Thursday, 26 August 2010
200 Real Visits
thanks again to all you blog readers, followers and those who comment and tick boxes, ... we have got to 200, showing that 100 was no accident! I think the next milestone will be 500.
Blackberry Wine 2010 (2nd batch) con't ...
Just moved it to secondary fermenters under airlocks. Plenty left over for topping up after racking.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Recipe; Last Year's Blackberry Wine
Last year I made two Blackberry Wines. One from the canes in the garden (wild but cultivated by us). The other from foraged berries. This is the foraged version, tho strictly speaking it's not quite straight Blackberry as you'll see from the recipe 'cos it's got some Elderberries in it too.
3.45 Kg Blackberries
0.25 Kg Elderberries
2 Kg Sugar
2 Teaspoons acid blend*
2 Teaspoons Pectolase
2 Campden Tablets
Yeast Nutrient
Yeast; GV2 (red label)
* ratio of tartaric:citric:malic acids ... 2:2:1
OG 1088, FG 1000, 12% ABV
Day 1: Mash the fruit and put into fermenting bin, add 1/2 gallon of hot boiled water and 2 crushed campden tablets. Stir, cover and leave overnight.
Day 2: Dissolve the pectolase in a little water and add to the fermenting vessel. Stir, cover and leave overnight.
Day 3: Add all the other ingredients. Stir it all about very sloshily and splashy style to get plenty of air into the mix. Check gravity. Came out as 1088 which is fine for what I enjoy. Add the yeast. Cover.
For the next 5 days stir at least once daily, sloshily, then re-cover. After 5 days remove the fruit and move the must to secondary containers fitted with airlocks. A couple of weeks later it was racked and topped up. 2 months later it was racked again, degassed and stabilised. 2-3 months later it was degassed again, stabilised again, and the first gallon was bottled.
GV2 was not as easy to work with as I had hoped, it was quite messy and threw a bigger sediment than I'm used to. Which meant more topping up than usual. In honesty it probably wasn't the best yeast to use for this wine (despite being recommended by a forum). A better choice would have been something that reduces malic acid (blackberries have plenty of this and it can be harsh). Especially as I used some Malic acid in my acid addition. That was the result of trusting the method of choosing an acid based on a truly crappy and misleading table that many homebrewers swear by. Now I know better I have abandoned that table, alerted a forum or two of it's serious fault. What thanks .... well none, I was branded a trouble maker on one forum! I'd love to tell you the forum, but any publicity is good publicity and their response means I don't want to publicise them.
Anyway the wine is quite acidic, but it's a red so it can handle that. Its a little harsh but will probably soften with more time (now almost a year old). It's very fruity tho, and will be good stuff in time. The first mouthful is a bit hard to bear TBH. I have described the taste as a little bilious, but that description has always been challenged by others who have tried it. That's a good thing, but I still don't know how to describe it. Nevertheless after the first mouthful that unpleasant edge goes, and if you like your wines acidic then this is a hit. Based on the FG it should be medium/dry, but the acidity (and I think tannin in the fruit) makes it quite astringent so without paying full attention it's easy to judge it as dry.
Very much as an aside, despite 2 well separated degassing sessions, it wasn't fully degassed. The result is that the wine has a very slight frizz on the tongue. I quite enjoy this, even tho wine experts (and ponces too as they are not always the same thing) wouldn't. Mrs Critter Wines really enjoys a poorly degassed wine, and it's probably only the frizz in this wine that means she'll join me in a glass. So when you brew, if you like it then thats good enough. But if you want to win medals then you may have to make wines that you don't like as much, but will make judges happy (who get it free anyway cos you - the brewer - pay for the priviledge of giving your wine away to them). Me I would rather give it away to mates who will tell me what they think and not set it against some mainstream criteria for what a wine "should" taste, smell and feel like.
hehe ... that was quite a "ranty" post eh!
Recipe (2 Gallons)
3.45 Kg Blackberries
0.25 Kg Elderberries
2 Kg Sugar
2 Teaspoons acid blend*
2 Teaspoons Pectolase
2 Campden Tablets
Yeast Nutrient
Yeast; GV2 (red label)
* ratio of tartaric:citric:malic acids ... 2:2:1
OG 1088, FG 1000, 12% ABV
Method
Day 1: Mash the fruit and put into fermenting bin, add 1/2 gallon of hot boiled water and 2 crushed campden tablets. Stir, cover and leave overnight.
Day 2: Dissolve the pectolase in a little water and add to the fermenting vessel. Stir, cover and leave overnight.
Day 3: Add all the other ingredients. Stir it all about very sloshily and splashy style to get plenty of air into the mix. Check gravity. Came out as 1088 which is fine for what I enjoy. Add the yeast. Cover.
For the next 5 days stir at least once daily, sloshily, then re-cover. After 5 days remove the fruit and move the must to secondary containers fitted with airlocks. A couple of weeks later it was racked and topped up. 2 months later it was racked again, degassed and stabilised. 2-3 months later it was degassed again, stabilised again, and the first gallon was bottled.
Thoughts
GV2 was not as easy to work with as I had hoped, it was quite messy and threw a bigger sediment than I'm used to. Which meant more topping up than usual. In honesty it probably wasn't the best yeast to use for this wine (despite being recommended by a forum). A better choice would have been something that reduces malic acid (blackberries have plenty of this and it can be harsh). Especially as I used some Malic acid in my acid addition. That was the result of trusting the method of choosing an acid based on a truly crappy and misleading table that many homebrewers swear by. Now I know better I have abandoned that table, alerted a forum or two of it's serious fault. What thanks .... well none, I was branded a trouble maker on one forum! I'd love to tell you the forum, but any publicity is good publicity and their response means I don't want to publicise them.
Anyway the wine is quite acidic, but it's a red so it can handle that. Its a little harsh but will probably soften with more time (now almost a year old). It's very fruity tho, and will be good stuff in time. The first mouthful is a bit hard to bear TBH. I have described the taste as a little bilious, but that description has always been challenged by others who have tried it. That's a good thing, but I still don't know how to describe it. Nevertheless after the first mouthful that unpleasant edge goes, and if you like your wines acidic then this is a hit. Based on the FG it should be medium/dry, but the acidity (and I think tannin in the fruit) makes it quite astringent so without paying full attention it's easy to judge it as dry.
Very much as an aside, despite 2 well separated degassing sessions, it wasn't fully degassed. The result is that the wine has a very slight frizz on the tongue. I quite enjoy this, even tho wine experts (and ponces too as they are not always the same thing) wouldn't. Mrs Critter Wines really enjoys a poorly degassed wine, and it's probably only the frizz in this wine that means she'll join me in a glass. So when you brew, if you like it then thats good enough. But if you want to win medals then you may have to make wines that you don't like as much, but will make judges happy (who get it free anyway cos you - the brewer - pay for the priviledge of giving your wine away to them). Me I would rather give it away to mates who will tell me what they think and not set it against some mainstream criteria for what a wine "should" taste, smell and feel like.
hehe ... that was quite a "ranty" post eh!
Update May 2011
If you make this wine (wild fruit - so acidic -, this yeast and acid blend) then be prepared to give it 18 months for a superb result. Clicky here for more details on this update.
Bottling
In the never-ending struggle to free up Demi-Johns tonight I bottled 2 lots of wine. Which means I now have 4 empty DJ's (out of 30). Tomorrow I'll fill 3 of them up with the 2nd batch of this years blackberry wine. That'll leave one for racking purposes.
Anyway tonight I bottled Green Tea & Ginger Wine, and also the last of the blackberry wine that I made with foraged berries last year. The latter was fermented using GV2 yeast, a recommendation from a forum. And here is your piccie of the bottles, tomorrow the shrink necks go on and they get laid down. ('scuse the unpolished bottles).
Some months ago this was very acidic and a bit harsh. Perhaps not surprising as Blackberries are high in malic acid and GV2 isn't an acid reducing yeast (as far as I know anyway). Tonight it's a bit better, but not much. Apart from that its just fine, so its a case of carefully selecting what we drink it with I guess. Here's the recipe
The Green Tea & Ginger is the same great winner that we know and love.
Anyway tonight I bottled Green Tea & Ginger Wine, and also the last of the blackberry wine that I made with foraged berries last year. The latter was fermented using GV2 yeast, a recommendation from a forum. And here is your piccie of the bottles, tomorrow the shrink necks go on and they get laid down. ('scuse the unpolished bottles).
Some months ago this was very acidic and a bit harsh. Perhaps not surprising as Blackberries are high in malic acid and GV2 isn't an acid reducing yeast (as far as I know anyway). Tonight it's a bit better, but not much. Apart from that its just fine, so its a case of carefully selecting what we drink it with I guess. Here's the recipe
The Green Tea & Ginger is the same great winner that we know and love.
A Good Weekend
So it's been a bit quiet here eh! That's cos Critter Wines hit the road to say hi to some friends and meet some more. Of course we went with wine so here's a little summary of how it went down, and what went down. There were 6 of us.
Elderberry & Blackberry (2nd run)
This wine got the popular vote to be opened first. And it went down well, probably the 2nd favourite on the night. The fullest feedback was that it was very smooth and had little tannin or acid compared to a commercial red. That made it quite dangerous as it was very easy to drink, almost like alcoholic fruit juice!
Quickie Elderflower
The preferred choice of 2 friends, and form favourite of one who only tried a couple of others but was otherwise happy to enjoy this one for the whole night.
Orange & Hawthorn Blossom
This is the sweet strong dessert wine. Made from blending the Hawthorn Blossom and the Orange wine. It was the surprise favourite on the night. Raising some eyebrows, and compared to a liquer
Elderberry & Blackberry (2nd run)
This wine got the popular vote to be opened first. And it went down well, probably the 2nd favourite on the night. The fullest feedback was that it was very smooth and had little tannin or acid compared to a commercial red. That made it quite dangerous as it was very easy to drink, almost like alcoholic fruit juice!
Quickie Elderflower
The preferred choice of 2 friends, and form favourite of one who only tried a couple of others but was otherwise happy to enjoy this one for the whole night.
Orange & Hawthorn Blossom
This is the sweet strong dessert wine. Made from blending the Hawthorn Blossom and the Orange wine. It was the surprise favourite on the night. Raising some eyebrows, and compared to a liquer
Thursday, 19 August 2010
New Toy
Mrs Critter Wines bought me a gift. A cool bottle stopper, which is in use only a few hours since being passed to me. It's very dense and makes a seal, with the rubber 'O' ring due to its weight, simply by dropping it into an open bottle neck. Very elegant. Check it out ...
by the way the top is a carving of a gum nut. When I first saw it I wondered what the heck it was for cos it looked kind of useful ... pointed on one side, hollow at the other. But it's "just" a pretty thing from Australia, hence it has an Aussie connection. Gum nut wine anyone?
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