3 Different Reds and a Blush

The busy night wasn't over tho ... The Elderflower Blush Quick was overdue being racked and having the flowers removed. But before that could happen I needed empty demi-johns (DJs), I only had 3 and 5 gallons of wine needing a home. So I had to rummage about and eventually found 3 gallons of various reds (under the stairs, in a cupboard, behind the body-boards) that were ready for bottling. They were

• Elderberry & Blackberry 2009
• Blackberry 2010
• Beaverdale Shiraz (early 2010)

So the first part of the process done. Balckberry near right, Beaverdale Shiraz near left. The white shrink necked bottles just behind them are the mint from last nights bottling, ready now for laying down.  Behind them is the Quickie Pomegranate. Next to them are the Elderberry and Blackberry. And behind them you can see the 5 gallons of Elderflower Blush Quickie. Aso the start of 3 lines of 5 DJ's.

Each gallon delivered a little more than 6 bottles, so we got a treat small glass of the Beavedale shiraz, delicious. The Elderberry & Blackberry was very acidic in comparison, but after being left (forgotten) to breathe for an hour it had transformed, and was much softer, now delicious. So I decided to top up the excess blackberry wine with this, and get a full 1/2 bottle for another time. Then it was on to racking the quickie, and a picture was a must (scuse pun) because I still like seeing a huddle of 5 DJs. It bodes well for a few months down the line.

I'm really pleased with the colour. So here is a note to myself to stabilise it soon, the ferment seems to have stopped. The campden tablets should also help to preserve the colour.

A Little Update + Piccies

We're about half way through the year and my thoughts are turning to the next brew so that I stay on target for 50 gallons this year. All of which means it's been a busy(ish) time in the winery. Last night I bottled a gallon of Pomegranate quickie, the last one. Hopefully the first batch of the Elderflower quickie will soon be ready to drink, otherwise I'll have to drink the really good stuff when I fancy a tipple rather than saving it for special occasions.

Talking of good stuff, I also bottled the last gallon of Mint wine last night. The first gallon was nice, but didn't have much of a mint flavour, tho it was cooling. So for this lot I waited until the mint in the garden had grown enough to allow me to crop a little and still leave plenty. I took 6 big sprigs, 3 each of Garden mint and Apple (or maybe Morrocan) Mint. Then gently washed them and stuck one in each bottle. To help ensure nothing weird happened I added campden (1 tablet) to the gallon of wine and then siphoned into the bottles containing the sprigs of mint. The hope is that I'll get some good flavour extraction, and put the mint back into this wine. If not then it's a nice wine anyway, being over 18 months old. Looks pretty too

Making Champagne and Sparkling Wines

I was asked recently for advice on making Elderflower Champagne. Specifically bottling. There is a joke amongst wine makers that you can tell who makes sparkling wines because they are missing eyes or fingers. So make no mistake, the exploding bottle disaster takes on a whole new meaning with sparkling wines. As a result I have never made a sparkling wine, I'm very happy with the results i get from still wines and haven't had a serious urge to try sparklers. Don't get me wrong, I'm very curious and i understand why others want to try.

So if you are determined to give it a go then here's my advice for elderflower champagne...

Use plastic bottles, those little 500ml screw cap plastic bottles that you get water and pop in are perfect. You can buy them new, a quick google search should yield results. They will hold a lot of pressure and should they explode you won't have fragments of high speed flying glass to worry about. They are unlikely to explode tho, instead you'll see them expanding and i believe they will expend A LOT before they blow. But if you're following a recipe (highly recommended as you won't use too much sugar, the source of the fizz) then you're probably making something that's weak, like only 1-2% ABV, and it'll be cloudy, so presentation isn't all that important.

If you insist on using glass bottles then make sure you use proper champagne bottles. You'll know you've got them because they weigh about a kilogram empty. Make sure there are no chips, cracks or other imperfections. Get the correct corks/stoppers and wire them down with the correct wires so they don't fly out. Then put them somewhere where they won't cause any damage or hurt anyone if they do become grenades. If one does explode then the very best thing to do is to leave them be until they all explode. Then it will be safe to go into the room, or open the door on the cupboard, cellar, loft whatever.

I don't want to put you off trying, but i do want to warm you that it is something that needs great care and consideration .... if you like your eyes and fingers.

Woohooo, Flowers Added

So, the next stage of the Elderflower Blush Quickie is on the way. I added 4 litres of flowers in the wee small hours, the gravity was 1042, higher than I anticipated, so fermenting slower than anticipated. This is not a concern tho, it is still going at a good pace, and i prefer slower rather than faster anyway. Anyway the addition was made in the wee small hours because for some reason the bag shaking didn't work well (always a first time) so what should have taken an hour or so took about 5! Apart from that all is well, the flowers still smell great, perhaps i just had too many in the bag.

So that 5 gallon batch is now in the big secondary fermenter, and the white Elderflower Quickie has now been racked into five 1 gallon DJs.

More Elderflower Foraging

So we got a little rain, and then sunshine, and so I went Elderflower foraging and came home with a little haul of a few litres that smell just divine. There were still flowers yet to open, so it's still not too late to start that brew, but get your skates on. There were also plenty of sprays that have got berries started.

The flowers I collected are in tied plastic bags, have been so since yesterday evening. Later tonight I'll shake them up for a while and get them into muslin bags (minus the stalks that will only make your wine taste awful). Then  the brew that's on the go will be ready for them, its gravity has dropped to around 1025 I think, and the fermentation is quite gentle now.

Elderflower Blush Quickie

So, as there are still Elderflowers out and about in abundance, and as we got through 8 gallons of elderflower wine last year, I decided that I should make more this year. So I've just got another 5 gallons on the go. This time with a difference, there was no cheap white grape juice in the supermarket, so I got red grape juice instead, hence it's probably going to be a blush.

I'm going to do this recipe/method in some detail for those of you new here. This is a fantastic wine, and as long as you like elderflowers their blossoming will be one of your favourite times of the year, second only to the time the wine's ready to drink. I'll be picking my flowers at the weekend or early next week, on a sunny day, but a few days in advance of picking is a good time to start the brew going.

Recipe

5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Sungrown, pure pressed)
5 Litres Apple Juice (Tesco value, pure from concentrate)
3.45kg Sugar
3 teaspoons Tartaric Acid
2 Teaspoons Citric Acid
2 Teaspoons Nutrient (nutrivin)
4 Teaspoons Pectolase
4 Campden Tablets (crushed)
4 Litres Elderflowers (measured by gently shaking down, added 2.6.2011 with gravity at 1042)
Yeast Gervin Number 1 (GV1)

OG 1079

Method

The usual method, dissolve sugar in hot water. Empty cartons of fruit juice into fermenting bin. Dissolve all other ingredients (apart from yeast and elderflowers) in water, and then add to fermenting bin. Add sugar solution to fermenting bin. Make up the volume to 5 gallons. Cover tightly and leave overnight. Next day stir sloshily (or use a whisk) to ensure its properly mixed and also, importantly, to get plenty of air dissolved. Then add the yeast. Stir sloshily each day for a few days. Transfer to secondary fermenter (fitted with an airlock) and then add the elderflowers in 2 muslin bags. To process the flowers put the sprays into a plastic bag the day you pick them, tie it up, leave it overnight, next day shake the bag for 5 minutes or until the flowers drop off the stems. Separate out the stems and put the flowers into muslin bags. Push down the flowers once a day for a week or so, then remove the flowers and do all the usual racking, degassing, stabilising etc.

Discussion

Incase you're new here and would like some extra details I'll just summarise the basics of some of the ingredients chosen etc. You can find all this info in other places on my blog tho.

1. This is a quickie wine, it's designed to be drunk only 8 weeks or so after starting. This means the wine will be light, hence only 2 litres of juice pr gallon of wine, and the amount of sugar added to give an ABV that will likely be 10.5-11.5%. If you add more sugar then the balance will be all out and it will likely taste "hot". To avoid this you'll need more fruit content for more body. The result of doing this will be a wine that needs months, rather than weeks, to be ready to drink.

2. I chose a blend of citric and tartaric acid. tartaric acid is the dominant acid in grapes. It is crisp and clean tasting. Citric acid tastes, unsurprisingly, lemon like, fruity. This flavour goes well with elderflowers but I don't want to overdo it. If you don't have citric acid you can use lemon juice. Juice of one lemon is roughly equivalent to 1 teaspoon of citric acid. If you don't have tartaric acid don't worry. You'll still make a pleasant wine with lemon juice or citric acid.

3. Pectolase is always a no-brainer addition for me, it never does any harm. It's function is to break down pectin which is commonly found in many fruits, including apples. Pectin will cause a haze in your wine which will be a royal pain in the backside to get rid of. Adding pectolase at the start is the prevention rather than cure method. I always do it.

4. Campden tablets are added, primarily, to take care of wild yeasts, funghi and bacteria. To be honest with wine made from cartons of juice this shouldn't be a problem. However it's a good thing to do in anycase because you never know what's airborne in the kitchen, or in the sugar etc. It also neutralises the chlorine present in tap water.  And it is an anti-oxidant, which means that your juice and hence wine will not discolour so much to a brown. After adding it at the start of a brew you need to wait 24 hours before adding yeast, otherwise your ferment will probably not start as campden inhibits yeasts. Waiting 24 hours allows it to do it's job and all that neutralising of chlorine, killing stuff and anti-oxidising means that levels are low by the time 24 hours have passed.

5. Nutrient. Yeasts, like all living things, like nutrients. Most fruits don't have the right balance needed so a helping hand is good. with a wine made from only 2 litres of juice per gallon this is especially true.

6. Gervin number 1 is a good general purpose yeast, it starts quickly, is low foaming and easy to work with. Others that I like are Gervin D, Sauternes, MA33 (vintners harvest), GV5.

7. By the time you get around to adding the eldeflowers the must will have an alcohol content of about 8-9 %, so there's no need to sanitise the flowers, the alcohol content will do that, and so will the `CO2 atmosphere in your secondary fermenter. Adding flowers late on, rather than at the start, means that you need to use less of them. This is a good thing. The reason is that the alcohol helps to extract the flavours, and also the fermentation is not at all vigourous at this stage. Vigourous fermentation will "blow off" much of the volatile aromas/flavours from the flowers, hence needing more. Using less means more berries in the autumn (great stuff cos they are great in wine) and also means less work getting them off the stems, which is essential cos elderflower stems taste gross and don't make good wine.