lemons, malic is harsh tasting and doesn't taste like apple, tartaric is pretty much clean tasting. This means tartaric acid won't interfere with the flavour of your wine, which can be important. But sometimes the lemon flavour of citric acid enhances the other flavours.
Personally i like lemon with blackberry, so i use more citric than any other acid. If you're into natural acids then the juice of one lemon is roughly equivalent to 1 teaspoon of citric acid.
Yeast Nutrient - yeast is a complex little critter and we don't know much about it at all. However we know that it needs more than sugar to be happy and healthy. One of the things it needs is nutrients. Grapes have plenty of yeast's favourite nutrients, but other fruits don't. So we have to give them a boost. Yeast nutrient contains some minerals but also vitamins. More expensive nutrients will smell a bit like marmite cos they have lots of B vitamins in them. The one i use is getting into the more expensive options. And don't worry, that strong B vitamin smell won't be in your wine. The yeast will gobble up all those vitamins.
Yeast - One of the most important choices you'll make when it comes to making wine. I chose to use GV1 (Gervin number 1) because i've used it before and i'm always happy with the results. The reason i chose it first time around was because it's low foaming (won't make a foamy head which invariably oozes out of fermenting bins and/or clogs up airlocks and is generally a pain to deal with). It's also a quick starter, which means that you'll soon see signs of fermentation. and thats good because the faster it gets going the less chance there is of your wine getting infected with a wild yeast. And it also ferments down to lower temperatures than many other yeasts. Great if you're fermenting in a cool room in the winter! Yeast strains usually come with a simple description of what they are good for. i.e red wines, white wines, low foaming, temperature range, acid metabolising or not, alcohol tolerance and so on. Picking one is quite easy. Just read the packet, you'll look like you know what you're doing even if you don't, and the descriptions really are very simple to follow.
A word on wild yeasts. Many novice brewers, especially those who are suspicious of food additives and so on, want to brew with a wild yeast, the yeast naturally present on the fruit. It sounds great and i'm sure there are plenty of commercial wine-makers doing this. However, those wine makers are in the business of ensuring that they get the desired yeast on their grapes. I don't know how they do it but i wouldn't be surprised if there were chemicals involved. Most importantly they know that any old random wild yeast is not the way to make good tasting wine. Candida is a natural yeast after all.
The reason it matters is that yeast doesn't only make alcohol and carbon dioxide. it's a little living critter of some sort (no-one knows precisely what it is!) and makes other waste products. some of which taste good, some don't. different strains make different products. Added to that is the fact that at different temperatures the same yeast will make different products. And different yeast strains have different alcohol tolerances. Ones that tolerate alcohol levels up to around 13% are not particularly common in nature. That's wine territory, so if your yeast will not tolerate alcohol above 5% then you won't get wine strength, you get beer strength. and chances are you added enough sugar to make wine. so you'll end up with a sweet fruit juice with some token alcohol content.
So combining the lack of control (through not knowing your yeast strain) over by-products, temperature requirements and alcohol tolerance means you're definitely shooting blind. If you don't mind this then go for it. Know tho that the chances of repeating a fortunate success are very slim. Natural yeast populations will vary year on year. I should add that if you go the wild yeast route you will almost certainly still like your wine. That's one of the joys of wine-making, even a failure is passable quality for the home-brewer, especially the novice or dabbler. But when you brew plenty, over many years, then you will wonder what you ever saw in those early brews when you didn't take advice. On the other hand if you want to make a wine that is fully natural and removed from artificial chemical or biochemical ingredients and processes then you have to go for it. You'll probably end up fermenting with honey, which i haven't done. Good luck with that journey, it's a whole other specialist world and if you want to try it then this blog won't help you.
Method:
Day 1 - Before bed remove your blackberries from the freezer and allow them to defrost overnight. pic below shows frozen berries in 5 gallon bucket, with my hand for scale.
for a few kgs. Don't be tempted to use a blender. you could split seeds and these have a strong bitter flavour which you won't want in your wine.
Once thoroughly mashed to pulp tip into your super clean fermenting bucket. Add crushed campden tablets, pectolase, sugar (dissolved in water). Stir well, cover and leave overnight. this is the stage when natural yeasts will be stunned by the sulphites (they be dozy from just coming out of the freezer anyway!). and the pectolase will start working on the pectin.
Day 3 - Add tartaric and citric acids, dissolved in water. Also yeast nutrient (quantity according to instructions on the packet). Then add water to what you think will make about 4 gallons of liquid. If your vessel has marking on it then i'd take it up to 4.5 gallons cos the berries take up room and will be removed eventually. Stir it very well, and even use a whisk to make sure that you get plenty of air dissolved in the liquid, like beating eggs. Yeast needs oxygen to reproduce (bud). And the sloshy stirring will also drive off sulphites, giving your yeast the best chance to make a flying start. Measure the gravity with a hydrometer and record it. Then add the yeast, cover and leave overnight.
From here on you may want to stir the must, sloshily, one a day for the next 3 or 4 days. Especially if the fermentation hasn't started. But aside from that keep it covered.
Day 8-10 - Decant or siphon your wine into a secondary fermentation vessel, fitted with an airlock. Leave as much pulp behind as you can. Do it gently cos there will be a lot of sediment in the primary fermentation vessel. thats the one that you started your wine in. You want to leave most of that sediment behind because there's lots of dead yeast in it. Make sure the airlock is fitted properly. Forget about your brew. It may ferment for a week longer, or maybe a few weeks.
Finishing off
When it's finished fermenting rack the wine into demijohns, with airlocks. Leave as much sediment in the secondary vessel as you possibly can. Your wine is now in the conditioning stage, and it does need that time. The flavour will be much better if you leave it for some months. You really don't have to do anything else, but you may want to do some other things.
1. You may want to degas the wine. This will help the wine to clear. dissolved carbon dioxide adds to the density of water, and this will make it a little harder for particles to drop and form a sediment. Suspended particles are what stops your wine from clearing of course. If you don't degas then your wine may have a slight fizz to it, called a frizz. Personally i like it in rose and white wine, but don't with reds. so i degas reds, and this is a red.
2. You may want to stabilise your wine chemically. i.e. add campden tablets (1 per gallon) and potassium sorbate (1 teaspoon per gallon). The former will stun any still living yeasts. The latter will stop yeast from budding. Both are common food additives but some folk don't like consuming them. These additions pretty much guarantee that there will be no further fermentation. Which is reassuring when it comes to bottling. These days i rarely use them.
3. If your wine doesn't clear after a few months then you have some options. First for me is degassing. If that doesn't work then i stabilise. If that doesn't work then i wait til winter and put the demi-johns outside on a cold night. sometimes the cold will make suspended particles drop to form a sediment. If it still doesn't work then i usually just put it away and forget about it for a couple of years. but you could try using finings. I've had success with chitin based finings (source: shellfish). You can also get gelatin based finings (source: pigs skin usually i think). Or you could try Irish moss (seaweed). Personally i wouldn't bother with trying anything else. Bentonite (clay) is good when used at the start of a fermentation, but at the end it can strip lots of flavour and colour too. You can also try filtering, but it's a bit fiddly unless you have an uber kitchen with lots of space.
Bottling
Once your wine is at least 6 months old, but preferably a year, then you can bottle it. Tho don;t bottle it unless you want to drink it or need the demi-johns for making more wine. Before you bottle it measure the gravity. it should be low. like 990 - 998. if it's higher than this then you have residual sugar and there's a chance your fermentation will start again in the bottle. if you stabilised this won;t happen. but if you didn't then its not worth risking bottling. exploding bottles are no joke. if you must bottle use corks, at least there's a chance to release the pressure if it does start fermenting. don't use screw caps, they won't blow. If you must use screw caps then use plastic bottles cos they won't explode, they'll expand massively before they pop. but storing wine in plastic for a long time is not a good idea.
And that's all folks, it was a long one. But it's good to go deep from time to time.
EDIT: Drinking it, 6 months later.
So time has passed and the wine is ready, properly ready. deliciously blackberry, will mellow around the edges a little with time. i.e. it's a bit sharp, but it's just balance cos it's not an all round big wine, so it won't do your stomach in! That's just my opinion tho, Mrs Critter Wines doesn't agree, and neither do other folk who've tried it.
Many brewers pretty much dismiss a straight blackberry wine, saying that elderberries improve it. Well it depends on your tastes to be honest. If you only like a big bodied red wine then go with elderberries. But if you also enjoy something a little subtler then give this a try sometime. I enjoy both, depends on my mood, food etc. And sometimes i just want a drink so anything will do!
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Brief Update on December's Wines.
I've got a few "new" recipes to add, and i'll get around to that soon, but first a brief update on the wines i made in december 2013. Most of them were quickies, so me and mrs critterwines have been enjoying them for some months.
Cranberry & Blueberry: bit of an old faithful of a wine, and again turned out predictably delicious and easy drinking. No wonder i keep making it, and no wonder mrs CW keeps asking for it.
Passion Fruit: I hadn't tried this before, but wish i had. Its definitely our favourite quickie of the brews i'll be mentioning in this entry. Of all my brews only elderflower is more delicious. This is a quickie wine you must try. Stick to the recipe and method, don't be tempted to make it stronger by using more sugar. make sure that half your juice is grape juice (red or white, your choice).
Cherry: Hadn't tried this one before either. It's as good quality as the blueberry & cranberry tho doesn't have the crisp edge that probably comes from the cranberries. Still, i'll make it again i'm sure.
Sorrel: Another one i hadn't tried before and will repeat. It's very good. The wine is a little more grown up then either the cherry or the cranberry & blueberry. a little extra astringency is what i think does it. But it's pretty similar to both of them otherwise. I'm tempted to play with this a little more, make it a tonic kind of wine cos sorrel has health benefits. so i'm thinking ginger would probably go well with it for example.
Lemon Balm: I used the quickie base for this wine and the results are fine but not what i expected. The flavour of the lemon balm didn't really come out. My guess is that picking it in winter was bound to have this result. Regardless i have a very pleasant white table wine. When i bottled the second gallon i stuck a sprig of lemon balm in each bottle. It helped to infuse some flavour after a few days, and the bottles look beautiful. However the flavour was still delicate. When i bottle the last gallon i'll try 2 or 3 sprigs per bottle. ... and look out for ladybird grubs on the leaves, found one in an empty bottle! There's worse ways to go i guess.
Really you can't go wrong picking any of these brews. so pick which one floats your boat going on intuition and/or what you like the sound of and/or your own tastes, favourites etc. If you're really stuck, spoiled for choice perhaps, then go for the passion fruit. Or go with your budget, what juices are available and in your price range.
Cranberry & Blueberry: bit of an old faithful of a wine, and again turned out predictably delicious and easy drinking. No wonder i keep making it, and no wonder mrs CW keeps asking for it.
Passion Fruit: I hadn't tried this before, but wish i had. Its definitely our favourite quickie of the brews i'll be mentioning in this entry. Of all my brews only elderflower is more delicious. This is a quickie wine you must try. Stick to the recipe and method, don't be tempted to make it stronger by using more sugar. make sure that half your juice is grape juice (red or white, your choice).
Cherry: Hadn't tried this one before either. It's as good quality as the blueberry & cranberry tho doesn't have the crisp edge that probably comes from the cranberries. Still, i'll make it again i'm sure.
Sorrel: Another one i hadn't tried before and will repeat. It's very good. The wine is a little more grown up then either the cherry or the cranberry & blueberry. a little extra astringency is what i think does it. But it's pretty similar to both of them otherwise. I'm tempted to play with this a little more, make it a tonic kind of wine cos sorrel has health benefits. so i'm thinking ginger would probably go well with it for example.
Lemon Balm: I used the quickie base for this wine and the results are fine but not what i expected. The flavour of the lemon balm didn't really come out. My guess is that picking it in winter was bound to have this result. Regardless i have a very pleasant white table wine. When i bottled the second gallon i stuck a sprig of lemon balm in each bottle. It helped to infuse some flavour after a few days, and the bottles look beautiful. However the flavour was still delicate. When i bottle the last gallon i'll try 2 or 3 sprigs per bottle. ... and look out for ladybird grubs on the leaves, found one in an empty bottle! There's worse ways to go i guess.
Really you can't go wrong picking any of these brews. so pick which one floats your boat going on intuition and/or what you like the sound of and/or your own tastes, favourites etc. If you're really stuck, spoiled for choice perhaps, then go for the passion fruit. Or go with your budget, what juices are available and in your price range.
Thursday, 23 January 2014
It's 2014, what's in store this year?
Time flies, like a banana, so a funny someone said.
I'm looking forward to this year's brews. Partly because i failed in my mission to make 50 gallons last year, but i succeeded in making a number of new wines. Well, they were new for me anyway.
The two most recent recipes were done in December, it's just taken me a while to write them up. Life is getting busier and busier! I had planned on getting about 6 gallons of blackberry wine on the go too, but it just didn't happen. So sometime soon I'll be starting those brews. Nice way to start the year with a pulp wine or two. And we'll get half our freezer space back again, which will please Mrs Critter Wines no end!
We're also in parsnip season, and i just bottled the last gallon of the tanglefoot i made back in 2010. It is utterly delicious now, very grown up taste tho. Herby, grassy and a little earthy. arrggh that means a long wait for the next batch. I must keep my eye on the ball so i don't leave it so long next time.
Feel free to let me know how your brews go, if you followed the recipes strictly (recommended for quickie wines, tho you can use your choice of the 2nd juice, keep the grape juice tho). And likewise if you tweak the recipes for other wines, which i also recommend. It's good to experiment (and keep notes!), personalise your wines, our tastes will be different after-all.
Finally, clicking the donate button (on the right) will make me happy. But only if you can afford it and my blog has been useful. Think of it like this, if i chatted my blog to you in a pub would you buy me an appreciative pint? A virtual pint is almost as good.
All the best in the year ahead for making delicious country wine.
I'm looking forward to this year's brews. Partly because i failed in my mission to make 50 gallons last year, but i succeeded in making a number of new wines. Well, they were new for me anyway.
The two most recent recipes were done in December, it's just taken me a while to write them up. Life is getting busier and busier! I had planned on getting about 6 gallons of blackberry wine on the go too, but it just didn't happen. So sometime soon I'll be starting those brews. Nice way to start the year with a pulp wine or two. And we'll get half our freezer space back again, which will please Mrs Critter Wines no end!
We're also in parsnip season, and i just bottled the last gallon of the tanglefoot i made back in 2010. It is utterly delicious now, very grown up taste tho. Herby, grassy and a little earthy. arrggh that means a long wait for the next batch. I must keep my eye on the ball so i don't leave it so long next time.
Feel free to let me know how your brews go, if you followed the recipes strictly (recommended for quickie wines, tho you can use your choice of the 2nd juice, keep the grape juice tho). And likewise if you tweak the recipes for other wines, which i also recommend. It's good to experiment (and keep notes!), personalise your wines, our tastes will be different after-all.
Finally, clicking the donate button (on the right) will make me happy. But only if you can afford it and my blog has been useful. Think of it like this, if i chatted my blog to you in a pub would you buy me an appreciative pint? A virtual pint is almost as good.
All the best in the year ahead for making delicious country wine.
Recipe: Lemon Balm Wine, quickie
I've haven't tried making this wine before, but have masses of lemon balm in the garden. It's easy to grow and winter doesn't bother it, it just slows right down. I think it's a member of the mint family ... so be warned, it could take over if you decide to plant it in your garden! As well as being an ingredient in a country wine it also makes a good insect repellent, just rip off some leaves and rub on your exposed skin.
Winter probably isn't the best time to give it a go, the herbs smell much more potent in summer. But i reckon i'll get a subtle wine doing it now. I've stuck to two principles, the quickie wine method. It's such a good base that it's pretty much a no brainer to use it when it comes to trying something new that is effectively an infusion. Using lemon balm leaves need be little different to the method I use for elderflowers.
On that note the other principle is late addition, i.e. adding the leaves late. It's not only economical as you need less leaves (the flavour extraction is improved) but also less of the flavour is blown out of the must during vigorous primary fermentation. So you maintain a full range of flavours, the more volatile molecules staying dissolved.
So the recipe!
Recipe: 3 Gallons
3 Litres White Grape Juice (Rio D'Oro)
3 Litres Apple Juice (Fruit Hit, fairtrade)
2 Kg Sugar
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
3 Teaspoons Pectolase
1 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11, Lees from Sorrel wine)
70g Lemon Balm Leaves
OG 1074
Piccie time, it takes a lot of leaves to tip the scales. This was about all the vibrant leaves from our lemon balm patch in december. The rest looked a bit tried and didn't have much smell. So the haul was smaller than i would have liked, we'll see how it works out in a few more weeks.
Method:
It's the same as any generic quickie wine. Keep the gravity low (1070-1080 is fine), lower probably better. We're aiming to keep the alcohol content, acidity, body etc in balance. Which means rapid conditioning so you can drink your table wine quality homebrew in 8 weeks from start-up. If you up the alcohol content then you need to up everything else, and then you need to wait months or years before it's worth drinking.
So dissolve your sugar in a pan of water on the stove. While that's happening pour the fruit juices into your fermenting bin, add the acid, pectolase and yeast nutrient. Allow the sugar solution to cool then add to the fermenting bin. If you don't let it cool then you will probably kill the yeast in the fermenting bin. That's assuming you're doing a fermentation on the lees of the previous brew. If you're not then make sure the must is cool enough before adding the yeast. Make up to 3 gallons with cold water.
Give it all a good sloshy stir, record the specific gravity, cover. You probably won't need to stir it daily because the yeast in the lees will be a big healthy colony. So after a few days (5-7 ish) transfer your must to a secondary fermenter fitted with an airlock.
Then add the lemon balm leaves in a muslin bag. I put the bagged leaves into a pan containing a little water and brought it to the boil. Then added a little sugar to make a solution roughly equal in gravity to the original must. Then added the bagged leaves and sugar solution. It was probably only a litre of liquid with about 230g of added sugar.
Now follow the normal procedure, remove leaves and rack to demi-johns after a week or so, ideally. I got forgetful and took them out 2 weeks after adding them! I think i got away with it cos all smelled fine in the secondary fermenter and there was no visual signs of anything being wrong. Stabilise etc when the time is right.
Verdict:
It's now December 2015, 2 years since making this wine and we've just popped the cork on the last full bottle. WOW!
I think i've said many times that a quickie wine won't improve with any aging over 1 year, but this one has. Perhaps it's the post-fermentation infusion that makes it the exception to the rule. So let me tell you about it.
First impression is a little complex, but if you drink it in company then discussion will soon simplify it. What me and the Mrs quickly agreed on was a grown-up wine. It has fruitiness (i think tinned peaches and/or lychees, the former is something you'll smell). It's also medium sweet, very unexpected, with a herby base, and has a lovely roundedness, a slight syrup feel.
So, i gotta make more next year (2016) and then wait 2 years for it. I think the quality of the apple juice may be a crucial factor, also the yeast. So repeating those ingredients is a must. That could be tricky if the juice is a blend of apples ... but perhaps the good folks at "fruit hit" employ a jedi master blender.
Make this wine if you like your whites grown up and complex. And by the way growing lemon balm is a breeze seeing as it's mint family. 2 years on and it's well established in one part of our garden, needs no caring for but lots of cutting back cos it's so vigourous.
Winter probably isn't the best time to give it a go, the herbs smell much more potent in summer. But i reckon i'll get a subtle wine doing it now. I've stuck to two principles, the quickie wine method. It's such a good base that it's pretty much a no brainer to use it when it comes to trying something new that is effectively an infusion. Using lemon balm leaves need be little different to the method I use for elderflowers.
On that note the other principle is late addition, i.e. adding the leaves late. It's not only economical as you need less leaves (the flavour extraction is improved) but also less of the flavour is blown out of the must during vigorous primary fermentation. So you maintain a full range of flavours, the more volatile molecules staying dissolved.
So the recipe!
Recipe: 3 Gallons
3 Litres White Grape Juice (Rio D'Oro)
3 Litres Apple Juice (Fruit Hit, fairtrade)
2 Kg Sugar
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
3 Teaspoons Pectolase
1 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11, Lees from Sorrel wine)
70g Lemon Balm Leaves
OG 1074
Piccie time, it takes a lot of leaves to tip the scales. This was about all the vibrant leaves from our lemon balm patch in december. The rest looked a bit tried and didn't have much smell. So the haul was smaller than i would have liked, we'll see how it works out in a few more weeks.
Method:
It's the same as any generic quickie wine. Keep the gravity low (1070-1080 is fine), lower probably better. We're aiming to keep the alcohol content, acidity, body etc in balance. Which means rapid conditioning so you can drink your table wine quality homebrew in 8 weeks from start-up. If you up the alcohol content then you need to up everything else, and then you need to wait months or years before it's worth drinking.
So dissolve your sugar in a pan of water on the stove. While that's happening pour the fruit juices into your fermenting bin, add the acid, pectolase and yeast nutrient. Allow the sugar solution to cool then add to the fermenting bin. If you don't let it cool then you will probably kill the yeast in the fermenting bin. That's assuming you're doing a fermentation on the lees of the previous brew. If you're not then make sure the must is cool enough before adding the yeast. Make up to 3 gallons with cold water.
Give it all a good sloshy stir, record the specific gravity, cover. You probably won't need to stir it daily because the yeast in the lees will be a big healthy colony. So after a few days (5-7 ish) transfer your must to a secondary fermenter fitted with an airlock.
Then add the lemon balm leaves in a muslin bag. I put the bagged leaves into a pan containing a little water and brought it to the boil. Then added a little sugar to make a solution roughly equal in gravity to the original must. Then added the bagged leaves and sugar solution. It was probably only a litre of liquid with about 230g of added sugar.
Now follow the normal procedure, remove leaves and rack to demi-johns after a week or so, ideally. I got forgetful and took them out 2 weeks after adding them! I think i got away with it cos all smelled fine in the secondary fermenter and there was no visual signs of anything being wrong. Stabilise etc when the time is right.
Verdict:
It's now December 2015, 2 years since making this wine and we've just popped the cork on the last full bottle. WOW!
I think i've said many times that a quickie wine won't improve with any aging over 1 year, but this one has. Perhaps it's the post-fermentation infusion that makes it the exception to the rule. So let me tell you about it.
First impression is a little complex, but if you drink it in company then discussion will soon simplify it. What me and the Mrs quickly agreed on was a grown-up wine. It has fruitiness (i think tinned peaches and/or lychees, the former is something you'll smell). It's also medium sweet, very unexpected, with a herby base, and has a lovely roundedness, a slight syrup feel.
So, i gotta make more next year (2016) and then wait 2 years for it. I think the quality of the apple juice may be a crucial factor, also the yeast. So repeating those ingredients is a must. That could be tricky if the juice is a blend of apples ... but perhaps the good folks at "fruit hit" employ a jedi master blender.
Make this wine if you like your whites grown up and complex. And by the way growing lemon balm is a breeze seeing as it's mint family. 2 years on and it's well established in one part of our garden, needs no caring for but lots of cutting back cos it's so vigourous.
Recipe: Sorrel Wine, quickie
I've never tried making this wine before, but have long fancied giving it a try. As a result you'll have to wait a while for me to report back on how it turns out. I've stuck to two principles tho, first the quickie wine method. It's such a good base that it's pretty much a no brainer to use it when it comes to trying something new that is effectively an infusion. Using sorrel flowers need be little different to the method I use for elderflowers.
On that note the other principle is late addition, i.e. adding the flowers late. It's not only economical as you need less flowers (the flavour extraction is improved) but also less flavour is blown out of the must during the vigorous primary fermentation stage. So you maintain a greater range of flavours, the more volatile molecules staying dissolved.
Onwards then, the recipe!
Recipe: 3 Gallons
3 Litres White Grape Juice (Rio D'Oro)
3 Litres Apple Juice (Rio D'Oro)
2.1 Kg Sugar
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
3 Teaspoons Pectolase
1 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11, Lees from Green Tea and Ginger)
50g Sorrel Flowers
OG 1075
Method:
It's the same as any generic quickie wine. Keep the gravity low (1070-1080 is fine), lower probably better. We're aiming to keep the alcohol content, acidity, body etc in balance. Which means rapid conditioning so you can drink your table wine quality homebrew in 8 weeks from start-up. If you up the alcohol content then you need to up everything else, and then you need to wait months or years before it's worth drinking.
So dissolve your sugar in a pan of water on the stove. While that's happening pour the fruit juices into your fermenting bin, add the acid, pectolase and yeast nutrient. Allow the sugar solution to cool then add to the fermenting bin. If you don't let it cool then you will probably kill the yeast in the fermenting bin. That's assuming you're doing a fermentation on the lees of the previous brew. If you're not then make sure the must is cool enough before adding the yeast. Make up to 3 gallons with cold water.
Give it all a good sloshy stir, record the specific gravity, cover. You probably won't need to stir it daily because the yeast in the lees will be a big healthy colony. So after a few days (5-7 ish) transfer your must to a secondary fermenter fitted with an airlock. Then add the sorrel flowers in a muslin bag. I put the bagged flowers into a pan containing a little water and brought it to the boil. Then added a little sugar to make a solution roughly equal in gravity to the original must. Then added the bagged flowers and sugar solution to the must. It was roughly a litre of water with 230g of added sugar.
Now follow the normal procedure, remove flowers and rack to demi-johns after a week or so. Stabilise etc when the time is right.
On that note the other principle is late addition, i.e. adding the flowers late. It's not only economical as you need less flowers (the flavour extraction is improved) but also less flavour is blown out of the must during the vigorous primary fermentation stage. So you maintain a greater range of flavours, the more volatile molecules staying dissolved.
Onwards then, the recipe!
Recipe: 3 Gallons
3 Litres White Grape Juice (Rio D'Oro)
3 Litres Apple Juice (Rio D'Oro)
2.1 Kg Sugar
3 Teaspoons Citric Acid
3 Teaspoons Pectolase
1 Teaspoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11, Lees from Green Tea and Ginger)
50g Sorrel Flowers
OG 1075
Method:
It's the same as any generic quickie wine. Keep the gravity low (1070-1080 is fine), lower probably better. We're aiming to keep the alcohol content, acidity, body etc in balance. Which means rapid conditioning so you can drink your table wine quality homebrew in 8 weeks from start-up. If you up the alcohol content then you need to up everything else, and then you need to wait months or years before it's worth drinking.
So dissolve your sugar in a pan of water on the stove. While that's happening pour the fruit juices into your fermenting bin, add the acid, pectolase and yeast nutrient. Allow the sugar solution to cool then add to the fermenting bin. If you don't let it cool then you will probably kill the yeast in the fermenting bin. That's assuming you're doing a fermentation on the lees of the previous brew. If you're not then make sure the must is cool enough before adding the yeast. Make up to 3 gallons with cold water.
Give it all a good sloshy stir, record the specific gravity, cover. You probably won't need to stir it daily because the yeast in the lees will be a big healthy colony. So after a few days (5-7 ish) transfer your must to a secondary fermenter fitted with an airlock. Then add the sorrel flowers in a muslin bag. I put the bagged flowers into a pan containing a little water and brought it to the boil. Then added a little sugar to make a solution roughly equal in gravity to the original must. Then added the bagged flowers and sugar solution to the must. It was roughly a litre of water with 230g of added sugar.
Now follow the normal procedure, remove flowers and rack to demi-johns after a week or so. Stabilise etc when the time is right.