Orange Wine: Recipe

Making orange wine is a labour of love, but it's worth it. This is a delicious drink worth saving for winter. It's sweet, strong, zesty and has a texture like a liquer.  Last time i made it was a couple f years ago. Last time i drank it was about a week ago. That was a glass from one of the few remaining bottles and so, with added pressure from Mrs Chateau Hippo, it was time to make more so we'd have some next winter. And any other time we want a dessert wine cos this is the only one i make. It's that good. One size fits all.

And for you oldskool types out there, who love CJJJ Berry (and who doesn't when it comes to brewing wine) you'll find this recipe very familiar, but tweaked. We all tweak as brewers, cos we all think that either we know better or we know ourselves well enough to adapt a recipe for our tastes or preferences. So i tweaked CJJJJJJJ Berry. Back in his day of course there probably wasn't such a thing as organic fruit, it was likely just called fruit. I'm using organic cos i like it in every way, but in this recipe it's actually important to use organic regardless of your beliefs. You will be using the skins of many fruits and pesticides etc are on those skins, so take no chances. you're not meant to consume pesticides. If you don't believe me then look some up, do some research, and pay attention to COSHH (chemicals and other substances hazardous to health). Washing isn't the whole solution here, the zest will be infusing for days. Get organic, and it'll taste better anyway. Which is a big deal with homebrew right!

I started this on December 31st, alas missing my target for total brews in 1014, 50 gallons, and making a mere low 40's instead. Must do better this year! But the quality of what i made last year is a great consolation prize, and i didn't drink for half of december, which probably adds up to 2 gallons worth ;)

Recipe - 3 gallons

Juice of 30 Organic Juicing Oranges
Juice of 18 Organic Italian Clementines
Juice of 6 Organic Lemons
Juice of 2 Organic Pink Grapefruit
Juice of 1 lime
Zest from Organic 24 oranges and 4 Organic lemons
4.5 kg Sugar
2 Tspoon Citric Acid
2 Tspoon Tartaric Acid
4 Tspoon Pectolase (Pectic enzyme)
6 Tspoon Yeast Nutrient (tronozymol)
Water to 3.5 gallons
Yeast (Gervin 3, GV3)

Original Gravity 1124

Method

This is a labour of love so use your time well. Start with a clean and tidy working area, you'll need the space. put the sugar in a large pan and add about a gallon of water. Bring it to the boil and so  dissolve the sugar, stir occasionally to make sure there isn't a lump of sugar burning on the base. While you're letting that happen wash the oranges and lemons you'll be zesting.

Now zest the oranges and lemons, fastidiously. You don't want any pith in your wine, it'll make it bitter. Which is not the same as sour, it doesn't work. Be a real stickler for this. I use a potato peeler to get the zest off and then still take a sharp knife to the skin to remove all traces of pith. If you know the expression "the most dangerous thing in a kitchen is a blunt knife" then you'll know the value of a regularly sharpened knife. Sharpen it and you'll save vast amounts of time and won't chop your fingers off or pulp the zest. If you have a scary grater that you've injured yourself with previously then its probably a good thing to use. But resist the temptation to get as much zest as possible, instead aim for getting the very best quality zest only.

By the time you've done this the sugar solution will probably be boiling. Tip it into your fermenting bin and put the lid on. The steam will do a great job of sterilising it, tho you should have made sure it was clean and chemical free already. Chop up the zest into pieces about half the dimensions of a match stick. Put the zest into a muslin bag and tie it up. Add to the fermenting bin and put the lid on.

Now juice all the rest of the fruit. Hold on, don't use a juicing machine. This must be old skool stylee. A juicing machine will add loads of tiny wee fragments of pith, pips and juice that has been in contact with macerated pith and pips. This'll make your wine bitter and you won't like it. So you gotta get that old skool orange juicing gizmo or squeezer out and give yourself some hand cramps. No other option. And if you're not in practice then you may need to up the fruit content by 10-30%. I have strong hands and use them a lot for repetitious stuff (which all sounds quite deviant but actually i walk with crutches ... so it's very boring!). In short i get more juice from my fruit than most would. Is that showing off ;-)

Add the juice to the fermenting bin and put the lid on. Then dissolve all the other stuff (except the yeast) in water, 0.5 - 1 litre should do it, and add to the fermenting bin. You've probably got somewhere close to 2 gallons in there, so make the volume up to 3 gallons and measure the gravity with your hydrometer. Hopefully it's way high, even beyond your hydrometer scale. Mine was something like 1135, off the scale so couldn't tell, had to guesstimate. I added enough water to make the volume up to 3.5 gallons. Including the muslin bag of zest. The gravity then was 1124. Last brew was 1122 and that wine was delicious. So i stopped there. it's close enough.

Then i added my yeast. This is probably the most important wine to make a good choice of yeast for. Something sweet and strong really needs a yeast that you can depend upon to do what it says "on the tin". I used to use Vintner's Harvest Sauternes yeast, and it worked great.. Then i couldn't get it and was told that Gervin number 3 (GV3) was great for sweet wines with high alcohol by volume and start's fine in a super sweet must. So i use that, sprinkle it onto the surface, put the lid on, tightly.

As for all your other brews after a few days to a week or so move the wine to secondary fermentation, and when you do remove the muslin bag of zest. I think you can err on the side of length for this brew. Maybe primary ferment for upto 10 days. Keep an eye on it tho. It may be slow to start due to the high sugar content. So it may need extra sloshy stirring (i use an old skool egg/cream whisk) to help the yeast bud (breed). Or may need more time to get busy. This is a sweet strong wine, everything about it takes longer.

When it's stopped fermenting, which may be weeks or months, then rack it to fresh demi-johns. That is siphon so you leave the sediment behind. And if it's still fermenting after 2 months and has deposited a substantial sediment (0.5 - 1.0 cm) then rack it anyway and let it ferment more with a much reduced sediment. It may take a long time but the sediment can taint the wine. ultimately the best bet is to keep an eye on the gravity too. If it's not going down quickly then leave it on the sediment cos it'll need all the yeast it can get. But if it is going down rapidly then you can afford to remove most of the sediment. There's a bit of an art to this, and you'll probably get close enough to a brilliant result however you do it. From there on you'll be refining this wine.

The wine, if i remember right, always clears without needing finings. Don't expect to drink it until it's at least 6 months old. A year is a respectful wait and worth it. And if you have enough capacity to set a bottle or two aside and forget about them then some years later you'll be in heaven when you open one.

 If - at the bottling stage - you're at all unsure about whether to use stabilisers like campden tablets and potassium sorbate (both) then use them. This is sweet wine with  a high tolerance yeast. There will be enough residual sugar for more fermentation and as conditions change your tiny invisible yeasts may burst back into life, start to bud, and ferment. If this happens in a bottle you'll either blow the cork, or if using a screw cap your bottle will go off like a glass grenade. In a normal wine the low final gravity at bottling is often safety enough. but with a high final gravity then caution is wisdom.

Discussion

I'd advise anyone making this wine to go wild and do your own thing with the fruit combo. Keep the lemons in there at around 2 per gallon. Then for all the rest of the fruit juggle it about. If you;re not feeling too bold then keep the oranges and mix up the clementines, tangerines, satsumas, mineolas etc etc according to what you like and/or what is cheap and/or available. You will end up with a citrus wine like mine but different. It's differentness is it;s delight. so the subtle difference resulting from your own mix of "little oranges" will only really matter to you. and that is because you are paying most attention, not because you're a super-hero ;-) I like adding grapefruit cos i'm quite partial to it, i eat them like oranges occasionally and never add sugar to them. This wine has residual sugar, it's sweet. so if you like sour anyway then try some grapefruit. Similarly if you like what lime has to offer throw that in too, replace 1:1 for lemons.

Green Tea & Ginger Wine; Recipe

So this is an old favourite wine as my regular readers will know. I wish i could copy last years wine cos it was great,and i wish i could copy a recipe from 3 years ago cos after those years of laying down the wine was exquisite. Alas, it was not possible. But with experience you get good enough with you art to adapt. So this is an adaption, and so plays it's part in the evolution of the wine. I'm confident enough in my abilities to brew 5 gallons of it anyway. And if you like a curry, and also like a crisp interesting wine then give this a go. It's a match made in heaven.

Recipe: 5 Gallons

10 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure oressed)
3.1 Kg Sugar
200g Fresh Root Ginger
200g Luponde Green Tea (East Afrikan, fairtrade, suki-tea.com)
Zest of 3 Lemons (organic)
Zest of 2 Limes (organic)
5 TSpoon Citric Acid
5 TSpoon Pectolase
4 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV5, lees from previous brew)
Water to 5 Gallons

Original Gravity 1075

There should be a picture of mine here, but my phone isn't talking to my laptop, so here's a link to  suki-tea.com
http://suki-tea.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/350x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/i/file_7_18.jpg

Method

Remove the lees (sediment) from the fermenting bin and keep in a sterilised sealed container like a bottle. Lots of hit liquids will be added, they'll kill the yeast, and you want it alive
Pour the red grape juice into a fermenting bucket.
Add the sugar to a pan of water (1 gallon is enough), dissolve by bringing to the boil. Then pourinto fermenting bucket.
Put the tea into two muslin bags, add a gallon of water, bring to a simmer, turn off heat, decant liquid into fermenting bucket, cover bucket. Refill pan with another gallon of water, bring to simmer, turn off heat, tip pan contents (including  muslin bags of tea) into fermenting bucket, cover bucket.
Dissolve citric acid and pectolase in warm water, add to fermenting bucket with cold water to make the volume up to 5 gallons.
Cover and leave overnight.

Next day add yeast nutrient and yeast (lees set aside) to fermenting bucket. Cover and leave for a few days. After 5-8 days move to secondary fermentation vessel under airlock. Remove muslin bag of green tea and add muslin bag of finely chopped zest of lemons and limes and also finely chopped peeled root ginger.

After a further week or so remove bag of zest and ginger, rack to demi-johns, and leave under airlock until fermentation stops. Then, if you wish, stabilise with campden tablets, potassium sorbate and add finings. Or wait for the wine to clear in it's own time. It should be quick, like within a couple more weeks. Bottle when you need the demi-johns or when you want to drink it. This should be ready to drink 6-8 months after pitching the yeast. So, for me this means June, cos i started it in December.

Discussion

So i couldn't find white grape juice and i was gutted to be honest. Green tea and ginger wine that looks pink or red just doesn't seem right. But having said that there really needn't be that much difference. You can get a white wine from red grapes after-all. So i reckon the red colour in the grape juice hasn't come from a long exposure of red grape skins and juice. As it would cost money for this i reckon i have good grounds for my hope being well placed. In other words this is like pouring boiled water onto a teabag, the colour comes out way before the flavour. So i got over the visual deception obstacle. Besides if the skins are left in the juice for a log time it only mean more flavour and more astringency. so i'll live with that and give it more time to age is that is the reality. Maybe it'll take a year to age? It's no big deal is it.

Passion Fruit Quickie; Recipe

At the end of last year i made a number of different quickie brews. One stood out from amongst the crowd, passion fruit. So i decided to do it again, but by the time i got around to starting it i found that i couldn't source the same ingredients. I was committed by then, so i had to adapt, and the result is a different recipe to last years, but the method is the same. I'm optimistic, with good reason, to expect a good result, and that's why i've made 5 gallons (30 bottles) of it. These wines, quickies, are a brewer's delight, they make something astoundingly good quality, in a 6-8 weeks, very cheaply. So you get to drink table wine while you let the best stuff age. Believe me, you won't be disappointed by the quality of these wines so don't hesitate to try one! This is not prison hooch, it's great quality. And if you're doing time but shouldn't be then you can probably pull this off, or something similar enough.

Recipe, 5 Gallons

5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure, pressed)
5 Litres Passion Juice (Rubicon)
3.3 Kg sugar
5 TSpoon Citric Acid
4 TSpoon Pectolase
3.5 TSpoon Yeats Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (GV5).
Water to 5 gallons

Original Gravity 1075

And a piccie of the ingredients

Method

Pour the juices into a fermenting bin.
Dissolve the sugar in hot boiled water (1-2 gallons is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve pectolase, citric acid in warm water and add to bucket.
Add water to 5 gallons.
Stir sloshily for a few minutes (i use a whisk) to add air to the mix, yeast needs dissolved oxygen to bud (breed).
Add yeast nutrient, stir and then sprinkle yeast onto the surface.

After a few days decant to secondary fermentation under airlock. The after another week or so, when the fermentation has slowed or stopped, rack to demi-johns. At this point add, if you wish, campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. You'll find instructions on the packets and they are easy to follow, there's no special kit or practices required. wait until the wine has cleared and if you need the demi-johns or want to drink the wine then bottle it. Or keep it natural, and wait to ensure the fermentation has finished before bottling. You'll be bale to tell if it's a good tim because the gravity won't change for a few weeks and will be below 1000. like 990 - 998.

Discussion.

The fruit juice i used turned out to have 1/2 as much passion fruit in it as last years choice. I didn't know when i bought it. Nevertheless this wine is really a crisp white/blush or even rose of table wine quality with a hint of passion fruit. "Hint" is the crucial word. So i'm not worried.
The choice of yeast wasn't the same as last year. i was caught having to use what i had in the cupboard. But seeing as i've had good results with GV5 before i didn't hesitate to use it again.

Blackberry & Elderberry 2nd run. Recipe

When you make a wine "on the pulp" of a fruit then you should always consider if the left-over pulp could be used again. Often there is plenty of  flavour and body in that pulp. I'm still on the journey of getting the best from it, but i can tell you that some of the very best wines i have made  have come from using the pulp again. This is delicious for two reasons. 1. It's very easy cos you use the lees (sediment) from an earlier brew to kick-start your new brew, and it's cheap cos you don't need to buy more yeast, and neither do you need to find new fruits.

This wine exploits these considerations. But be mindful that 1 kg of fruit pulp used for a second time will not be as productive as it was the first time. Half or less is is a reasonable assumption. Adjust your volumes accordingly and enjoy experimenting with me

Recipe: 1 gallon

Lees from Blackberry & Elerberry Wine
5 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pressed, chilled)
270 grams sugar
Water to 1 gallon.

Original Gravity 1084

soz, no gratuitous picture!

Method

Very briefly, much more so than is usual, so if you're new to this blog don't be discouraged, look up any method from before this one and you'll find way more detail. ... When you're left with the lees of an on the pulp brew like this one then do something with it. Add some grape juice, sugar and water to it (possibly acids or nutrient too). Then let it rip again. After a few days move it to secondary fermentation, a few days later rack to demi-johns. Stabilise by the ways you prefer, bottle when you need to. Enjoy.

Discussion.

I've tried doing second run on the pulp fermentations numbers of times. And i always like the results. However i am still experimenting and pushing the boundaries. with this brew i decided to try using lots of grape juice and have the pulp flavour prop it up. i Don't know how it'll work. 2015 will tell that tale.

Blackberry & Elderberry, Recipe

Because the garden doesn't produce an abundance of big juicy sweet blackberries, but nature makes an abundance of smaller more sour blackberries, i like to have more than one recipe. This one is a result of an evolving process. I've been improving my blackberry wines every year for over 20 years. And this is part of that evolutionary process.

You're going to get a different wine when you use wild, foraged, blackberries than when you use something cultivated. even if that cultivation is as simple as pruning a wild bush (which is what i do). So you'll need to tweak the recipe to make something you enjoy.

I enjoy a big red wine, lots of body, acidity, astringency and alcohol, in balance. And balance is the key. Miss one part of it and your wine will be unremarkable, not great. Miss two and it'll be a flop. So aim for all 3. elderberries are great for adding balance. Go cautiously tho, the more you add the longer you'll have to wait for the wine to age. Pure elderberry wine takes years to age, the more the better. 5 years is what you should be looking at. Reduce the ratio to something like 33% and the time comes way down, around a year being enough. At 15% 6 months may do it.

For this recipe i've taken a punt on laying it down for a year minimum, and maybe more like 2. I got this brew going in September. It should come in around 13% ABV, so it needs time at that strength, and its so worth it. You may want to pop it open after 6 months, and you'll enjoy it cos you made it. but if you wait then you'll be making fine wine. It's so worth it. Need some replacement for disciple with that? Make lots of quickie wines. They are delicious, cheap, easy, quick. check out my recipe list page and look for those with "quickie" or "Q" in the heading.

But now, onwards with a recipe and method for making blackberry wine with some elderberries.

Recipe 2 Gallons

3.00 Kg Blackberries
1.35 Kg Elderberries
2.2 Kg Sugar
4 TSpoon Pectolase
1 TSpoon Citric Acid
1 TSpoon Tartaric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (Tronozymol)
Yeast (lees from last brew, GV11)

Original Gravity 1092

I didn't take a picture of the ingredients, so here's a close-up picture of the material of a coat that was bought for me this year. I used this image in a DVD wallet that i made this year. Big up to Rob Walker for that idea, and big up to Mrs Critter Wines for buying me the coat.

Method

I'm assuming that you're familiar with my blog, so i can give a short-hand version of the method. However, if you're not then don't despair, got to my index page (click) and find an earlier version of the wine, the method will be laid out there, more fully.

Mash your berries and put into the fermenting bucket. This is on the lees of the previous wine. So you will have decanted or  siphoned that wine from its sediment. The sediment contains live and healthy yeast tho. So you can use it again. But be cautious, it is a living colony of biological critters. If you heat it up too much it'll get wiped out!

Dissolve sugar in hot boiled water and add to fermenting bucket. when it's cooled enough.
Dissolve pectolase and acids in warm water and add to fermenting bucket..
(for a more natural version use lemon juice at rate of juice of one lemon for a 1 teaspoon of citric acid)
Add yeast nutrient and stir. You'll have  healthy colony of yeast there already. Just measure the
gravity after stirring well and cover it up.

After a few days (4-7 depending on season - cos using frozen berries works just fine) it will be a good time to decant into secondary fermentation under airlocks. After another week or so rack into demi-johns. At this stage you can add things like campden tablets, potassium sorbate and finings. Or you can wait for time to pass, the fermentation to run it's course and stop. The wine to clear and patience to pay dividends. Then bottle it when you want to drink it, or need the demi-johns. Then lay it down of it's bottled with corks.

Discussion.

I've used a high proportion of elderberries to blackberries this year. I'm aiming for a big wine and prepared to wait for it. i'm thinking 1-2 years and happy with it cos i made a few gallons of blackberry earlier this year, form last year's frozen berries.

Big Garden Blackberry Wine, recipe

Again, it's been a long time since i did a brewing blog entry. But hey it's not easy finding the time and while i appreciate the donations (i really do, and thank you muchly to those who donate) they are few and far between, so my focus needs to go on efforts towards putting bread on the table .. cos wine alone is not enough.

But now i've got time to update the blog, just before the year is out. So here's a recipe from August. Using blackberries that i lovingly tend in my garden. Making sure that each cane has fewer berries to nurture than would have happened if nature were left to her own devices. And this means the berries are bigger, sweeter and juicier. Onwards then, with the recipe and method ...

Recipe, 2 Gallons

3.6 Kg Blackberries
2 Kg Sugar
3 Litres Red Grape Juice (Asda, pure pressed)
2 Campden Tablets (crushed)
3 TSpoon Pectolase
2 TSpoon Citric Acid
2 TSpoon Yeast Nutrient (tronozymol)
Yeast (GV11).

Original Gravity 1100

Method.

You've probably followed my blog for some time so i'll do the condensed method version.
Mash your berries and tip into a fermenting bucket.
Dissolve sugar in boiled hot water (2 litres is enough) and add to fermenting bucket.
Dissolve campden tablets, pectolase and citric acid in warm water add to fermenting bucket.
Add grape juice to fermenting bucket. Rinse bottles and add rinsings.
Cover and leave overnight.

Next day make up to 2 gallons with water or sugar solution to achieve your desired original gravity if 1100 isn't strong enough (perish the thought!). Then stir sloshily (i use a whisk) and add yeast nutrient and yeast then cover. Stir sloshily daily for a few days.

After a few days decant to demi-johns for secondary fermentation under airlock. Then when fermentation has quietened down or stopped rack, leaving sediment behind, into demi-johns. Then be patient and wait. If you want you can wait for the fermentation to stop and then add campden tablets and potassium sorbate and finings. But if you want something close to chemical free then check the gravity when it's stopped fermenting (gravity doesn't change week to week). If it's in the range of 990-998 ish then it'll be done and you can probably get away without further additions.

Bottle your wine when you need the demijohns. not before. Your wine will mature better in bulk than in bottles. If you use a cork then leave the bottles upright for 24-48 hours and then lay them down. If using screw caps then standing upright is good.

Discussion.

Blackberry wine is delicious but without the addition of some grape juice it is not to everyone's tastes. Grape juice will make it into something that everyone will recognise as wine, but will be surprised by, cos it tastes just a little different.

Also, by adding grape juice, you add additional body and nutrients, which means you can up the alcohol content. so if like your red wines big and balanced, like an Aussie Shiraz (as i do), then this is the way to go. This recipe will make a wine around 14% + ABV. So when i said "perish the thought of adding more sugar" i meant it!

UPDATE and sign off on this wine

I opened the last bottle of this yesterday, March 2021. It's 6 & 1/2 years old. Wow. Time did some magic with this wine. It was already a decent wine to enjoy from about a year after pitching the yeast. However if you copied this recipe and laid some down then you're in for a treat.

First off let's say that time improving this wine is not a surprise. It's strong at 14.1%. There is also plenty to it, not only the blackberries, but the grape juice too. Time will help everything come together with seamless edges.

First impressions. There is a small amount of fine sediment in the bottle. It's been lying down, to keep the cork moist, so the sediment is where you would expect it to be rather than in the bottom of the bottle. The sediment is very stable. Even 2 days after opening it's stuck tight on the bottle and hasn't sneaked into my glass.  The cork was deeply stained about 15% the way up. 2 Days after opening the cork is still very "deformed" into the shape of the bottle neck. 

Next observations. The wine is a beautiful deep purple and clear. Amazingly there is still a very slight frizz to the wine. It is very slight and you could easily miss it. So whether you like a frizz or loath a frizz you'll only notice if you're looking for it.

It's a big, fruity, dry and rounded red. If, like me, you make 10's of bottles every year then laying some down is worth it. The addition of grape juice seems to have been vital learning. In future if all i have is blackberries i'll defo add grape juice. Not only for drinking while young (1-2 years old) but also for laying down.