chadspad wrote:Im making mint wine at the moment as theres plenty of mint growing. U can use any type - choc mint, grapfruit mint, the normal wild mints - Ive used them all. Thats really easy to make and is smelling lovely!
oooh oooh recipe please!
Can you make sage wine? i seem to have a huge amount of it growing!!
sage wine
This unique wine will please even the most discriminating connoisseurs. There is a richness about Sage Wine that fills the mouth with flavor. Excellent as an aperitif. Combines well with turkey, poultry and vegetable stews. Best at "cool room" temperature.
Grate the outer rind of the lemons, avoiding the white inner rind, and squeeze the juice from the lemons. Put the sage, raisins, mint, wheat berries, and the rind and juice of the lemons in a 2-gallon container and pour 1 quart of boiling water over the mixture. Cover loosely and let stand for 2 to 3 hours.Boil half the sugar in a quart of water for 2 minutes and add to the liquor. Add a campden tablet, if desired, desired and let sit 24 hours.(well covered) Add yeast and nutrient. Allow to ferment for 10 days,stir daily.Boil remaining sugar in a quart of water, when cool add it.add water to top up to 1 gallon mark. ferment out as usual.
Mint Wine
850ml (1 1/2pt) mint leaves, lightly bruised
280ml (1/2pt) strong tea
1.5kg (3 1/2lb) sugar
2 lemons or 10g (1/4 oz) citric acid
yeast nutrient
yeast
water to produce 4.5 litres (1 gal)
Pour boiling water over the sugar and mint leaves. Stir well. Infuse for 24 hours, then add the lemon juice, yeast and nutrient. Leave in primary for 7 days, stirring daily. Strain into fermentation jar, ferment, rack and bottle as usual.
Have a recipe for lemon sage too if youre interested? Gonna give that a go next after the lavender & coconut.
Pick the flowers just before starting, so they're fresh. You do not need to pick the petals off the flower heads, but the heads should be trimmed of any stalk. Put the flowers in a large bowl and bring the water to a boil. Pour the boiling water over the dandelion flowers and cover tightly with cloth or plastic wrap. Leave for two days, stirring twice daily. Do not exceed this time. Pour flowers and water in large pot and bring to a low boil. Add the sugar and the peels (peel thinly and avoid any of the white pith) of the lemons and orange. Boil for one hour, then pour into a crock or plastic pail. Add the juice and pulp of the lemons and orange. Allow to stand until cool (70-75 degrees F.). Add yeast and yeast nutrient, cover, and put in a warm place for three days. Strain and pour into a secondary fermentation vessel (bottle or jug). Add the raisins and fit a fermentation trap to the vessel. Leave until fermentation ceases completely, then rack and bottle. This wine must age six months in the bottle before tasting, but will improve remarkably if allowed a year. [adapted from Jack Keller's site]
*Note: Dandelions grow just about anywhere. Be careful where you pick them though. Along the roadside is not perhaps the best idea for your wine. If you use fertilizer, please use caution in using those dandelions.
We put the canned pumpkin (which was similar to a paste) in a nylon sock, making sure the toe end and the open end had been securely knotted up.
While doing this, bring the water to a boil and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Pour over pumpkin in straining bag. Break cinnamon into 4 pieces, add ginger shavings in the primary.
Allow to cool to room temperature and add citric acid, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme and yeast. SG should hover around 1.080 to 1.090. Add white sugar if necessary.
Stir daily. Ferment until the SG hits roughly 1.040, and transfer over to secondary, fit airlock. Do not squeeze the nylon bag -- let it drip drain. Add 1 campden tablet. Squeezing only causes more sediment.
After a few days or when fermentation has died down a little, top up, if necessary. We mad a little more than 1 gallon, so we had plenty to top up with. This recipe needed bentonite. Add accordingly.
marigold wine
1 qt marigold petals, firmly packed
½ lb chopped golden raisins
2½ lbs granulated sugar
1 medium orange
7½ pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkt wine yeast
Put water on to boil, stirring sugar in until dissolved. Prepare zest of orange peel and then extract the juice from the pulp. Put marigold petals, chopped raisins and zest of orange in nylon straining bag and tie closed. Put in primary with yeast nutrient and pour boiling water over bag. Cover primary and set aside to cool. When room temperature or slightly warm, add activated yeast. Recover primary and gently squeeze bag twice a day for 5-6 days. Squeeze bag to extract liquid, discard contents of bag, and recover primary. Allow to settle overnight and rack into secondary. Fit airlock and set aside to continue fermentation. Rack, top up and refit airlock after 30 days, then again after additional 60 days. Set in cool place 4 months, checking airlock periodically for seal. Rack, stabilize and sweeten to taste if desired, but this wine is very good dry. If sweetened, set aside additional 14 days to check for signs of refermentation. If none or if wine is not sweetened, carefully rack into bottles and cellar 12 months before tasting.
Have no idea what wheat berries are sorry! Will try to find a dried/fresh equivalent table for u. I had another recipe that called for 1 pint of fresh lavender and someone said it was OK to use 1/2 pint dried so perhaps u could double the amount of fresh to dried working on the assumption that dried is more flavoursome than fresh??????
Lavender Wine
Ingredients:
¼ to ½ cup dried lavender flowers (off the stems)
½ lemon
tin of white grape concentrate
2½ lbs sugar
yeast
yeast nutrient
water - to make 1 gallon of wine
Method:
Pour 2 pints of boiling water onto the dried flowers and the chopped up lemon.
Allow to sit, covered, for 3 days - removing the lemon a few hours after you start.
Dissolve the sugar in hot water and add to the strained of lavender liquor in a demijohn.
Add grape juice concentrate, yeast nutrient and activated yeast.
Fit fermenting lock and ferment until finished and clear topping up with water when initial phase has calmed down.
Note - this made a very unusual tasting wine that finished at 18%.
The Lavender taste came out more and more over time and became a zesty fresh flavour. It might not be to everyone's taste and I would treat it as an aperitif not a table wine.
Lovely if served slightly chilled as an appetiser on a hot summer day.
Coconut Wine
Ingredients
3 pkts Deciccated coconut (510gm/18oz), 1 lb Raisins, 2 1/2 lb Sugar, 1/2 tsp Amylase, Tannin, Malic Acid, Tartaric Acid, , 1 tsp Pectic Enzyme, Citric Acid, 1 pkt Vinquik Wine Yeast, water to 1 gall, 2 campden tablets.
Method.
Put coconut, sugar, washed chopped raisins in bucket, pour over 3 pts boiling water, stir will to dissolve sugar, add 3 pts cold water, add all other ingredients, having made a yeast starter, check gravity, cover closely, ferment for 7-10 days stirring twice daily.
Strain thru' muslin into a demijohn, fit airlock after 24 hrs top up cool boiled water, ferment for 5-7 days, check gravity with hydrometer
When straining off you will notice it appears rather "oily", globules of oil floating, ignore this, and allow to ferment, in about 10 days it will be finished and the oil has solidified and is floating on top, carefully rack into clean demijohn, leaving crust and lees behind, top up with cold water fit airlock, if satisified gravity low enough rack and add campden tablets, set aside to mature, sweeten if required.
With the coconut wine I added a litre bottle of mango & coconut juice I had found in the cupboard - might turn out like mix for pina colada then?
I'm sending my dad out today to get the ingredients for the coconut wine, and i've got enough fresh sage to be able to make some sage wine! yeay!
I've got 3 empty demijohns at the moment, so i'm going to get dad to get me a couple more so that i can make the coffee wine that i've been promising myself for a while.
I've started off the coffee wine. At the moment, its a big saucepan of coffee that's cooling down til i can put it in the demijohn. I couldn't be btohered with the 4 days in a bucket thing (i'll forget in a couple of days...) so i#m going to ferment it out in the demijohn itself.
Hopefully, when Dad gets back, i can make a start on the coconut one - that one's intriguing me!
I started the coconut 2 days ago. I have left it in the primary and have to stir it every day. This morning there is a revolting thick crust on it but it does smell lovely!
I have had a swig of my coffee wine and there is a def taste of coffee so it is similar to Tia Maria. Im hoping that with leaving it longer the taste will develop. Its cost hardly anything to make which is why I decided to give it a go. Nothing ventured........
Im definitely up for trying the mead next but honey is just soooo expensive! Like the idea of the fruit with the honey, isnt that called melomel then? Strawberry sounds right up my street! What does the mead tast like - just sweet or of honey?
oh praps i will give coffee a go then.. definitely like the sound of that.
I'm lucky in that my parents keep bees and let me have 3 jars of their oldest stuff - i have 2005 to use this time - the texture is not as good as the fresher stuff (though you can make it runny again by nuking it in microwave, they like it 'set - but this had started to go a bit cystalline) but it does not matter for mead. They were happy that I have made mead using their honey and their spring water (as I was living there when i started it) so its a true home grown brew!
the taste of mine is medium smooth, and of honey - but not overpoweringly. it smells of honey too. commerical mead can taste like they added fake perfume - I imagine the taste varies alot depeding on what type of honey you use.
I do like the sounds of strawberry melomel too - but get pricier with teh strawberries too (as i dont have my own) - still.. its a thought...
Red
I like like minded people... a bit like minded anyway.. well people with bits of their minds that are like the bits of my mind that I like...
chadspad wrote:
Im definitely up for trying the mead next but honey is just soooo expensive! Like the idea of the fruit with the honey, isnt that called melomel then? Strawberry sounds right up my street! What does the mead tast like - just sweet or of honey?
Mead tastes like a sweetish (depending - some mead can be dry) honeysih winish stuff.
it is truly the drink of the gods!!!!
I bought my honey from the local pound shop, i got 4 jars of gales. i think it was close to the 'sell by' date, but it was all good for the mead. Its coming out nicely now! I keep haveing small tastes of it, and its getting better every week.
Med with fruit is called melomel, you're right. It is usually done with peach. When i get home later, i'll see if i've got a recipe.
- I imagine the taste varies alot depeding on what type of honey you use.