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.