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!