We really must buy a larger freezer. I have mentioned this before, though it is usually a problem later in the year when blackberries, elderberries and sloes have all fruited. This year we have harvested more rhubarb, gooseberries and blackcurrants from our garden than expected and our freezer is crammed. To the extent that we had gin & tonic yesterday without ice. Therefore, action was needed, and as blackcurrants tend to get lost in a mixed fruit wine, I decided to make another batch of that.
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| Our minuscule freezer |
When weighing the blackcurrants this morning, 19th August, I discovered I 'only' had 2 lbs 8 oz - half a pound down on the required amount for pure blackcurrant wine, so I have bulked the fruit up with 8 oz of red gooseberries - also from our garden. I suspect frozen ants have made it into the mix too. Our blackcurrant bushes are crawling with them and whilst I tried to avoid them I don't think I had an absolute success rate. One of the buggers bit me during harvesting, so I have little sympathy.
I weighed the fruit this morning and left it to defrost a little before returning to it this afternoon. Once it was in the bucket I poured over half a pint of boiling water to aid its defrosting and mashed it all with a potato masher. Meanwhile I boiled 3 lbs of sugar in five and a half pints of water and poured this over the mashed fruit. I put in a teaspoon of pectolase later the same night, and added the yeast and a teaspoon of nutrient the next morning.
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| The ingredients |
I transferred the liquid into the demijohn on Thursday night, 23rd August, while listening to Stephen Fry on Radio 4 discuss intonation. The process was faster than many wines and I helped matters along by having a glass of Prune & Parsnip, which I had bottled earlier in the evening. I have left a significant gap in the demijohn and stored some wine in a bottle separately for topping up once I am certain the fermentation has calmed.
In fact, it was apparent the next morning that there would be no bubbling over disasters so I filled the gap from the bottle and I now have a demijohn at capacity.
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| The wine in its demijohn |
If you want to see how this wine turned out, click
here
why don't u made red gooseberry wine alone?is any health problems in consuming red gooseberry wine alone??
ReplyDeleteHello, and thank you for getting in touch. The only reason I haven't made wine only from red gooseberries is that my gooseberry bushes are young, and I haven't produced enough fruit from them yet. There would be no health problems at all (unless you drank far, far too much!) in drinking red gooseberry wine. When my bushes do produce enough fruit, I will do a pure red gooseberry wine.
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