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[DONE] Wine makers calendar: July

 
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cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 10:32 am    Post subject: [DONE] Wine makers calendar: July Reply with quote
    

July is when summer is really here, and for homebrewers its another exciting month. Plenty of summer fruit, and more veg wines.

The foragers amongst us can hope to find plenty of wild raspberries, goosebrries, currants, cherries, cherry plums and various wild herbs and greens too. On the plot you might be lucky and get your first gluts of the year; runner beans, French beans, courgettes... Now, you can only make so much chutney, but the rest will make excellent homebrew.

Cabs Cherry Wine
4lb cherries
2 1/4 lb sugar
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 cup strong tea
1 gallon water
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
1 teaspoon pectinase
Champagne yeast

This is a very delicate, and very tasty rose. And it works really well with wild cherries.

Truth be told, with our summers getting warmer and warmer you might be as well off if not better off putting this on in June. Pick your cherries from pretty nearly any cherry trees; just make sure you taste them to ensure that they've got a good flavour. Pack the cherries into a nylon straining bag, and drop them into a sterile bucket. Boil the water, sugar, acid, yeast nutrient and tea together and pour onto the cherries. When its cool, add the activated yeast and pectinase. After a day or so, quidge the cherries, and give it another two days in primary. Don't let it linger in primary much longer, you don't want to pick up any off flavours from the stones. Rack into a demijon and ferment out as normal.

Its a really tasty wine, but its delicate. I think its better drunk young (really after only a couple of months in the bottle) than aged.

Kinnopios simpler cherry wine
There were so many cherries around last year that I made a gallon of cherry wine. If you can get enough really ripe cherries (I think I used morello type cherries) it gives a lovely soft well rounded wine that is very inoffensive (one for your older kids if you think they are responsible enough to enjoy a nice glass with their meal!)

Gallon of water
1.5kg sugar
1.5kg really ripe cherries
2 lemons
Yeast

Place destalked cherries in bucket, add 3 litres of boiling water and pour over. Once cool enough mash with yor hand. Stand for three days and put through wine bag into demijohn. Dissolve sugar in 1.5 litres of water and add along with grated rind of lemon and its juice and yeast.

Use cotton wool bung untill fermentation slows then fit airlock. Rack when fermentation stops. And bottle a few months later. Tastes good at this stage - can't comment on keeping qualities!

Raspberry Wine
2 lb raspberries
Juice of 2 oranges
2 1/2 lb sugar
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 cup strong tea
1 gallon water
All purpose wine yeast

I've made a number of different raspberry wine recipes, and I think this is my favourite. Its a hard wine to get right I think, it can be too intense, too raspberryish. That sounds odd, but imagine being slapped in the head with a giant raspberry, thats what its like.

Anyway... Put the raspberries into a straining bag, and that into the sterile bucket. Get the rest of the ingredients, save the yeast, boiling, and pour it onto the raspberries. Cover, let it cool, add the yeast. Give it about a week in primary, and rack off as normal.

Raspberry and Red Currant Wine

This is another of my favourite ways of making raspberry wine. The red currants really complement the raspberries; use 2lb of each, leave out the orange juice and add a teaspoon of pectinase when you add the yeast, but otherwise the recipe is just as above for raspberry wine.

Bean Me Wine
4lb beans (runner, French, mixture)
2 1/2 lb sugar
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 cup strong tea
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 gallon wine
general purpose wine yeast

Put all of the ingredients save for the yeast into a big pan, and boil it gently for about half an hour. Pour the liquid off into a sterile bucket, cover, let it cool, and add the activated yeast. Only needs a few days in primary, then rack and ferment out as ordinary.

Not the best, but after a year its a decent table wine.

Courgette Wine
4lb courgettes
juice of 2 lemons and 2 oranges
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
2 1/4 lb sugar
1 cup strong tea
1 teaspoon pectinase
1 gallon water
general purpose wine yeast

Chop the courgettes and put them into a nylon straining bag, put that into your fermenter bucket. Boil up the other ingredients (except the yeast and pectinase) and pour it on to the courgettes when its boiling. Add the activated yeast and pectinase, and leave it in primary for about a week. Rack into a demijon, and ferment out as normal. Needs a good year to be good, but its drinkable in 6 months.

You can make this more interesting by adding ginger or other spices.

Blackcurrant Wine
2lb black currants
2 1/4 lb sugar
1 gallon water
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon pectinase
red wine yeast or all purpose wine yeast

Black currants have loads of acid and plenty of tannin, so you don't add any acid or tea!

Standard fruit wine this one otherwise, note that you can use more fruit if you like but you'll have something that may be too intense for a good while if you do. I go for less fruit which still gives me a dark red wine without being overpoweringly curranty.

Put the currants into a straining bag in a sterile bucket. Boil up the other ingredients save the pectinase and yeast, pour on to the currants. When its cool add your activated yeast and pectinase. Give it a week in primary, rack into a demijon and ferment out as normal.

Cherry Plum Wine
4lb cherry plums
2 1/2 lb sugar
1 teabag
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon pectinase
white wine yeast

One of my favourites of the year this one. You either have to have a cherry plum (or myrobalan) tree or you need somewhere to go and forage for them. In truth, the cullinary dividing line between plums and cherry plums (and bullace and damson) can be thin, but they ripen at different times.

Cherry plums can come in red, yellow, orange or dark red/purple, but they're all good. Make as for raspberry and redcurrant (above).

Last edited by cab on Mon Jul 30, 07 7:34 pm; edited 6 times in total

jamanda
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Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Did you do blackcurrent in June's

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Jamanda wrote:
Did you do blackcurrent in June's


Good point. Need a blackcurrant wine at some point, although I usually make mine in August. When are yours ready?

jamanda
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Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

cab wrote:
Jamanda wrote:
Did you do blackcurrent in June's


Good point. Need a blackcurrant wine at some point, although I usually make mine in August. When are yours ready?


"Mine" being my Mother's, but certainly starting by the back end of July.

gil
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Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 1:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

See also the wines to make in July thread in Recipes etc. Kinnopio posted a cherry wine recipe, I think.

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 07 1:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

gil wrote:
See also the wines to make in July thread in Recipes etc. Kinnopio posted a cherry wine recipe, I think.


Brill. Ta.

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 07 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Made a start on recipes.

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 07 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Anyone else got any?

jamanda
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Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 07 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Does anyone know (and does it matter) how to tell a sloe from a bullace from a damson? I think we have a continuum round here. I know which are definitely sloes, but not sure about the others.

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 07 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Jamanda wrote:
Does anyone know (and does it matter) how to tell a sloe from a bullace from a damson? I think we have a continuum round here. I know which are definitely sloes, but not sure about the others.


Sloe has a big stone relative to the size of fruit (small things) and is so sour that you feel like your gums are peeling back. Spiky tree, otherwise known as a blackthorn.

Damsons are slightly elongated fruit, a little fibrous and well coloured inside.

Bullace is rather rounded rather than elongated, very variable otherwise.

jamanda
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Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 07 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

cab wrote:
Jamanda wrote:
Does anyone know (and does it matter) how to tell a sloe from a bullace from a damson? I think we have a continuum round here. I know which are definitely sloes, but not sure about the others.


Sloe has a big stone relative to the size of fruit (small things) and is so sour that you feel like your gums are peeling back. Spiky tree, otherwise known as a blackthorn.

Damsons are slightly elongated fruit, a little fibrous and well coloured inside.

Bullace is rather rounded rather than elongated, very variable otherwise.


We've got all three. And some that are hybrids I think.

gil
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Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 07 4:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I find winemaking goes a bit quiet up here in July and August : apart from raspberry, redcurrant, mixtures of the two, and blackcurrant. Made gooseberry champagne last year, but as it's a wedding present, I haven't tried it. Could be awful !

Otherwise it would just be more of the same wines from May or June (oakleaf, rosepetal, peapod).

Anyone ever made honeysuckle wine ?

Tilia



Joined: 25 May 2007
Posts: 282

PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 07 5:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

gil wrote:
I find winemaking goes a bit quiet up here in July and August


I was thinking that...

I've only really got the bug for wine making this year with the Lemon Balm recipe I found on here (OH usually does the wine and beer) but since that I've done some Elderflower and some Carrot and I'm hooked so I've been scouring the countryside for ingredients but not come up with anything...

However, I noticed in Stirling this afternoon that the rasps are ripening. Not quite there yet up this way but Somerfield have got them on at half price (99p) and if they don't sell tonight i reckon they'll be 49p by tomorrow. Yay!!!

I've got 9 demi-johns sitting here feeling all left out of the party...

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