Fruitastic Magic - Recipe

So have you made a country wine on the pulp?
Are you looking at all that pulp and thinking "what a waste"?

Yeah that bugs me too, and so I really enjoy making wines with a 2nd run on the pulp. This is one I did with the pulp from the 5 gallon brew called Berrylitious. 2nd run wines are great fun to make. It feels great for so many reasons; it's so easy and it's as cheap as chips because all the fruit was probably heading for the bin/compost bin. It'll still end up there, but via a 2nd run everyone is happy.

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

• Pulp from Berrylitious
• 5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Sungrown)
• 245g Can of Grape Concentrate (Young's definitive white wine enricher)
• 3 Kg sugar
• 2 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
• 2 Teaspoons Citric Acid
• Yeast Nutrient (2tspn Nutrivin, Brupak)
• 20 g Oak Chips (Young's; French Oak)

Method

Keep the pulp from your "parent" brew in the fermenting bin. Cover it up tightly and as soon as possible use it as follows.
Pour on the grape juice and grape concentrate. Add a couple of gallons of cold water. Dissolve the sugar in about a gallon of hot boiled water, and then add it to the fermenting bin. Dissolve the acids and nutrient in cold water and add them to the fermenting bin too. Finally add the oak chips and make the volume up to around 5 gallons. Give it a good stir and cover tightly.

Discussion

Some of you may be asking ... "where's the yeast?". Good question. The answer is that there is plenty of yeast mixed in with the fruit pulp. So when you add your other ingredients it'll fire up in a flash without needing a new yeast addition.

My gravity came out as 1064, which is pretty low and will make a wine of about only 9.5% ABV if the volume of liquid is actually 5 gallons. Of course the volume of liquid will probably turn out to be around 4 - 4.5 gallons and so, on topping up to 5 gallons, the resulting wine will be around 8% ABV if I use water to top up. I'm aiming for 10.5 - 11.5% so at the stage when i transfer the must to secondary fermentation (under airlock) I'll make up the volume to 5 gallons with a sugar solution.

A useful figure for trying to get your ABV where you want it .... Adding 18g of sugar per litre of wine will add about 1% ABV. Of course I'll also want to increase the volume so it may take some fiddling about to get it precisely where desired. Usually I can't be bothered with such precision. If I get the gravity to a point where I reckon my wine will be anywhere in the range 10.5 - 11.5% ABV then I'll be happy to leave the fiddling about there!

Those of you who come here often will probably think this looks like a quickie wine, and that's what I'm aiming for. I want to be drinking this in the spring ideally, tho the addition of oak chips may not help in that regard.

Update 12th June 2012;

What can I say, wow, this is a real hit, fruity, easy drinking. I've been drinking it for about a month already and it's definitely ready. Guess I got a bit lucky with the oak chips, but I didn't overdo them so it's not too much of a surprise. Given that it's a second run wine I'd urge you to try doing this, it's very economical and if buying frozen fruit stretches your budget then a second run will rectify that.

Racking - a piccie

I know, I'm bad, I have neglected my blog and even when I've been good I haven't put in enough piccies. So here is a piccie of racking in progress. This is the Ginger & Lemon Grass quickie wine being racked from the 5 gallon barrel into 5 single gallon demi-johns.

Berrylitious - Recipe

Some months ago me and the better half went down our street (which is a quiet cul-de-sac with little traffic) and grabbed about 3kg of elderberries. The were stripped from their sprays, washed, bagged, and then frozen.

I hoped that I would do another blackberry forage and make my usual Blackberry and Elderberry wine, but alas I missed out on the blackberries.

So what to do? Straight elderberry wine takes an age (like 3 years +) to become a delight. I have nothing against laying down a bottle or two for some years, but gallons??? Not my style. It therefore had to be a mixed fruit wine. So that meant visiting some freezers for some bargains. And we found some. This recipe is a first for me, it's a mix of many berries, currants and cherries too. I have no idea what it'll be like but I expect a red with lots of body and fruitiness.

Ingredients (for 5 gallons):

• 3 kg frozen, foraged Elderberries
• 3 kg frozen sweet dark cherries (sainsbury's)
• 3 kg frozen mixed summer fruits (sainsbury's)

....comprising equal quantities of blackberries, raspberries, black currants & red currants.

• 4 kg Sugar
• 5 Teaspoons Pectolase
• 3 Campden tablets (crushed)
• 1 Teaspoon Tartaric acid
• 3 Teaspoons Citric acid
• Yeast Nutrient (nutrivin, Brupak)
• Sauternes yeast (Ritchies)

Method

The fruits, still frozen, were tipped into a 5 gallon fermenting bin. Yes it is a heap!

Sugar was dissolved in a gallon or so of boiled and still hot water. This was tipped over the fruit. Then the volume made up to around 4 gallons with cold water. The acids, campden and enzyme were dissolved in water and then added to the fermenting bucket also. It was all given a serious lengthy stir and then left, tightly covered, for a couple of days. Mashing the fruit was not a concern to me as the freezing and thawing should have served the same purpose.

When I came back to it I made the volume up to fill the bucket and stirred well. The gravity measured 1092. That's quite high, but as the volume of solids was significant I wasn't worried. I added the yeast nutrient and yeast and covered. Each day the must was stirred sloshily to get some air into solution. After about a week the must was transferred to a barrel to ferment under an airlock.

The volume of liquid I got at this stage was around 20 litres, somewhat short of the 23 litres that more or less makes a gallon. If I made this up to 5 gallons with the addition of water alone then the true gravity of the original must would have been 1081. Assuming this ferments out to a gravity of around 995, which is normal for sauternes yeast in my experience, then the wine would be close to 12% ABV. This is fine for me, so that's what I did. It's now sitting under an airlock and measures about 5 gallons.

(Hold your horses if you make this wine, all that pulp is still useful. The next post will tell you what to do with it if you want to make a Rosé).

In about a week I'll transfer this to 5 single gallon demi-johns because I'll need the 5 gallon barrel for something else. when it stops fermenting then I'll rack, degas and stabilise. It'll probably need something like 6-12 months before it'll even be worth trying, but hopefully next winter there'll be plenty of big-bodied fruity red wine to drink.

Update 12th June 2012;

Well this must be the biggest surprise I've had for some time when it comes to brewing wine. I said that I hoped it would be good to drink in the winter, but here we are in summer and it is ready, and it is delicious too. Very fruity, nice body, nice feel, the cherries stand out form the background, but not so much that it tastes like cherry wine. My intuition tells me that the elderberries were crucial, and so I'm pretty staggered that it's ready so soon. Not complaining tho I may be missing a red wine when winter comes around cos the chances of this lasting til then are slim!

So fellow brewers, if you have a lousy blackberry season (or just miss it) and if waiting years for a straight elderberry wine isn't your cup of tea, then grab yourself some frozen berries to go with your elderberries and you'll be laughing.

Update on Apple & Grape Juice quickie

So, some time has passed since I had the first sample of the apple & grape juice quickie wine. Then it was complex and not a pleasure. Now it has rounded and is ok in terms of quality, but it is probably going to be one that has the marmite factor. There is a taste of corn about it, not overpowering but definitely there. The flavour of apples lingers long as an aftertaste. The colour is something else, delicate straw/pink, and its clarity is ok too.

Would I do it again, yes. It was great fun doing the picking, pulping, pressing etc. But I need to investigate the strange corn taste. So far my googling hasn't yielded anything very useful, the most likely contender being Dimethyl Sulphide, but it only fits this in one regard so i'm not sure that I've nailed it. The good news is that the wine is young, so time may come to the rescue.

Ginger & Lemongrass Wine update

oh this Ginger & Lemongrass Wine is just uber, so if you want to make a delicious wine in time for xmas then click the link and start right away. Like today. If you want it for new year then you have no time to lose. it'll be great for on the table after you drink ...the fizz and a posh bottle. it's table wine quality, really.

Big white, with fruit flavours, especially citrus like (no surprise there), which means acidity (but not too much), astringent, and has body. if you spent around £5 per bottle on a selection of white wines and compared it to this then this wouldn't come last! Next time, more ginger tho. Final gravity 994, which means 11.4% ABV. It's got nice nice balance to it, and i reckon that it'll come together very well in the next few weeks. But right now it's still a delight.

£30 - £50 will get you all the kit you need to brew 6, 12 or 18 bottles depending on how you spend your money. ingredients will cost you about 30p per bottle. You can claw back the investment in your first batch if you aim high and go for 18 bottles, 3 gallons. And that's if you have no kit and have ot buy everything. and in only 6 weeks. I'd recommend this and you won't regret it. c'mon, it's easy, click the link and find out more.


I have 4 empty demijohns now, so the chances of getting another brew started soon are good. Maybe it's time to dig out my foraged frozen elderberries. Yup, probably, so i'd better get to the shops and see what frozen berries they have. Stay tuned.

Recipe; Ginger & Lemon Grass Wine

Yesterday I had the kitchen to myself all day. So I could trash it twice if I wanted, and not feel guilty about the better half being unable to do anything in there. So I made a homemade pizza for dinner. Home-made base, anchovies and green olives. Kitchen was trashed. Frying pans from reducing lots of tomatoes and onions, chopping boards, knives, graters, pizza stone, bread machine. After tidying up, and sanitising it was wine time.

For about 3 months I've been toying with the idea of making Ginger & Lemon Grass Wine. Partly because I like a cordial with that combo. Partly because I'm very much enjoying Lemon Grass tea at this point in time. So, Yesterday I got it started.

Recipe; 5 gallons

5 Litres White Grape Juice (Tesco, not from conc)
5 Litres Apple Juice (Sun Grown, from conc)
3.5Kg White Sugar
125g Fresh root Ginger
125g Crystallised root Ginger
35g Dried Lemon Grass
2 Tsp Citric Acid
5 Tsp Tartaric Acid
Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
5 Tsp Pectolase
3 Campden Tablets
2 Tsp Yeast Nutirent (Brupak, Nutrivin)
Make up to 5 gallons with water.
Yeast (Gervin number 5, GV5)

OG 1078

And here's a piccie of all the base ingredients

The eagle-eyed will recognise this as a quickie wine. 10 litres of juice for 5 gallons of wine is the give away. So I'm hoping this'll be ready to drink in 8 weeks or so with it's relatively low OG of 1078. The eagle-eyed will also have seen the strip of paper. This is my notes, hole punched in top corner and through it goes an elastic band that loops over the airlock.

Method

Fill a big saucepan with around a gallon of water, add the sugar, get it on the stove and dissolve the sugar. Meanwhile prepare all your "fresh" ingredients.

You only need a potato peeler and a knife. Peel and crush the ginger, then slice it finely. Roughly chop the crystallised ginger. Finely chop the lemon zest after making sure to remove all the pith. Weight out the Lemon Grass too. Bag them all up. I used 2 muslin bags, you really want the ingredients to have plenty of space, like a big tea bag would look.

By now your sugar will be dissolved and the water hot. Pour this into your fermenting bin and pop the lid on. It'll ensure sanitation at that temperature. Put another gallon of water into the pan and add the ingredients in the muslin bags. put the lid on the pan and bring to the boil.

While this is happening measure out the acids, pectolase, nutrient and crushed campden tablets. Dissolve in either apple or grape juice. Add the juices to the fermenting bin. By now your pan of "tea" may be boiling, so decant the liquid off. Put another gallon or so of water into the pan, with the ingredients in muslin bags, cover and bring it back to the boil. Simmer, very gently, for an hour. Then add the lots to your fermenting bin. Top up to 5 gallons with cold water, and finally add the last ingredients, those dissolved in fruit juice. Give it all a good stir, cover tightly and leave overnight.

Next day stir well to mix through. The stir sloshily to get plenty of air into the mix. Yeast needs this to bud (multiply) and form a healthy colony. I use a whisk. Measure the gravity, you want 1070-1080. Mine came in at 1078 so I was happy. Then add the yeast. I used Gervin Number 5 (GV5). It's low foaming, ferments down to 8'C, which leaves plenty of leeway for autumnal nights in an unheated room. Tho I hope it doesn't get quite that cold in the next week or so!

From here on its the usual routine. Stir sloshily daily for a few minutes on each of the next few days. Then move to a secondary fermenting vessel (under airlock).  When it stops fermenting (probably between 1 and 2 weeks, but don't worry if it still keeps going) rack off the sediment (siphon), degas, stabilise and leave it be to clear - under airlocks of course.

Update 15.11.11

Right now I'm just writing in my thoughts, as I do from time to time on my notes. Feel free to snoop  ;-) but be warned ... these notes are influenced by a glass or two of this wine.
Bottled the first 2 gallons, so that's only 6-7 weeks since starting it.

It's table wine quality, really. Big white, with fruit flavours, especially citrus like (no surprise there), which means acidity (but not too much), astringent, and has body. if you spent around £5 per bottle on a selection of white wines and compared it to this then this wouldn't come last! Next time, more ginger tho.

final gravity 994, which means 11.4% ABV. It's got nice nice balance to it, and i reckon that it'll come together very well in the next few weeks. But right now it's still a delight.

Various Little Updates

One post without piccies, and then more piccies ...

I've racked the Apple and Grape Juice Wine. The one made with apples collected from the community orchard and pressed by your's truly, with the help of friends. Also racked and degassed the Apple wine, same source for apples.

The former was meant to be a quickie, ready to drink in about 8 weeks. Alas, it is an uncharacteristic quickie wine, it may be ready to drink by xmas. But right now it's a complex mess that needs time.

The latter, the one I thought would take about year to come good, well it taste's amazing! And will be ready to drink at xmas. Tho I don't want to tell people because it's so promising that it deserves a year and could become a very special wine indeed. It is medium, possibly medium sweet. I can't see that changing much. Oozes apple flavour, nice body. That's all I could notice from a single sip. But I think acidity and astringency are in balance. I wonder what it'll turn out like? A subtle Apfelkorn would be wonderful.

Also racked this year's Blackberry wine, and that is tasting very good too. Big body for blackberry and you can tell it's Blackberry, delicious flavour. Tempting to tuck in but really, no matter how good it tastes now, it will taste so much better in a six months.

Did Someone Say Elderberries?

I heard that, and I want to give you all pictures cos I feel bad for not posting for ages.

So here is something totally unremarkable (but i'll soon be posting on Ginger and Lemon Grass wine, and that is remarkable). A picture of 3kg of Elderberries that myself and my better half picked. all washed, plucked from their stems, and bagged up and frozen.

Not sure what I'll do with them. I don't think i'll do pure elderberry cos i missed so many blackberries this year a nice home-made red will be a rarity next year. So I think I'll probably go to the farm shop and buy some frozen blackberries, or maybe a big mix of berries, and make a berry wine with less than 50% elderberries by weight. This should mean it's ready in a year.

Sloe Imbibements

I've done it again, got all busy and left no time to post here. So tonight we have a bumper edition. and piccies.

Here we go,
On the 11th of September I opened the crammed freezer's door and finally had enough. Not enough space in the freezer for elderberries which I hoped to pick imminently. A problem neededing a solution fast. What's that I see, a couple of kilo's of sloes generously given to me. Time to make the Sloe Imbibements then. 3 versions, all very simple.

Recipes

Sloe Rum
150g Raw Cane Sugar
600ml Dark Rum (Sainsbury's Basics, Cheers Jon W, nice tip)
500ml Washed frozen and defrosted Sloes.

Sloe Vodka

125g Caster Sugar
300ml Vodka (Sainsbury's basics)
400ml Sloes (as above)

Sloe Gin 1

125g White Sugar
350ml Dry Gin (Sainsbury's London)
350ml Sloes (as above)

Sloe Gin2

125g Raw Cane Sugar
350ml Dry Gin (Sainsbury's London)
350ml Sloes (as above)

Method

Dead simple, wash, freeze and thaw the sloes. Now you don't need to prick them all individually. Pour them into an empty bottle. Add the sugar. Now fill up with your chosen spirit. Shake to dissolve the sugar, tyhen for the next 1-2 weeks shake daily. After that once a week for a couple or 3 weeks. Then leave it alone 'til xmas and enjoy. If you can leave it for a year it'll be worth it. If you forget you ever had it and find it after 7-10 years then lucky you!

2 weeks of silence

Just to let you brewers know that I haven't given up on the blog. I've been staycationing for a couple of weeks ... and jolly good it was too! Normal brewing related content will resume soon. It seems that my 2 weeks away have caused me to miss my annual blackberry forage for a few more gallons of delicious wine. A bit sad but I'm sure I'll still find a way to fill up my fermenting vessels, even if it means visiting the local farm shop to buy up a heap of frozen berries!

On returning from being away I found the apple wine has thrown a nice sediment, tho it still has some way to go before clearing. The apple and grape-juice wine likewise. The blackberry wine ... can't say cos I don't want to pop the lid until I have some spare demi-johns to rack it into. These things will likely take up the content of the next post or two.

Recipe; Blackberry Wine 2011

So yesterday I started the first of this year's blackberry wines. Hopefully there will still be a heap of berries around in 3 weeks so I can make some more. I'd been hogging half of our tiny wee freezer for long enough .. with blackberries alone, so it felt right to get on with it. And we're going to need the freezer space soon because we're starting our hols with a little bit of camping (a festival). This is something we do in a semi self-catering style, taking some frozen home cooked curries packed into a wool-lined cardboard box with a heap of ice/cool packs. Anyway, enough of the small talk ... you want to know about the wine.

Recipe/Ingredients 2 Gallons

• 3.5 Kg Blackberries
• 500g Elderberries
• 2 Kg Sugar
• 1 Teaspoons Citric Acid
• 1.25 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
• 2 Teaspoons Pectolase
• 1 Teaspoon Nutrient (Brupak, Nutrivin)
• 2 Campden Tablets
• Sauternes Yeast

OG 1080

Method:

I used frozen berries because I was picking them a little at a time until I had enough to get 2+ gallons on the go. So the brew started 2 nights ago really when i got the berries out of the freezer. Next day I mashed them to a pulp with a potato masher, put them in my fermenting bin, added the pectolase and crushed Campden tablets, stirred to mix and then covered tightly. Next day I added all the other ingredients except the yeast, and used a egg whisk to get plenty of air into the mix. The yeast needs dissolved to multiply into a viable colony. Then the yeast was added.

Stir daily for a few days, or use an egg whisk, to keep dissolving air into the mix. After a few days (in this case 3, see discussion below) transfer to secondary fermentation - under airlock - after removing the pulp. Simply pouring through a sieve should do this, passing it through a colander first may speed up the process. When it stops fermenting do the usual routine. Rack, degas, stabilise and leave alone to clear. It'll probably clear all on its own pretty quickly, but if not winter will do it if you place it somewhere cool. In the unlikely event that it doesn't clear add finings. I use two part finings, chitin/chitosan based mostly. When its clear rack off the sediment and bottle when you're ready to drink it. If you need to rack again (more sediment drops) then add another crushed Campden tablet.

Discussion

This is a similar wine to last years brews either this or this. However there are differences:

• The weight of fruit/gallon is up on last year. No reason except I had a bit more fruit and figured that I would probably only be adding a little body. 
• It's about 15% Elderberries, just 'cos I had them, and again it'll add a bit of body. Hopefully it won't result in a wine that takes an age to ... erm .... age! This is something to be mindful of if using Elderberries.

Using frozen berries will do your wine no harm at all, some say it'll make your wine better. Reason being that the freezing breaks up the fruit and so releases more juice. This is also good news for your arms cos you don't need to do as much mashing! Oh and don't put it through a juicer if you want to follow my recipe. That'll mash up the seeds too, and the skins, and your wine will be more astringent due to more tannin from the skins. The pulverised seeds won't do it any favours tho and may give you some unwanted bitterness. I'll never use a juicer if I can't remove the pips or seeds from the fruit first. Anyway, make sure that you wash your berries before freezing, and pack them well so that they are sealed from the freezer atmosphere. Never know what may taint the berries' flavour. Let them defrost before mashing simply cos it's way easier that way! But also because the pectic enzyme doesn't work in the cold. Room temperature is fine tho.

I'm using Sauternes yeast because ever since first trying it I've been delighted with it. It's robust and trust worthy, is a quick starter, and this wine won't get the usual length of time for the primary fermentation on the pulp. In this case it'll only be 3 days as we go away around then, and it needs to be put under airlock before I go. This means it won't have as much stirring either. So I want to pick a yeast that I'm confident with, something that will simply get on with the job. And it won't do any harm that Sauternes also drops a small compact sediment, 'cos it may be sitting on the lees a while before the first racking.

Happy brewing ... and a big thanks to all of you who watch my How to make Blackberry wine vid. I'm getting an average of over 40 views a day now. So it won't be long before 4000 views is reached.

Recipe; Apple Wine

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

Recipe: 1 gallon

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

OG 1091

Method

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

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

Discussion:

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

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

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

Recipe; Apple & Grape Juice Quickie

So yesterday I wrote about collecting apples and the process of getting juice from them. Today you get the recipes. First the quickie wine recipe. You can find more quickie wine recipes in the brew list section, they'll be marked as quickie or (Q).

Recipe: 5 gallons

• 1 Gallon of freshly pressed Apple Juice  (OG 1050)
• 5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Sungrown, pressed)
• 3.4 Kg Sugar
• 3 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
• 2 Teaspoons Citric Acid
• 2 Teaspoons Pectolase
• 2 Teaspoons Yeast Nutrient
• Gervin D Yeast.
• Water to 5 gallons.

OG 1076

Method

See yesterdays post for everything up to and including obtaining the apple juice.

Put the apple juice and grape juice in a fermenting bin and add the campden tablets and pectolase. Cover and leave overnight. Next day add all your other ingredients, dissolving all solids in water before doing so. Then stir sloshily for a while to get more air into the mix. Then add the yeast. Cover tightly and leave overnight. Stir sloshily once or twice a day for the next few days. Then transfer to DemiJohns with airlocks (secondary fermentation). When it stops fermenting rack off the sediment, degas, add campden and sorbate. Leave to clear. You should be drinking  it in a few weeks.

Discussion.

First of all you're probably wondering why red grape juice? no magic here, simply because it was cheaper than the white and i needed 5 litres. The final wine will be very pale pink, or a golden colour.

If you checked out the previous page then you may be wondering why i bothered. all that effort save a few pennies? Well i confess, i did it for the love of it, for the love of doing something with a small crowd, for the love of seeing what would have been wasted fruit turned into wine. For the fun of it and generating more community spirit through fun.

Gervin D is an acid reducing, fast starting yeast, good for wines that will be drunk young. The acid reducing quality is the main reason i choose it tho. Apples have plenty of malic acid, which will make your wine taste harsh if there is too much of it. Gervin D metabolises some of that acid.

Apple Day!

Yesterday I went picking apples in the community orchard, the plan being to make a quickie wine from the pressed juice that was my portion. Aha, I need to give you some background don't I ....

About this time last year I pledged to investigate if there was a Transition Initiative in my Town. I found that there had been an attempt to start the initiative, but that was about as far as it had got, it kind of stalled. I met with the people who initiated that attempt, and that led to me being giving a vote of confidence to take it on. So for the last year I've been co-ordinating our Transition Town. At our regular committee meetings I turn up with a bottle of wine. But yesterday, for the first time, a few members of the initiative joined in with the start of the brewing process - rather than simply the end. Onwards then ...

 

5 of us turned up. Many more and it could have been chaos (only because there was plenty to learn), any less and it would have been much less fun.

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 We picked two wheel Barrow loads in a couple of hours, then we had to go our separate ways. Only 2 of us wanted to do something with the apples so we split the load. I got 2 gallons of juice from mine. With mine i'll be making 5 gallons of quickie wine (crisp, light, clean, blush table wine. Ready in 8-10 weeks) and 1 gallon of pure apple wine ready in no less than 6 months, but probably a year. The recipes and methods are coming right up in the next post, in this post all kinds of fun stuff about everything in the process up to and including the pressing of the juice. I believe the other happy apple recipient is making cider.

The juice tasted delicious by the way, full of body and as sweet as any apple juice i've ever tasted. OG was 1050, which would have surprised me had i not tasted it.

More piccies and more detail

 

We arrived around 10.00 am, tho a couple were a little early and got stuck in to picking delicious blackberries straight away. One soon had a cult following of a couple of boys and they joined in the blackberry picking. When they left they gave him the berries, which gave him a very pleasant surprise.

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Then we got stuck into apples. One of our number was from the parks department in the Borough Council, she brought a wheel barrow, tarpaulin , bags, a scythe (how i wish i had a picture of me holding that ... but there's a long story behind that which involves an undead warlock in a place called Quel 'thalas, Azeroth) and also a ladder, all of which was a great help. She couldn't wait to climb trees and was soon shaking handfuls of apples down while we scurried about collecting them, or went looking for low hanging fruit on other trees. Being hit by an apple is hardly life threatening, but being hit by a rotten one is somewhat horrible. Some of the fruit was hanging so low that you had to bend down to pick it! One of our number had a short roll about in the nettles and brambles after he and the ladder had a disagreement and a parting of ways (from an altitude of about 15 cms). And my inner child also came out and i was soon climbing trees to shake off fruit too.

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The Orchard is a beautiful spot, and being school hols it was great to see the whole park being well used. The resulting haul of fruit meant that there was no time to loose with processing the apples.

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So straight home i went to get set up in the garden. One of the troop came too to help me get started (i've never pressed apples but she had). It was great to have the benefit of her experience and a delight to troubleshoot problems so easily with her.

  

So first of all there was washing, just a simple rinse really to get rid of loose surface dirt, identify the rotten ones etc.

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Then chopping, to make the whole juice extraction easier. And also removing bruises, insect holes, stems etc. We didn't bother with coring because its very time consuming and besides even split pips won't taint the wine. However if you're using a juicer - rather than a press - then removing the cores will be essential because the seeds will be pulverised and will almost certainly not do the wine any favours.

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Then came pulping, because pressing chunks of apples ain't easy. I used a T-handled phillips head screwdriver. The sort of thing you get in a flatpack furniture tool kit. I attached it to an electric drill with the "T" protruding acting as the pulping blades. Set the drill to "hammer action" and got stuck in. Worked a treat, tho I only this after i broke my de-gassing whizz stick which was clearly not up to pulping, mind you i don't like using it for degassing either and reverted to a wholly manual method shortly after buying it. Anyway, back to what did work, the shaft of the "blade" wasn't very long so I had to pulp the top few inches of the bucket, then mix the apples up by hand and repeat. This was about a 6 cycle iteration for each press load.

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Next up came pounding/mashing. Pulping alone wasn't going far enough to make the pressing easy. So i pounded the pulp with a rolling pin for about a minute. Well until the juice started splashing me anyway. Wasps love apples and i hate wasps, so i really didn't want to be covered in apple pulp AND juice.

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Then came the pressing, so the bucket of chopped, pulped and pounded apples was tipped into the press. This belongs to my fellow transitioner and friend, and is a very traditional design. It's about the smallest version you can get but there's nothing wrong with that, it does the job fine and a bigger press would be a waste of money for something that gets little use. As you can imagine a wheel-barrow load filled the press a few times!

Just got to sneak a close up of the press in, cos i do like it. This one taken when the apples had been pressed, and the press was partly dismantled for emptying. So you can see the blocks used as spacers to allow clearance between the lever on the spindle and the "barrel" as the pressing progresses.

At first we had no lubricant on the spindle of the press, neither did we pulp the apples well enough, so it made for hard work. But we learned fast, applied some vaseline to the spindle, and by the time the 3rd load went in the pressing was a breeze and each load delivered almost 3 litres of juice. This passed through a few layers of muslin and 2 layers of tightly woven nylon. The result was a delicious, sweet, full bodied, pure pressed juice with no lumps of apple or pips. Some hours later and there's no scum floating on it either. All of which is very promising for wine making, but deprived me of trying a process new to me called "Keeving"*. I then added 2 campden tablets to the 2 gallons of juice. This will stun/inhibit any wild yeasts, deal with any bacteria and bugs and the like. It'll also add a very important something to the juice that will help to make its home very homely. After 24 hours i started it fermenting with all the other ingredients!

Next post will be the recipe and method, but first of all ....

*Keeving: This is a cider making process. If you ever see a cider described as keeved then give it a try. Very briefly ... normally cider is make by pressing/pulping apples and fermenting. It's quite agricultural in that the brew contains the pulp until some way down the fermenting process. However when a cider is keeved it means the pressed apple juice + pulp are left for 24-48 hours (with a yeast inhibitor like campden or potassium metabisulphite). During that time the solids either sink or rise - depending on their density - leaving the clearish juice in the middle. This is racked off, and then the ferment is started. I was going to do this with my juice but the filtering through muslin etc was so effective that i had no lumps in the juice. And after 24 hours there was no scum on the surface. So no keeving was required.

Recipe; Roasted Green Tea & Ginger Wine

A bit slower in coming than i anticipated, but then you don't expect the spouse to get a broken finger. All is well with that tho so onwards with the wine talk!

Recipe:

For 3 gallons.

• 100g Roasted Green Tea (Bancha, yamamotoyama)
• 6 litres White grape Juice (Tesco, pure, not from concentrate)
• 100g Peeled, bruised and chopped root ginger.
• 3 Lemons (juice & zest)
• 2 Limes (Juice & zest)
• 2 teaspoons Tartaric Acid
• 1 Teaspoon Citric Acid
• 2.5 Teaspoons pectolase
• 1.5 teaspoons Nutrient (brupak, nutrivin)
• 1.9 kg Sugar
• 2.5 Campden tablets (crushed)
• water to 3 gallons.
• Sauternes Yeast

 OG 1072

Method;

Put the green tea in a muslin bag, add it to a pan of water and bring to the boil. Add the "tea" to your fermenting bin but keep the muslin bag of tea and then repeat.
While this is going on zest and juice the citrus, and bruise, peel and chop the ginger. Add to a muslin bag and put in the fermenting bin.
Add the sugar to a pan of water and dissolve, you may want to heat it it to speed up the proces, then add to the fermenting bin.
Add all your other ingredients, including the muslin bag of tea but not  the yeast and make up the volume to around 3 gallons.
Put a lid on it and leave it overnight.
Next day measure the gravity and adjust with more sugar solution or water until you get the gravity you desire. Make the volume up to around 3.5 gallons as you'll lose some volume when you remove the tea and zest etc, also when you rack. Then Add your yeast, stir sloshily to get some air into the liquid, tightly cover the fermenting bin and then stir sloshily once or twice daily for the next few days.

After 5-7 days remove the muslin bag of tea then transfer the fermenting brew to secondary fermentors (under airlocks). Leave the zest in if you like, but remove it a few days later. Leave it now until the wine finishes fermenting.  When it stops fermenting do all the usual stuff like degas, stabilise, rack.

Discussion

A cheerful disclaimer .. I've never made this wine before, tho i have made it's sibling Green Tea & Ginger. I have no idea what the roasting will do to the final wine, but if you want to experiment then don't wait for me to report back, just get cracking. The sibling tea is a belter tho, it goes so well with spicy food that that you'll wonder why you don't have white wine with curry all the time.

The other difference is that i have followed the quickie wine recipe (2 litres of juice per gallon of wine, and a low OG - 1070-1080). The reason for this is that i'm impatient to try it, and by doing it this way i should be drinking this wine september/october if all goes well.

UPDATE and sign off on this wine

It's March 2021 and i opened the last bottle of this wine. Pretty much a 10 year vintage. At less than 11% ABV it probably should not have been an uber vintage wine. However it was a pleasant surprise. It did need to breathe tho!

Cutting to the chase, it was a worthwhile experiment to lay this down and see what came about. It worked. Was it worth waiting 10 years? No, it did not transform the wine. However it was still a pleasant drink.  So, if you copied this wine don't lay it down for 10 years unless it's for your own journey of comprehending wine-making. Do things right and there is no reason why it won't turn out OK. But better to enjoy it sooner. There are wines you'll make that'll become magic from 10 years of conditioning. This is not one of them.

Another Brew On

wow, I forgot to add a new brew, I must have been busy even tho i'm meant to be on holiday! Anyway, a few days ago I started a new brew. Roasted Green Tea & Ginger. I'll write up the whole recipe sometime next week, sorry for keeping you waiting. But some chat about it now .... its Roasted Bancha and it makes a cracking cup of tea, tho it is quite "stocky" kind of like mushroom stock, and smokey too. I'll be very curious to see how this one works out.

The recipe is basically a copy of this one (clicky), except

• The green tea is replaced with roasted green tea. 
• Because this roasted tea was strongly flavoured in comparison I diluted it a bit more than usual. So the 100g of the tea made 3 gallons rather than 2.5
• I made it into a quickie wine, OG (original gravity) was reduced and the sultanas were replaced with 2 litres of grape juice per gallon of wine.

Today I took the muslin bag of tea out and moved it to secondary fermenter. I haven't been good at stirring it (only done so twice since starting) but it is fermenting just fine. Good old Sauternes yeast (Ritchies), it really is a very dependable and robust yeast that is so clean and easy to work with. I can't recommend it enough.

Like i said, a proper recipe (with piccies - cos i did take some) will follow next week.

Today I was told that my 2008 Tanglefoot tasted like Vermouth, and you know ... it does! I didn't write up that recipe anywhere, but did write up the next version. You can find it here, but you do need to give it 3 years if you want it to taste like vermouth. It turned out 14.1% ABV and despite that high figure really is very good indeed.

It wasn't the right thing to have with a homemade, indian inspired, yoghurt marinaded, salmon fillet and pasta with homemade pesto. But what would be? a nice big red may have been the best choice, but so may have been a Green Tea & Ginger which is spectacular with spicy food, especially curry.

The sad news is ... it was the last bottle, and that means in the whole world!

Elderflower Dreaming

I can't believe its almost 3 weeks since i posted here! So what's new in the world of Critter wines? I'm afraid not much is because i've been too busy to brew. I did however take part in an event that i promised i would give homebrew tasters at. And it went down well. Tho i must admit to being over confident with one bottle. remember the mint wine, the one that was delicious but didn't taste of mint. So i added sprigs of mint to it. Well i took a bottle along and it was too soon. It tasted green, leafy, earthy (sometimes earthy works but not in this case). It was simply too soon. Luckily i had plenty of elderflower with me and that went down a storm. also some blackberry which went down just as well but was in short supply.

So elderflower dreaming ... it has happened, this years elderflower quick (batch 1) has arrived. and its a delight. I'm loving the thought of 5 gallons of it, so the gallon that's almost gone is the tip of the iceberg. and batch 2 will soon be ready, also 5 gallons. After the event i mentioned above myself and one of the other participants (hi Jay!) talked. Well that's an understatement. We got home around midnight and then sat up til the birds were in full song. We finished the mint wine, then the single unfinished elderflower bottle, then we opened another. I was delighted that he enjoyed it so much, a real pleasure to keep answering his question "can i have another glass" with repeated "please don't ask just tuck in, there is plenty more". So what can i tell you, we solved some of the worlds problems, discussed our differences of opinion, agreed to differ on some things ... all in all a great night of conversation and being human. Most importantly being human with acceptance of differences of opinion and no hard feelings over that.

Well i say most importantly, but of course that's not the truth! reality is as you all know it, if you have made this Elderflower wine then you'll know the most important thing was the wine. Without it all the wonders of the world would have remained a mystery. What can i say, it's a homebrew blog, no apologies.

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.

Another Pomegranate Update

So the Pomegranate Quickie has cleared, been racked, degassed and stabilised. Some has ven been bottled and some of that has been drunk. All in the last few days tho, so I'm not too tardy with reporting back to you.

What can I say, yet again this formula for a quickie wine has worked out. i.e. 2 litres of juice (one of which is grape juice) per gallon of wine, and an OG of around 1075. It took 3 months rather than 6-8 weeks because I'm a little fussier these days and knew I could get it to clear with a little effort or waiting.

So it's  a very pale pink. crisp, refreshing, sharpish and clean. The ABV worked out to be a little shy of 11.5%. It's fruity, but light and the nearest I can get to nailing a flavour is raspberry which comes quickly. I don't think it would do any harm for this to be 11%ABV rather than 11.5%, so that would perhaps be my aim for next time, just a bit less sugar.

Overall verdict, cracker of a wine for something that is so easy to make, so quick to finish, and at around 30p per bottle there is just no complaining. It's table wine quality but if you gave this to your mates (especially the women as men tend to have an irrational aversion to rosé) they wouldn't believe this was your version of plonk. Its perfect for those hot summer days, BBQ's, picnics and sitting in the park etc.

Elderflower Forage

woohooo, 4 litres of elderflowers were shaken off the stems last night, and put into muslin bags and then put into the fermenting brew.

I remember in my early days of brewing i often wondered what the volume measurement of such things meant. is this squashed in, dropped in or what? It turns out that most folks measure the volume as lightly shaken down, this is what i have used.

Drinking Blackberry Wine

Watching a cheesy horror flick (triangle) with a glass of Blackberry Wine from 2009, which makes it 20 months old. Last time I tried this was probably 6 months and my thoughts at the time were recorded with the recipe linked above.

In short, it was then harsh and acidic, but promised much. Now it's stunning, crisp, clean, bright and the fruit is fresh tasting. It's well balanced but not the big wine that you would get if you're used to paying  £5 or less for a bottle of red. That's our usual price range. This is more like what you would get for £8-10. It's no longer harsh and there are no strange flavours that I can't put my finger on. Neither is it too acidic.

I didn't like using GV2 yeast, it foamed a lot (so was messy) and threw a big sediment. But upon drinking this wine I think I may try it again. It's hard to say it's down to the yeast, and I'm not doing that, but it's certainly worth considering trying it again. I think I'll let the haul of blackberries decide me, enough for 4-5 gallons and I'll go with GV2. Less than that and something easier to work with will be my choice (Sauternes or GV1), choosing a Malic acid reducing yeast may speed up the time of getting the acidity down, in which case Gervin D.

Elderfower Forage

Surely one of the best moments of the year for a home-brewer is when the elderflowers come out. I've just got in from picking, had to be a little selective as there were plenty of the "wrong" flowers out - they smell like cat pee. But nevertheless I got a good haul and the better half's face was a delight to behold when I got home with a couple bags of wonderful smelling flowers ... and I found a new spot for uber smelling flowers. As there were still plenty of flowers yet to open I'm very tempted to get another 5 gallons on the go and do another forage in a week or so.

so get yourself a base brew on the go and then get yourselves out there brewers, its far from too late to make yourselves a big batch of this delicious wine. It's as easy as pie and all the instruction you need is right here on my blog.

Pomegranate Quickie Wine Update

So what else is news worthy? Remember the wine that was a bit of a dog's dinner of ingredients? Odd cartons of red and white grape juice, with some pomegranate juice too. Clicky for a reminder of the recipe. Well, it's almost clear, but it's doing so very slowly and unless we start decimating the seriously good stuff prematurely then I need this one to come online pronto. Check out the piccie to see how fussy you become about clear wine

So I chucked in gelatin based finings tonight. I seem to remember that it worked well for pomegranate, but I didn't check my notes so don't take that as being gospel truth! I'll be racking, degassing, stabilising, bottling and then drinking it, in a few days! Table wine is all I was aiming for, and that's what I expect to get.

Recipe: Elderflower Quickie Wine 2011

About a week ago I started the base brew for the Elderflower quickie wine. I was aiming for a repeat of last year's brew, and got very close to that recipe. Tomorrow I go looking for Elderflowers, I've been holding off a day at a time hoping for just a little rain to wash the petals as it's been dry for weeks now. It rained ever so lightly today. Sunshine is forecast for tomorrow, so I anticipate excellent flowers. Anyway, you'll be wanting the recipe and method, so .... onwards.

Recipe:

5 Litres WGJ (Tesco, pure, pressed)
5 Litres Apple Juice (Tesco, value, from concentrate)
3.4 Kg Sugar
5 Teaspoons Pectolase
5 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
Nutrient (brupak)
4 Campden Tablets
Gervin D yeast.

OG 1078

Method:

You probably know the drill by now. Dissolve the sugar in boiled water. Pour into the fermenting bin, add the cartons of juice, the tartaric acid, the pectolase and the crushed campden tablets. Make the volume up to almost 5 gallons with water and stir well to mix. Cover tightly and leave overnight. Next day measure the gravity and then make up the volume to 5 gallons with water or sugar solution. The 3.4 Kg of sugar had a good gravity for this brew so I just used water to correct the volume. 1078 should give a light wine, ready to drink in weeks. Then I gave a good sloshy stir (actually whisked) to get air dissolved and finally added the nutrient and yeast. Covered it up and left it overnight. Before I went to bed I noticed the lid bulging, the yeast had started doing it's thing in only a few hours. Each day for a week or so I stirred for a few mins (well whisked).

So it's now about 9 days later, the gravity has dropped to 1015, I've transferred the brew to a secondary fermenter with an airlock fitted.

I'll go pick flowers tomorrow, leave them in a tied plastic bag overnight, then shake the bag for about 5 minutes, transfer the flowers (having magically shaken loose of the stalks) to muslin bags and add to the barrel.

Rose Petal Wine

Did I tell you, that brew I started that I called the base brew, that was going to become dandelion or gorse flower wine, well it turned into rose petal wine. I've updated the recipe with everything you need to know. Basically adding rose petals and grape tannin at secondary stage. And there are new piccies too, so go feast your eyes there.

The brew is now sitting in demi-johns, probably finished fermenting, the rose petals removed now. I'll be degassing and stabilising if the fermentation has indeed finished, which I'll know in a day or so.

Looking, well, not very nice eh, especially not with the uber clear wine sitting next to it, but fear not, it'll clear and be delicious, and hopefully we'll be drinking it in the autumn.

Brewing Season is Gathering Pace

Take a look around you when you're walking about or driving around and you'll see flowers in abundance. Certainly in the Northern hemisphere. There's lots of Elderflowers especially and these make a great homebrew. Infact if there were one wine I would recommend for the novice or improver then Elderflower is it. It is very special. So check out the link to the recipe page, then find the elderflower recipes and give one a try. The quickie recipes are especially good ... 'cos they're quick, so you'll be drinking the wine in something like 8-10 weeks, and if you do the late flower addition then your flowers will go much (I mean MUCH) further. Look out too for the tip on processing the flowers, it'll save you hours and there is no effect on the quality of the wine.

Others worth considering are Gorse, Hawthorn and if you're really northern you may still have plenty of dandelions. Smell the flowers first tho, and only use those that smell good. This is especially so for elderflowers, there is no doubting a good smelling elderflower spray, it is wonderful. So if in doubt pass it by and find another tree.

Happy foraging, and stay tuned for news from this brewer, nothing out of the ordinary, just more tales of my brewing.

Recipe: Rose Petal on Base Brew

So, yesterday I laid the foundations for a brew with a yet to be determined finishing touch. I'm thinking Dandelion, or perhaps Gorse, or maybe even both. Should the weather turn bad and the sun doesn't shine then the base brew will have nothing added and simply be a crisp light summery white wine.

Confused, don't be. The basic idea is that old-time recipes* for flower wines instruct you to add everything at the beginning, including flowers, and let it rip. The down side of this is that much of the wonderful volatile flavour from the flowers is lost by being driven off during the primary vigorous fermentation. Hence lots of flowers are needed. A school of thought is gaining hold that says add your flowers when the primary fermentation has finished. For me that simply means get your brew going for a few days before you add the flowers. You'll need less flowers this way because more of the flavour will be extracted. It's not just that the fermentation is way more gentle so less volatiles will be driven off, it's also that the alcohol content (probably over 10% by this stage) will extract those volatiles and hold them in solution.

This is what I'm aiming for. Downside is you may have to guess your start time based on when you think you can gather flowers. Alternatively you can pick your flowers and freeze them. Today i picked a heap of dandelions that turned out to be mugfull of petals. Old-time recipes* call for anything between 1 and 2 litres of flowers per gallon. But a later addition means the mugfull may be enough for a gallon. Anyway, onwards with the recipe.

Ingredients

5 Litres White Grape Juice (pressed)
5.25 Litres Apple Juice (pressed)
4 Kg Sugar
5 Teaspoons Acid Mix (50:50 tartaric and citric)
3 Campden Tablets
Water to 4.5 Gallons (approx)
Yeast Nutrient
Yeast (Gervin D)
Pectolase (added 3 days in because I forgot it!)
2 Bags Rose Petals (added at secondary stage, 10 days in)
1 Teaspoon  Wine Tannin (added at secondary stage, 10 days in)
OG; 1088

Some of the ingredients for the base brew. As you can see the fruit juices I used were not concentrates, however I think concentrates will work out ok, just look out for additives that'll give your yeast a tough time (Potassium sorbate especially, less so sodium/potassium metabisulphate).

Method

Simply combined all the above (apart from yeast and nutrient) and put the lid on. Left it overnight.
Next day gave it a sloshy stir, measured the gravity, came in at around 1095 so added some water and it came down to 1088. Still quite high but that was already over 5 gallons so I have to leave it there and hope for the best, I anticipate topping the wine up at some stage so I can do this with water when the wine has such a high OG.
Added the nutrient and yeast. Gervin D chosen cos it's acid reducing, referring to malic acid which apples have plenty of. Malic acid is harsh tasting so reducing it will do no harm at all. It's also low foaming and a quick starter.

Thoughts

This base will make a very nice table wine in its own right, but it's lightness and crisp clean flavour also makes it suitable for use as a base for flower wines. The ideal gravity to start with is 1070-1080, mine is higher. That's a shame because it means I'll probably be waiting 6 months before drinking it, rather than 8 weeks. (I'd better get the next one's gravity in the right range, cos that'll be elderflower!). around the middle of next week I'll transfer the wine to secondary container(s) and add the flower petals.

As I type this I realise I've missed out the pectic enzyme, will add it tomorrow. Apples contain plenty of pectin and if I don't use pectic enzyme then I'll probably end up with a pectin haze and have a hard time clearing it.

* Old-time recipes: I have enormous regard for the old-time recipes. Without them I wouldn't be brewing wines like dandelion, elderflower, blackberry and tanglefoot. However, sometimes progress is so good that things move on, and so I want to try more late additions and see how it works for me.

Update

I missed the dandelions, and haven't made an effort to get gorse flowers, so in the end I decided to do a 5 gallon batch of Rose Petal wine as last year's Rose Petal wine was a stunner. The details you need to know for doing this are as follows. The rose petals (see piccie below) were bought from the local homebrew shop, the instructions on the bag say each bag does 1 gallon, but as this is a late addition I guess-timated that 2 bags would be more than enough for 5 gallons.

About 10 Days after starting the brew I moved the must to a secondary fermenter with airlock. The gravity at this stage was 1026 so ABV 8.5% or so. I then added 2 bags of rose petals, each one in a muslin bag (see piccie below).

 
I didn't bother to sanitise etc because the alcohol content and acidity are sufficient to ensure that all will be well. I also added 1 teaspoon of wine tannin, simply because last year's brew included it. I pushed down the muslin bags once a day for a few days. About 2 weeks later I removed the rose petals and racked the wine into demi-johns.