The Bloody Hand

Live and learn, eh?
Clearly it was going to be a good year for Elderberries after such a bumper crop of the flowers and I nearly missed it!  We'd been replacing our boiler and the house plumbing along with reconditioning the radiators and this took far longer than we thought it would. Ah well...
Anyway.... Elderberries!
Managed to pick enough for 4 gallons, which was nice :)  I did a little reading on Elderberries before I started and apparently they are as close to grapes for balance as you're going to get. I looked up a recipe that basically said get berries, mash them, add water and leave for a few days then strain off the juice adding yeast. Bugger that, thinks I, I'll add the water then get the mixture going the usual way. Which was fine, except when I came to use a syphon to transfer the mixture to demi-johns after initial fermentation. It did not go well, the seeds and unbroken berries kept blocking the syphon so there was only one thing for it. I had to get a muslen bag and try and get rid of as much solid matter as possible and I really had to get my hands dirty (They were stained red for a week!).

I finally got the mixture into demi-johns and they seem to be happy.
Recipe was, Elderberries, yeast, yeast nutrient, citric acid and 1.5kg of sugar per gallon.
The left most demi-john holds a slightly different wine which I threw together in a mad moment. It's a Blackberry, Elderberry and Rose petal wine. Who knows?

Meanwhile I also had some bottling of the Elderflower to do!  That nicely produced 12 bottles. We would have had more but we had a neighbour (he's a farmer whose farm we sort of live on) and his wife over for tea one night and 4 bottles disappeared for some reason. These things happen :)
No hangover in the morning either, thank God.














Well, it's definitely getting a bit cooler in the mornings and it's no fun going to work in the dark, yep, I'm going to need to start a spiced mead very soon.
W

 

More of this Year so far

 As I started gathering the Elderflower earlier this year I started looking around for what else I could make wine out of :)  I thought about nettle wine and silver birth, but the one recipe didn't inspire me and the other would have been a bugger to get the raw ingredients so no go there.
Luckily one Saturday afternoon I just happened to be looking out the kitchen window and noticed the two rose bushes that grow near where we park, and I thought "I wonder?....".  I popped outside to have a look, the one bush was a very deep red with a heavy scent to it whilst the other was yellow and was far more subtle with its fragrance. It had to be worth a go. I looked up a recipe and I had the additional ingredients, it was a go!

I gathered enough petals to make three gallons, two of red and one of the other.
The recipe was for petals, raisins, citric acid, yeast, yeast nutrient and sugar, of course. All thrown in a covered bucket and left for about 5 days.

< This is the red after a couple of days, when you took the lid off you would be engulfed by a mixture of CO2 and rose scent, it was rather heady! I had high hopes for a good wine










 

After it had calmed down a bit I transferred the mixture into a demi-john to crack on. I have to say this one was a real success and I've even recently bought some dried petals in the hope of recreating this excellent wine.  Most of it never reached the bottle! The Chief Tester was a very happy lady.
It came out as a medium dry, well balanced and tasted of Turkish Delight, it was heaven!  I've still got a few bottles and I will treasure them.  The yellow rose was a different kettle of fish though (perhaps that's where I went wrong. Less cod next time...), I'd made it up along with a lemon (instead of citric acid) and an orange. It was good, but not as good as the red. I don't think the rose had decent depth of flavour/scent.
On a related note, I could never get the bugger to clear, nor my Elderflower either.  I didn't really mind but it did bother me so I decided to invest in some Finings. I treated the mixtures (after they had been stopped using a campden tablet) with the Finings and 24 hours later it was clear as a bell (glass bell surely? Usually bells aren't very clear). So I'll be using that stuff in the future for sure.

Another wine I had a bash with was a Mead. Previously I'd had good results with a mixture that included fruit and spices which produced a heavy wine and was great in the winter. This time I wanted to make something a bit lighter so I took advantage of the vast amounts of Elderflower (yes, I know!) and made an Elderflower Mead. It's come out similar to the wine, a bit grassy, which I believe does not suit the honey theme of the Mead. It's nice enough but, meh... I'll have another crack at a winter Mead very soon.

Next up, what I am mostly working on now.

W

This year so far

Right, what have I been making?
There was a couple of different wines to try this year, but as we had moved in February things were pretty busy (Ha! Still is) and I struggled to find time to create any potions.
I realised early on that the four demi-johns that I had, really wasn't going to be enough for my ambitions and certainly after seeing how much Elderflower was appearing around the farm I knew that I had to fork out for at least another four to keep me going. Since then I've added another four and have a few spare in the Shed of Doom.

 Note:  All my recipes have been shamelessly nicked from "First Steps in Winemaking" by CJJ Berry and various websites that I come across. The book is my bible and it takes you through the process along with the various pitfalls and contains many recipes. If you're thinking having a go at this sort of thing then I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Elderflower just starting off.

 First up was the Elderflower, it's a simple recipe. Elderflowers, raisins, yeast, yeast nutrient, lemon juice (or citric acid), brewers sugar, small cup of strong tea and, of course, water.  I use a fairly generic brewing yeast for my wines and have had good results, I would like to try a few different sorts as it can dramatically alter the taste. In case you're wondering the tea is to introduce tannin to the wine.

 The wine has come out very good, it's not as flowery as last years, I think this is because I gathered the flowers a bit late and introduced a small amount of the new berries to the mix. This has resulted in a sharper wine which has a grassy tone to it. When chilled it's lovely, and got the thumbs up from the Chief Tester.

 I also made up a gallon of Elderflower and Apple wine. It's okay, I'm not totally sure the apple goes with it but it was worth a go. I also put aside some of this mix to convert to champagne along with a fair few bottles of Elderflower. At the end of November I'll crack one of the bottles open and see how it's getting along and with a bit of luck we'll have a bit of fizz for Christmas.

Next post, Rose wine and Mead.

W

A bit of background

A chap at work said to me the other day "You should do a blog of your wine making", and I thought "Why not?"
So who am I? Wakefield, nice to meet you.

Me at Tewkesbury Medieval Fair

So, why the blog?
Good point. Why?  A couple of reasons really, I have a few friends are mildly interested and would like to see a bit more about it rather than the odd random Facebook status. And it can serve as a record of recipes and what I learn along the way.
I wont be posting all the time as I have a full time job, a young family, an old broken house in much needed renovation and three cats. The cats are relevant? Of course they are, just ask them.
I've brewed a few wines from scratch and a few beer kits.  It's been a good year from fruit and I'm taking advantage of that by converting as much as I can into drinking form.
So, in future posts I'll first catch-up with what I have done and then go on to talk about stuff that I'm in the middle of and future ideas.
W