Apple Wine (Dry) - Oct '09

Didn't realise that I hadn't posted this recipe - makes a very potent, dry wine.

Ingredients

Apples                       2.75 kilos
Sugar                         1 kilo
Lemon                       1
Concentrate (white) - 150 ml
Citric Acid                 1 tsp   (though I used a little more lemon juice)
Water                        4.5 litres (1 gallon)
Yeast and nutrient       (check packet for quantitites)

Wash and cut up apples, skins, brown patches and all. Windfalls will do. Simmer 10 -15 minutes in 1 gallon of water. Strain liquid onto the sugar, and thinly peeled rind of the lemon. Stir well. When lukewarm add the juice of the lemon, the yeast and the yeast nutrient to the liquid, and the concentrate, cover for 24 hours in a warm place, then pour into a fermenting jar, cover with three layers of clean nylon material, or insert an airlock. Leave in a warm place to ferment for four weeks. Siphon off into clean dry storage jar, and ferment out under airlock. Then siphon off and mature for 6 months before bottling.

(Original recipe from: First Steps in Wine Making by CJJ Berry)

I really recommend CJJ Berry's book as it contains some really useful information, plus it is divided into months of the year so you can make wine all year round and you know what should be available!

How do I calculate the alcohol level of wine?

In order to find out just how alcoholic your wine is you need to have a hydrometer. A hydrometer measures sugar gravity. You use a hydrometer first of all when you have your 'wine' in a bucket/ fermenting vessel. Syphon some liquid into a trial jar and take a reading BEFORE you add the nutrient and yeast.

At the start of the process, the sugar gravity is high. As the yeast ferments the ingredients, it uses up sugar, and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide (byproducts of the process). Carbon dioxide bubbles up through the fermentation lock whereas alcohol stays in the liquid.

The fermentation process finishes either when the yeast has run out of sugar (runs out of food) or when the alcohol level gets above 16.5%, which then kills the yeast. The first situation results in a dry wine, the second in a sweet wine.

Take another reading with the hydrometer again, when fermentation has ceased..


Here is an example.


1. Float the hydrometer in a trial jar and make a note of the level at which it floats, eg 1080. This is the reading before the fermentation process starts (Value A)


2. When fermentation has finished, syphon some wine into a trial jar and float the hydrometer again. It should read 990. (Value B)

To calculate out the alcohol level, subtract B from A. This gives Value C. (eg 1080 - -990 = 90)

Then divide C by 7.36. This gives the percentage value of alcohol. (e.g. 90 / 7.36 = 12.2)

So, in summary a wine with an original sugar gravity of 1080 and a final sugar gravity of 990 has 12.2% alcohol.

30 Bottle Winemaking Kit Instructions - Part 3

The next step:

30 Bottle Winemaking Kit Instructions - Part 2

The next step!

A full instructional tutorial on how to make 30 bottles of wine in your own home, using the 30 Bottle Winemakers Kit - Part 1

Here is a good video explaining how to make your own wine from winekits, enjoy :)



To find out more: Click here

How to Reuse Screw Top Wine Bottles for Making Wine

Great, so you've decided to make your own wine. Some shops will do most of the work for you, if you're only interested in cheap wine. However, you'll need to supply your own bottles, either way. You can buy bottles, but you probably already have a selection of bottles to use. Screw-top bottles work with corking machines and sealers, with just a little preparation.

Steps

1. You'll need to remove the labels from the bottles first. To keep them intact for scrap booking or art, place them in the oven for 10 minutes at 100 degrees. This melts the glue, so after peeling up the corner with a knife, you can peel the rest off with a finger. If you don't care about the label, soak the bottle in a sink full of warm water and a tiny bit of soap. Make sure it fill the bottles so they aren't buoyant. After 30 minutes, peel them off.
   
2. Clean out the bottles. If you used the soak method to remove the labels, then a lot of this is done for you.
   
3. The next step is to remove the collar from the bottle. Wedge a screw driver in the space between the collar and the bottle. BE CAREFUL - this is dangerous as a slip of the hand can cause the screw driver to slip. Two methods are to start using the screw driver and then pull the rest off with pliers, or simply keep applying downward pressure while twisting the screw driver.
   
4. After the bottles have dried, they're ready for bottling your wine.
   

Tips

• Keep those screw caps! Sure, you're going to cork the new wine, but after opening a bottle, screwing a cap back on is often cleaner and easier than pushing a cork back in. Screw caps are better at keeping wine fresh than corks.
  
• After baking the wine bottles, there's going to be some residue. Soaking the bottles removes this.
  

Warnings

• WEAR OVEN GLOVES when baking the wine bottles.
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Reuse Screw Top Wine Bottles for Making Wine. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Elderflower Cordial 19/06/10

I made Elderflower Champagne last year which was very nice. I have repeated the recipe this year plus I decided to make cordial as well. This is the recipe that I used for the cordial:

Ingredients
20 elderflower heads 1 sliced lemon
2 tsp of citric acid (I used a couple of squirts of lemon juice)
1.5 kg (3.5 lbs) of sugar
1.2 ltr (2.5 pints) boiling water

Method
Boil a kettle for the water.
Fill a bowl or small bucket with all the other ingredients.
Pour the water over the other ingredients and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Skin the surface of the water to get rid of the scum that can arise. Cover with a cloth.
Stir twice a day for five days.
Strain though a fine sieve though a fine sieve or through muslin cloth and decant into sterile screw topped bottles. Refrigerate.
As with other cordials dilute with 5 parts water to serve . Apparently it is really nice as a gin mixer.

(http://www.selfsufficientish.com/elderflowercordial.htm 19/06/10)