We (and I use 'we' in the broadest sense here; Claire is not particularly keen) are looking for a new house, and on Saturday 7th February I made the psychological leap and went to look at one. It was okay, but no more than, and therefore not the one for us. Immediately afterwards I went to buy parsnips in Harehills - which was far more within my comfort zone.
The rest of Saturday was taken up with getting the house ready for a Feast. Cleaning and Tidying were the priority, so my four pounds of parsnips waited patiently in the coal shed before being turned into wine today, Sunday 8th February. First of all, though, I had to recover from a hangover following the Feast, and go on a six mile walk round Rawdon and Yeadon with Claire, Rachel and Duncan. It was a cold walk with some fabulous views of the open countryside to the north west of Leeds, and the perfect antidote to the previous evening's indulgence.
Back at home, after bottling my rose-petal wine, I chopped the parsnips into small pieces and boiled these in two lots, each covered in 8 pints of water (so 16 pints in total). The first lot got twenty minutes of boiling and the second got half an hour. I poured the water into my bucket, using a collander to catch the parsnips, and threw these out. The bucket already contained 1 lb (actually 500 grams) of prunes, each cut in half, and 5-and-a-half pounds of sugar. Next morning I added the yeast, a teaspoon and a half of nutrient and a teaspoon of pectolase.
I was going to put this into its demijohns on Friday evening, but was desperately tired. I ended up going to bed at half past eight, and I think I was asleep by nine. Instead, I transferred the liquid on Saturday morning, 14th February - and I only got nascent prune and parsnip wine down my shirt front and all over the kitchen the once. It is worth remembering that my sieve doesn't quite balance when forming the diameter of my bucket.
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| The ingredients fermenting |
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