December 2009 New Batches part I

After the success of the red grape and apple wines, both made from carton, we have decided to make more of the same. Two of our friends think this is sacrilege, but it is December so fruit is in short supply, besides which this is cheap easy to make booze!

The Ingredients: Apple Juice 4 l, Red Grape Juice 4l, 4lb Sugar, Yeast, Yeast Nutrient

Red Grape Wine

Pour 3 litres of red grape juice into the sterilised Demi John.

 

 Measure out 2lb of sugar

 

 

Add both the sugar and 1 litre of Red grape juice to a saucepan.

This should be heated long enough to disolve the sugar into the liquid.

 

 

Then Add 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient.

Followed by 1 teaspoon of wine yeast.

 

 

 Then top up with water to just below the neck of the Demi John.

 Put some water into the trap.

 

 

This should be plugged into the Demi John... now wait 4 weeks before racking off and you will have an east drinking red wine.

The apple wine follows the same process as above.

Done!

 

On the go at the moment

We still have a few fermenting, I have Cranberry and Blueberry (from cartons), Carrot no 4 and Asda smart price Peach slices in light syrup (long story, will explain this one once we bottle)

And at Lukes we have ..............(to be edited by Luke) (Thanks Mike!) At my house we have Plum, Red Grape and White Grape.

The plum was made in the traditional way using fruit which was boiled to extract the juice, which was then mixed with a 2lb sugar solution along with yeast and yeast nutrient. We are hoping this will be similar to the damson.

Peach, Red Grape, Tropical, White Grape... An Alcoholic Fruit Pastel

 After bottling the produce we have had a small taste, well you have to! Below are our initial notes:

• Red Grape - this wine has turned out to be great, it has loads of fruit and the depth of flavor given by the grape is excellent. It tatses like an easy going shop brought red. We have high hopes for how this will develop and it is definitely on the list for remaking!
• Peach - This wine is a clean white wine with a subtle peach taste. It is quite dry, I am not sure we will make it again but it has proved we can use tinned fruits which opens up a new world of possibilities.
• Tropical - A friend Cossi has named this Umbungo and it does taste like it. We are not keen but we think the ladies will like it and it could open a few doors ;)
• White grape - This one has taken a month to ferment and we are still waiting for it to clear!
  

On the go at the moment

We still have a few fermenting, I have Cranberry and Blueberry (from cartons), Carrot no 4 and Asda smart price Peach slices in light syrup (long story, will explain this one once we bottle)

And at Lukes we have ..............(to be edited by Luke)

The Perfect Wine?

I think we cracked it

Remember when you laughed we we mentioned making wine from Asda smart price apple juice? Well who's laughing now????

This wine is incredible. Sweet, fruity, strong white wine. If you bought this in a shop you would buy it again and again, this stuff is a cheeky little number and in my opinion, the best so far.

TIME TO MAKE MUCH MUCH MORE

Making more

Ok, we have learned a valuable lesson, yeast need sugar. So, we tried the old carton juice trick again, this time with Apple. 4 x 1l Asda smart price apple juice to be precise.

Elderflower

1 bag of dried Elderflower and 2lb of Sugar on 21/10

Kiwi

3lb of Kiwis, 2lb of sugar on 24/10

Parsnip 2

3lb of Parsnip, 2 oranges and a teaspoon of ginger on 5/11

Wine tasting

Results so far.

Elderberry 1 + 2.

We had left then a couple weeks and went back for a taste. Dear God, they were amazing, full bodied, fruity and strong red wine, this was a wine to be proud of.

Carrot 1

Too sweet

Carrot 2 (2lb of sugar)

A fantastic clear medium/sweet white wine, fantastic.

Tomato

WARNING!!! Very Very strong, not a great flavour but drinkable

Pumpkin

Strong, not a lot of taste to this one.

Parsnip

For some reason this has come out with a smoky flavour, almost like a Leffe larger, not sure if its a good thing or not but it tastes pretty good.

Damson

Amazing flavour, beautiful Rose, as good if not better than what you buy in the shops.

Pomegranate / Cranberry and Raspberry

Oops, not sure if you noticed, we (I) forgot the sugar. Both like a low alcoholic fruit drink. Decent but would be better with more (some) sugar and a bit stronger.

More again!

9/10 another Carrot (3lb carrot, 2lb sugar) 9/10 Damson (3lb Damson, 2lb Sugar)

Then we had a rethink, the wines were tasting good but the process was long, so how about buying fruit juices from the supermarket, would that work?

We bought 4 x 1l cartons of Pomegranate juice and added yeast and nutrient, then on the 19/10 we bought 4 x 1l cartons on Cranberry and Raspberry juice, if this works then maybe we have created cheap, and easy to make wine, is that possible?

Time to try the goods

Having made the Elderberry on the 9/9, it wasn't until 8/10 that the wine had stopped fermenting and we could bottle.

We syphoned the wine into bottles and corked them, luckily, there was a little left over for us to have a little sample. We took a sip and realised we had made very fruity, but very vinegary wine, however, we had been informed that the vinegary taste would go in time.

It was then time to try the Carrot, this time, the wine was a good flavour but far too sweet. we decided to make the next carrot with 2lb of sugar and not 3.

We were not disheartened, we knew we would learn from these and would be able to adjust our recipes until we made the perfect wine.

more more more

We then made Carrot again on 4/10, Pumpkin on 5/10, Parsnip on 6/10 and then it was just a waiting game.

Elderberry 2

We still had not even tasted one of wines by this time but as it was Elderberry season, we had to scrump more!!!

We used the same quantities as before and the same technique, but were on a roll now, the wine making is becoming more that a hobby!

Tomato? are you sure???

We hadn't thought or heard of Tomato wine but we had wine making in our blood and we stumbled upon 4lb of tomato's so what would you expect us to do with them, eat them????

So, we chopped and boiled up the tomato's and again, once cooled, added the sugar, yeast and nutrient then bottled in the Demijohn.

For some reason, wine was shooting out of the top of the demijohn the next morning so we had to keep the demijohn in the sink until it settled down, not sure why, but lets just say Emma wasnt too please with the mess but onwards and upwards!!!

Carrot while we were waiting

As it takes around a couple weeks to ferment, we decided to make a carrot wine while we waited, for this we used 4lb of Carrots, and 3lb of sugar.

We cleaned and chopped the carrots and boiled until the water turned yellow and the carrots were soft.

Once we removed the carrots, we added the sugar and once cooled we added the yeast and nutrient to the mix and then bottled in the demijohn.

Elderberry 1

We boiled the 3.5 lb of Elderberrys and added 3lb of sugar, yeast nutrient and yeast and left for 14 days.

In the beginning there was yeast

Our first attempt at wine making we chose Elderberry.  We managed to scrump 3lb of Elderberrys.