sean
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Crab-apple wine recipe?Anyone got a good one? I find myself in possession of large quantities of the afore-mentioned fruit and with the possibility of more to come.....
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Mary-Jane
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I'd like one too - for the same reason. One can only make so much crab apple jelly and jam after all...
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cab
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Crab apples make a belting good wine. Better still, blend with some sweet apples and you've got one of the finest homebrew wines.
Pretty basic wine making stuff really, you want something like 4lb of apples (crab or a blend), do the standard thing with a nylon wine wine bag if you have one, use two and a half pounds of sugar and some yeast nutrient, use some pectinase, a good strong cup of tea, a good squeeze of lemon juice, and give it a good week in primary to get the apples to pulp. The pectinase is important to get as much out of the apples as you can. It'll work without but its preferable witn.
Just chop the apples in two before starting.
Can be a bit sluggish to clear, and its one that pays from being very, very patient. If you've got a wine thats had a secondary fermentation going on then don't hesitate to use that to inoculate the brew, apple wines become really quite special if they go malo-lactic.
But other than that, the other instructions are all as for any fruit wine.
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sean
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| cab wrote: | | do the standard thing with a nylon wine wine bag if you have one, |
Err, that would be? (Not the nylon bag, the 'standard thing')
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cab
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| sean wrote: |
Err, that would be? (Not the nylon bag, the 'standard thing') |
Boil up the water (start off with, say, two thirds of a gallon) with the sugar, yeast nutrient, citric acid or lemon juice and pour it on to the straining bag full of fruit. If you haven't got a straining bag, then get one. Its SO useful in wine making. Get two.
Do this in a sturdy clean plastic bucket. Cover tightly (string and bin bag works well), and when its cooled down pitch in the yeast (ideally activated in luke warm water with sugar and some pectinase. Let it ferment in the tightly covered bucket for about a week, stirring with a sterile spoon (or just sloshing around) every day or so. Then its into a sterilised demi-jon, rack off the sediment as and when you can be bothered (I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to racking these days), top it up to a gallon with water thats been boiled and cooled if the demijon isn't full after the first racking, and sooner or later it'll be all ready to bottle.
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sean
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Ta.
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gil
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Think I posted a recipe for crab-apple wine also involving some bay leaves, a pomegranate, a lemon, rosemary and hawthorn berries. Could be in a thread last autumn / winter either as crab=apple wine, or a wine for All Souls.
Turned out very good indeed. I merely chopped up the apples, sulphited them and fermented on the pulp. No jelly bag.
I didn't have a problem with clearing the wine. Possibly because I didn't mash the apple ? Probably added pectic enzyme along with the initial sulphite
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sean
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Two gallons on the go. I couldn't get any pectinase 'cos my local homebrew shop has moved to Barnstaple, can I add it later?
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gil
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Add pectic enzyme either before fermentation, or after it's finished, to clear the wine. During is seemingly not much use.
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sean
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Thanks, that gives me time to screw my courage up to the sticking point for a trip to Barnstaple.
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cab
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Its better to add the pectinase at the start I think, gets more out of the apples, but if you haven't done so it'll still be fine.
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mark
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crab apple wine is excellent.
I usually do something like cab said.
however I usuaally miss the lemon joice as they can get over acid and ai have found by experiment usually better without
often add joice from bananas using a kilo or two per 5lb
chop bananas and boil with half of skins till tender - strain and add to apple must
it works well and can produce an ausiie chardonnay style white
also adding sultanas, grapes or white grape conentrate is good too.
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sean
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Oooh, it's pink. Wasn't really expecting that.
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cab
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| sean wrote: | | Oooh, it's pink. Wasn't really expecting that. |
You often get that in apple wine primary ferments but, alas, I've yet to get that colour retained in the final wine. Japanese knotweed, on the other hand, keeps a fab pinkish tinge.
If you make watermint wine really early in the season when the undersides of the leaves are dark red, and you keep the wine in a dark bottle at all times, thats a pale rose.
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sean
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Still pink at the moment. It's very nearly finished fermenting, and seems to have pretty much fallen bright without any pectic enzyme. Is there any advantage to racking it into demi-johns for a while or would I do as well to bottle it straight off?
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cab
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That was FAST. Have you got a hydrometer?
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mark
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| sean wrote: | | Still pink at the moment. It's very nearly finished fermenting, and seems to have pretty much fallen bright without any pectic enzyme. Is there any advantage to racking it into demi-johns for a while or would I do as well to bottle it straight off? |
I nearly always find that racking improves the wine. Quite often a brite wine throws a secondary sediment after racking
A case in point is last years parsnip wine that i bottled fairly early and has thrown a chrystaline deposit in bottle! and very nice wine it is too!
Of course if you are in a hurry to drink it...
I don't hurry cos have laid down suffiicient stocks to give eveything the time it deserves - but if its one of you first i can understand wanting to get it to drinking stage.
PS Last years crab apple ws one of my nicest wines ever!!
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gil
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Check first with hydrometer that it has finished fermenting.
I'd go for maturing it in a demijohn for a couple of months - possibly then rack again in a DJ for 2 more months. Even if the wine is very clear after ferment, as Mark says, it can throw more sediment. I've found that even after that you can get more sediment after the second racking - it's surprising. And a shame to end up with a bottle where the last couple of glasses are cloudy.
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sean
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Should be getting hold of a hydrometer on Friday to check it. I'm not in a rush and it hasn't actually stopped yet anyway, though it's definitely heading that way.
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sean
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Sorry, forgot about this, and I *know* you've all been waiting....
Anyhoo, SG is down to 992, there's a bit of a protein haze but not much, it's very acidic at the moment, so I've racked it and i'll just let it sit around for a bit over winter.
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Blacksmith
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made crab apple cider a few weeks ago, added the few apples from my own trees ( 14....apples)
Wil report on results later.................
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cab
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| sean wrote: | Sorry, forgot about this, and I *know* you've all been waiting....
Anyhoo, SG is down to 992, there's a bit of a protein haze but not much, it's very acidic at the moment, so I've racked it and i'll just let it sit around for a bit over winter. |
Sounds done. Let it rest... Ideally if it could get somewhere ever, ever so slightly cold for a spell that'll help mellow it out.
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gil
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By coincidence, I just got a load of crab apples out of the freezer today to start the first batch of 2006. First time I've used the freezer to 'blet' them before use, so I'll see whether it makes a difference.
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sean
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Started another two gallons, but omitted the lemon juice this time. So we'll see what happens.
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