This wine is another experiment, and one that could go horribly wrong. If it follows the rule of thumb for wines beginning with the letter P - Potato, Pumpkin, Plum, Pear and Peach - it will at least be memorable. Actually Pineapple wasn't bad, and Prune & Parsnip is one of my regulars, so I may be lucky.
The reason I am making it at all is thanks to Julia. This year has been fecund in the pea department and she asked if I could put peapods to good use. I consulted my books and saw that I could. Julia quickly brought round three pounds of peapods and, because C J J Berry's recipe calls for five, I put them in the freezer. And there they stayed, much to Claire's irritation. We have, officially, the world's smallest freezer, and three pounds of peapods filled about half of it. This meant several meals of 'fruits from the freezer' within a week of the peapods arriving.
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| The world's smallest freezer |
Anyway, Julia dropped in again today, 23rd July, with another pound and a bit, and I decided that this was Good Enough. Therefore, this wine has 4 lbs, 2 oz of peapods and 3 lbs of sugar, together with a mug of strong black tea as I have yet to replace my tannin powder.
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| The peapods being washed |
I have boiled the peapods in 8 pints of water (but in two stages). Both times I brought the water containing the peapods up to the boil, and the first lot got about 25 minutes whilst the second got 45. I sieved the peapods out and poured the liquid into the bucket over the sugar and added the tea. The colour is currently a greeny-brown.
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| In the bucket before the yeast was added |
The yeast, nutrient and citric acid went in the same night, on our return from Kayla's evening wedding party, where the music was Too Loud but the meat was plentiful. C J J Berry's recipe calls for a whole tablespoon of citric acid, which strikes me as excessive, but that is what I put in.
I put it all into the demijohn on Wednesday evening, 27th July, while listening to 'The Firebird' on Radio 3, and suffering with a heavy cold and sore throat. The wine is now an attractive yellow. I could have used half a pint less liquid.
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| The wine in its demijohn (but the colour is distorted) |
Wow, what a strange wine this'll be. Hope it tastes good.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see how this turns out Ben as I'm growing peas for the first time this year so if I can make use of the pods afterwards that'd be the 're-use' before I 'recycle'! When will it be ready for consumption?
ReplyDeleteYes - one of my stranger (and cheaper) creations - though I did use a recipe, rather than make it up myself. It will be bottled in six months, and probably drinkable then - though I will wait until July 2012 before opening the first bottle. Or that is the plan - I often open them earlier.
ReplyDeletevery "goodlife"....peapod bugundy anyone?
ReplyDeleteenjoy your holidays
Shaz