Elderberry Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

Sunday 6th September, despite being earlier than previous years, was really my only opportunity to forage for elderberries. Next weekend we are in Newcastle (before Leeds is put into quarantine) and the weekend after that would be too late. I had planned to go in the morning, but we were entertaining Jayne in the garden instead. Here I use 'entertaining' to mean 'making polite conversation and enjoying each other's company' rather than juggling fruit and eating fire.

Elderberries that made it into my bag

I drove to my usual parking spot and walked down Kennels Lane, noticing that there was little fruit in the hedgerows on either side. When I got to the field I always use, I discovered that it had been gated: the right of way has been diverted elsewhere. This, though, was not going to stop me! I climbed over the gate and picked the few elderberries there were along the previous right of way. My haul was clearly insufficient, so I wandered along the field side adjoining Kennels Lane, which was far more successful. Every now and again I head a tractor in a nearby field and I kept my eyes open for irate farmers, but my surreptitious plucking remained undetected.

A view across the field 

As usual I came away with two plastic bags three-quarters full, and this translated into 7 lbs of elderberries. It took a very long time to translate them, though - over 2 hours. During this time I listened to many episodes of Punt P.I., learning about Emile Zola's death and a mysterious low hum that certain people hear constantly. Separating elderberries from their stalks is a dull job.

7 lbs of elderberries, successfully stripped

I put 6 lbs of elderberries into my bucket and mashed them with the potato masher. These were covered with 5 lbs 8 oz (which is nearly exactly 2.5 kg) of sugar and 12 pints of boiling water. Next morning I added a teaspoon and a half of nutrient and a teaspoon each of yeast and pectolase.

Putting this into its demijohns was a Friday lunchtime job, so that we could drive to Newcastle in the early evening. I had limited time and was as efficient as possible. Including sterilising my equipment, it took about half an hour. The wine is as dark as ever and is bubbling enthusiastically.

Elderberry wine in its demijohns

Damson Wine - The Making Of...

Two years ago, Claire and I planted a damson tree sapling in the front garden. Where Claire had images of damson jam and damson gin, my thoughts were of wine. We both looked forward to branches weighed down by their fruit. So far it has produced not a single damson. Therefore, when Emma mentioned at work that her mother had been storing damsons in her freezer and I was welcome to have a bag, I indicated that I would be a glad recipient.

Our damson tree

On Thursday 1st November, Emma brought the damsons in and it was important that I turn them into wine that evening - defrosting fruit never lasts beyond a day. I was busy with wine-making duties anyway - racking my elderberry and putting apple wine into its demijohns.

3 lbs 2 oz damsons

On consulting four recipe books only one told me to de-stone the fruit, so I ignored that one. One told me to put chalk into the wine, another advised wheat or barley and a third talked about sultanas. This is my first time of making damson wine and advice is there to be ignored. So I went for the simplest option - using only damsons, sugar, water and yeast.

The recipe books I ignored

There were 3 lbs 2 oz damsons, which is a little under the 4 lbs advised by recipe books (to which I was paying no attention anyway) so I declared this sufficient and put them into my bucket. They mashed easily. I put in 1 lb of sugar and then found I had no more sugar in the house. (A further 1 lb 12 oz went in on Saturday morning.) This was covered by six and a half pints of boiling water, stirred and left over night to cool. I then put in 1 teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and citric acid.

The wine with the yeast having been sprinkled in

The wine went into its demijohn on Tuesday 6th November, even though I was out all evening playing quintets in Ilkley. This meant that I had to be organised, so I got everything ready to sterilise before I left for work that morning. On my return I took time only to feed the cats before setting to and covering all equipment with a sodium metabisulphite solution. Putting the wine into its demijohn took about half an hour and I now have my first ever batch of Damson Wine bubbling away.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here

Something a little bit different ...

So, I have a new toy - a Smart Phone. I know that most people have had these for nearing 10 years, but considering I didn't get my first mobile until 2011, I think I have joined the party remarkably quickly.

Anyway, I have today recorded four videos: two on sterilising equipment (it was meant to be one, but somehow the recorder got cut off), one on racking your wine and one on putting wine into demijohns once it has been in the bucket for a suitable length of time.

Sterilising Equipment

Here is video number 1: 

Here is video number 2:

Racking your wine

Apologies for the lack of comic timing with my joke, but here it is:

Putting your wine into demijohns

And finally, this is how I put my wine into demijohns (though the moving picture cuts out too early):

Blackberry Wine 2017 - The Making Of...

I heard rumours of ripe blackberries as July became August. For the last few weeks I have been aware of bramble clusters turning black and juicy. Blackberry, though, is a September wine so I have resisted foraging until today, Sunday 3rd September. This has also allowed me to spend time with my parents, who are only just returned from Mexico.

Mom and Claire foraging

As always, I went picking blackberries in York Victorian Cemetery, taking Mom and Claire with me. Usually we split up when picking and meet back at the car at a prearranged time. Today we picked together - I wanted to hear all about Mom's time in Nebraska, how the uncles were and whether Keith and family had a good time over there. Picking blackberries was the ideal time to hear all the news and it made ninety minutes pass quickly. At the end of this our hands were sticky with blackberry juice, our arms were covered in nettle stings and bramble scratches, and between us we had picked 13 lbs 3 oz (Claire, as always, was the winner).

I made sure some fruit came from Thomas Douthwaite's grave, and otherwise I made a note of Albert Dowsett, John Hardy Ellis (all good family names), Fred Dealtry and the delightfully named Vera Higginbottom. I will raise a glass to all when the time comes.

Our haul

Back at home I measured 12 lbs blackberries, putting the excess into the freezer, and mashed these in my bucket. This was a quick and easy job because the fruit was so ripe. I added 7 lbs 12 oz sugar (it may need more on racking) and 15 pints of boiling water (I should have added at least 16 - see below). The yeast, two teaspoons of nutrient and what was left in my tub of pectolase (more than a teaspoon) went in on Monday morning.

The blackberry pulp floating at the top of the wine

On Friday evening, 8th September, it was Book Group (The Trouble with Sheep and Goats, which got mixed reviews) so I did my best to be efficient in getting the wine into its three demijohns. Including sterilising everything, it took me somewhat less than an hour. Taking out the bulk of the floating fruit detritus with a colander helped. I stored the discarded pulp in a large plastic bowl (also sterilised) and this was a Good Thing. There was at least a pint too little liquid, and I pressed the pulp to extract all additional wine I could. The demijohns are still not full, but it is close, and they are all bubbling away enthusiastically.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here.

Clementine Wine - The Making Of ...

Oh my darling.

Contemplating a new flavour

I had not planned this flavour for January, or at all. It was really ugli fruit that I was after, but my efforts to locate these last week drew a blank. Nowhere in the market sold them, and there were none in the Carribean supermarket that used to be the Fforde Green Pub. I knew that I wanted to start my wine today, 10th January, so was prepared to buy whatever Noshis was selling cheap. My default was either Prune & Parsnip or Orange, but I had hoped that they would have boxes of over-ripe tomatoes for a couple of pounds. When I got there this morning the tomatoes were regular price and the parsnips looked manky. However, Noshis was selling clementines at 15 for £1. Not having made Clementine Wine before, and January being a month for experimentation, I bought thirty, five of which have made it into the fruit bowl. The wine may be vastly similar to Orange but I may be surprised.

Clementines

Recipes on the internet say that I should use the zest of five clementines, so I made a half-arsed attempt at this. They also say that I should use 10 valencia oranges, and I ignored this entirely.

I peeled 25 clementines and split these into segments (of which there were 223, or was it 228?). I removed the worst of the pith, but mostly didn't bother, and cut each segment in half with scissors. These went into my bucket and I gave them a good mash. I added 2½ lbs sugar and 6½ pints of boiling water.

Next morning, 11 January, I added the yeast (a sauterne variety) and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin.

I have put this into its demijohn a day earlier than normal, on 14th January, but the fermentation seemed to be slowing down. The first demijohn chosen for the job cracked and broke during the sterilisation process. When I put in the not-quite-boiling water there was a distant whip-like noise and I knew immediately what had happened. It was a very neat break, though. Oh well. I have plenty of spares in the attic.

The liquid went into the replacement demijohn after a WYSO rehearsal (we have started on Mendelssohn's violin concerto) and is dull yellow in colour. The small taste I got was not promising and I fear that this experiment will be unsuccessful.

This was my first attempt to take a photo of the wine in its demijohn

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here

Some Technical Stuff (for Lovely Greens)

I am honoured to have been asked to write a guest blog for the Lovely Greens website. If you haven't come across it, click on the words 'Lovely Greens', and you will be taken there. Where my blog is a one-trick pony, Tanya's is an amalgam of all sorts of useful and interesting information about simple living, making stuff, wildlife and beyond.

Anyway, my guest blog will appear at some point within the next five weeks, and I will let you know when. The purpose of this blog post is to cover some of the technical stuff which I refer to in that post, but didn't have the room to put it in. Call this a very long footnote.

Sterilising Equipment

The way I sterilise equipment is by getting a teaspoon of sodium metabisulphite, and dissolving it in a pint of cold water. I then use this solution to cover all the equipment that I plan to use for whatever wine making stage I am at. So, I will generally start by siphoning it from the measuring jug into a demijohn or bucket. This way, the inside of the plastic tubing gets sterilised. Then, once the solution is in the demijohn/bucket, I will swill it around to make sure all surfaces that may touch the wine/ingredients are covered. There is no need to soak it - just a simple covering seems to do the trick. I then pour the solution back into the measuring jug, and pour it over anything else I plan to use (spoons, sieves, mashers, lemon juicers, bottles). Once finished, don't discard the solution. Instead store it to one side so that in the event (which is frequent for me) you realise that you have forgotten something, you can then sterilise that too. Only throw out the solution as you are clearing up having finished that particular stage of the wine.


When I have finished with the sterilising solution, I then cover surfaces of all equipment with boiling water. I do not know whether this is necessary (I suspect not) but it is something I do. Twice I have had a demijohn crack from this - in both cases a brown glass demijohn, so beware.

I have been told in a home brew shop that what I am doing is not actually sterilising equipment, but killing any yeast that may be hanging around the surfaces of stuff. This is good enough for me, as proper sterilising seems to involve leaving things to soak in bleach - and I worry about what effect this would have on taste.

Yeast

Often people will click on the label 'yeast' on my blog, and I can't remember where that takes you. I tend to use yeast in sachets, and I am sure there are several varieties out there that will do the trick. I most frequently use a burgundy yeast for red wines and a champagne for whites, but I have no idea if this makes much difference - I suspect not. The only really important thing about yeast is that you make sure your liquid is not too hot when you put it in. I usually leave my wine overnight before putting the yeast in the next morning.


Racking

'Racking' is the process where you transfer the wine from one demijohn to the next, leaving the sediment in the first demijohn. This is also the stage where I get my first taste of the wine. What you need to do is put the full demijohn at a height (on a counter) and the empty demijohn below it (on the floor). Attach your flexible plastic tubing to a piece of stiff plastic tubing with a bund at the bottom. Lower this into the full demijohn, bund first, but not so far down as to touch the sediment. Suck the other end of the tube, so that the wine starts flowing, and put this end into the empty demijohn. As the wine in the first demijohn goes down, gradually lower the bund, so that it moves closer to the sediment. As it gets close, tip the demijohn so that the most liquid possible is siphoned up, but try not to disturb the sediment. The instant the sediment looks like it is going to get sucked in, tip the demijohn back, and withdraw the tubing. In fact, it doesn't matter if you get a bit of sediment - this is pretty much inevitable.

Once you have finished this stage of racking, tip the tiny amount of liquid in the bund into a glass and taste what you have made so far. This will give you some idea of whether you need any more sugar. Generally (but not always) you will. If the wine is sweet enough already fill the gap in the second demijohn with tap water. If you think it needs more sugar, fill the gap with a syrup solution made from a ratio of 1 pint of water:six ounces of sugar. This is not a hard and fast rule, but generally works.

Different wines will have different levels of sediment. For example, I find that elderflower has very little sediment, whereas blackcurrant has loads. Don't worry if up to a third of your demijohn is filled with sediment - this happens from time to time. Do make sure, though, that after you have racked the wine, you fill the second demijohn to its neck with the water or sugar syrup solution you have made.

Bottling

The technique for bottling is very similar to that for racking. Your demijohn goes on the counter and your bottles go on the floor. This time, though, you can rest the bund bit of plastic tubing on the bottom of the demijohn, leaving your hands free. Have a spare glass to hand, so that you can catch some wine when changing between bottles. Also make sure that you have a spare bit of counter, so that you can put the full bottles out of 'kicking over by mistake' range. As you fill one bottle, move the siphon out of it via your glass and then into a new bottle. Leave the siphon in the new bottle (you do not always need to hold it, provided it is securely inside the filling bottle) as you move the full bottle onto your counter. Keep the last bottle you intend to fill inside a measuring jug, so when there is any overspill, it runs down the sides of the bottle into the jug, rather than all over the floor. Not only is this less messy, it provides even more wine for you to drink. For the last bottle, you will need to tip the demijohn, so that you siphon as much liquid as possible.

Corking
When you have six full bottles of wine, you need to stopper them up somehow. DO NOT USE SCREW CAPS. This is really really important. If the wine starts to ferment again (and some of them do) then you have created a bomb that could cause severe harm - flying glass everywhere. Instead, use bottles with corks. You can stop them up with plastic corks (which are reusable) or real corks. The weak point of the bottle is then the cork, and any explosion will mean the cork shoots out and the wine fizzes over the top. This is annoying, but not fatal! It is the reason I store all my bottles upright.


If you use plastic corks, you can just press them into the bottle with your thumb. If you are using proper corks, you need a corking machine. When using this, dangle a piece of string in the bottle as the cork goes in, leaving enough length to be able to pull it out. This way, the pressure caused by compressing the air above the liquid is diffused, meaning less chance of the whole thing blowing its top. You may notice bubbles around the string immediately after the cork has gone in. When the bubbles stop (a matter of seconds, if that) pull the string out vertically.

I recognise that this is not my most interesting post - and apologies - but I hope it is of some help. If there is anything else technical that you want to know, just leave a comment anywhere on my blog and I will respond.