Jam Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

Many years ago I spotted that CJJ Berry had a recipe for Jam Wine. I filed this information away under the heading "Odd and Not Useful". Over the last few months I have watched our 'Home Made Condiments' cupboard fill to capacity and started to wonder whether I should dust down that recipe. Also, stored in the attic, were a collection of jars that we brought with us when moving house in 2015 and which have lurked there ever since.

Jars found in the attic

Claire was fully on board with this wine - it solved the problem of all those jars, but first of all we needed to play "Jam or Chutney". This involved opening each jar (more difficult than it sounds) and taking a taste - because of course only about half were labelled. This appeared to produce no chutney, lots of marmalade (which I did not use) and some sort of jelly with large pieces of garlic floating in it - also rejected.

A different view of the same jars
Notice the dust!

In the end I used nine jars in a variety of sizes and these were: Plum 2013, Strawberry 2013, Gooseberry 2011, Bramble Jelly 2013, Rowan Jelly 2005, Damson 2014, Crabapple & Chili Jelly, Fig, and Quince Jelly. The Crabapple & Chili was the nicest, the Rowan the worst.

Emptied jars

On Sunday 8th November, I tipped all contents into my bucket (together it looked like an enormous, disgusting blood clot) and poured over 6½ pints of boiling water. I gave it a good stir and left it overnight for the jam to dissolve. On Monday morning I added two teaspoons of citric acid and one of pectolase. Then in the evening (rather than 24 hours later as instructed by the recipe) I added 8 oz of minced raisins, 1 lb of sugar and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and tannin.

Bleurggh

The yeast (which was a new tub and a different variety) did not take and I feared that this wine would have to be thrown out. On Wednesday I made a yeast starter, with the half teaspoon left of my old yeast, half a pint of warm water and half a pint of the jam wine. This started fermenting and continued to do so after adding a further pint of the wine, so I poured it into the bucket. Success!

I put the liquid into its demijohn on 15th November - which took quite a while. During this process I noticed large bits of onion in the solids that I was sieving out. "This appeared to produce no chutney" was a rash and inaccurate statement. "Jam or Chutney" is a surprisingly difficult game.

Jam wine in its demijohn

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - The Making Of...

Blackcurrants seem to enjoy this long, hot, dry summer that we are having. Our bushes are laden with plump, ripe fruit and I will struggle to pick half of it. Despite having several blackcurrant bushes in our garden, I sent a Facebook message to Lindsay in early July asking how hers were getting on. An invitation to come over and pick fruit came back immediately. Lindsay says we are doing her a service, and she gets a bottle of wine out of it, so everyone's a winner.

Claire and I went over on 8th July, were joined by Lindsay and Anthony and we picked blackcurrants in the sunshine for less than an hour. Over the course of the next fortnight I selected the ripest fruit from our bushes (which are later than Lindsay's to ripen), freezing them as I went. By Thursday 19th July there was virtually no room left in our freezer and Something Had To Be Done. I removed the blackcurrants and measured out 6 lbs for a double batch, allowing them to defrost overnight. On Friday night I put these in the bucket and gave them a good mashing. This involved more effort than I had anticipated and the result was a sludge rather than lots of liquid.

I boiled 5½ lbs of sugar in 12 pints of water - and it turns out that an extra half pint of water would have been useful. Once this was boiling I poured it over the blackcurrants and left it all overnight to cool down. I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, pectolase and nutrient on Saturday morning - I have bought a tub of yeast rather than using individual sachets on the basis that this is far cheaper and I suspect the yeast variety makes little difference to the end result.

I left the wine until Tuesday evening, 24th July, stirring at least once a day, and then put it into my demijohns. There proved to be not quite enough water, but not by a huge margin. The wine is now bubbling away noisily and looks entirely happy.

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

Blackcurrant Wine - Fourth Bottle (C2), 25th September 2015

This was rather a splendid bottle of wine. One of the best blackcurrants that I have tasted. It has the correct amount of sharpness to balance the sweet fruit taste. I think Burgundy yeast is the way to go.

We drank it after I had spent an easy day at work and Claire had spent a hard day at the house, painting two bedrooms with their first coat of white emulsion. Much of the wine was drunk, though, while I looked for venues to hold the Extended Family Gathering 2016. The Nightingale Centre is booked for the weekend that we want (1-3 April) and now I must find somewhere else. It is not looking easy.

Fig Wine - The Making Of ...

My parents' fig tree ...

 Ever since I began making wine I have been watching the fig tree at my parents' house with interest. Every year it has produced a disappointing number of figs. That is until this year, in which we had no winter to speak of and a hot summer. The tree has been abundant with fruit and there was plenty with which to make wine.

My father has been collecting figs since late July and putting them in the freezer. He rang Claire one evening to check if bird-pecked figs would be acceptable. She assured him they would and who am I to argue?

... with abundant fruit

So today, 29th August, I collected 5 lbs 6 oz of figs from York and have brought them back to Leeds to make wine. I do not have a recipe, so have made it up. The number and weight of figs looked plausible, so I have cut them into pieces and put them in my bucket. Despite being mostly green on the outside, figs are surprisingly purple inside and I am reconsidering my choice of yeast accordingly.

Figs: green on the outside ...

I mashed the figs a little, poured over 6 pints of boiling water and added 3 lbs of sugar. On Saturday morning, 30th August, I put in the yeast (a red wine variety) and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase, citric acid and tannin - which is basically every chemical I own.

... but purple inside

I transferred the liquid into its demijohn on Tuesday 2nd September, which is a little earlier than I would normally have done, but this week is proving to be a busy one. Over the last few days I have noticed a thick near-soupy texture to the wine when stirring. Guessing (correctly) that this would make the straining process long and tedious, I began by fishing out the figs with a plastic collander. This saved me some time but the whole sieving experience took longer than I had wanted.

The wine has an unusual colour - dark pink with a hint of brown. It does not have a great taste at the this stage. There is a nutty trace that bodes ill. Still, I can now tick the letter F off my alphabet.

Fig Wine in its demijohn - 4 days after straining. The 'hint of brown' has gone

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

Blackcurrant Wine 2014 - The Making Of ...

I have had an experiment forced upon me, all to do with yeast. My last remaining yeast was 'champagne' variety, which is a white wine yeast. On making blackcurrant wine, I had no choice to put that in. However, I have long wondered just how much difference the yeast actually makes. This 'running out of yeast' has coincided with picking 5 lbs 3 oz of blackcurrants in Lindsay's back garden on Sunday, 6 July, which is not quite enough for a double batch of wine. So I have used 3 lbs and put the remainder in the freezer, waiting for our currants to ripen. I will then make another single batch of wine with the same method, but using a red wine yeast.

Picking the fruit was lovely - Dylan (Lindsay's 7 year old) helped enthusiastically and James (her 10 year old) mostly watched. The bushes were at arm height, the sun was shining and we drank blackcurrant & red gooseberry wine to help matters along.

I crushed 3 lbs blackcurrants on Monday evening, 7 July. I boiled 3 lbs sugar dissolved in 6 pints of water, but did this in two lots as my largest pan had strawberries in it at the time, and poured this over the fruit. The yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase were added on Tuesday morning, 8th July. I put it into its demijohn on 12th July.

My plans changed a little at the WYSO concert in Pontefract when Katie told me her mother had many, many blackcurrants going spare and would I like some to make wine? The thoughts of a two batch experiment rapidly turned into a three batch experiment. I collected 3 lbs of fruit from Kaite and started the second batch on Sunday 20th July. The only variation, other than using a Bordeaux yeast, was that I boiled the 3lbs of sugar in 6 pints of water in one go, and I used a different bucket. I added the yeast and chemicals on Monday 21 July in the morning before work and it went into its demijohn on Friday evening, 25th July, before we disappeared for a week to Rydal.

Blackcurrants from Katie

My third batch was started on Wednesday, 13th August. This time the blackcurrants are two-thirds from Lindsay's garden and one-third from ours, and I am using the same quantities of everything as before. The yeast is a Burgundy variety. I put the yeast, nutrient and pectolase in on Thursday morning and transferred the liquid into its demijohn four days later - Monday 18th August.

Watch this space.

Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy (in that order)

The differences on bottling were subtle and I conclude that yeast only has a slight effect. However, the Burgundy demijohn was the roundest and best. The Champagne was the thinnest, but all were good.

If you want to see how the Bordeaux turned out, click here

Strawberry Wine 2014 - The Making Of ...

I have been watching the weather forecast carefully this week, knowing that Sunday morning, 6th July, was really my only opportunity to pick strawberries. Saturday would have been useless. All roads to Wharfedale Grange Farm were closed because of the Tour de France. And next weekend is both busy and on the verge of being too late.

Wharfedale Grange's wares

All week the forecast has been predicting heavy downpours. Even this morning the woman on the radio talked darkly of showers in Yorkshire. It has been sunny all day, and I got to wear my Hat while picking.

Sunny all day and me in my Hat (after picking)

The Pick Your Own was relatively quiet, and they had strawberries in abundance. I had no trouble at all in picking a basket full of lucious fruit. This was hunter-gathering at its easiest. I needed 4 lbs of fruit and I came away with nearly five. One pound is in the freezer awaiting 'Strawberry and Crab Apple', so I have just less than 4 lbs strawberries in this wine. I have also added ten or so tiny wild strawberries from our garden.

While boiling four pints of water, I mashed the strawberries and added 3 lbs sugar. The boiling water went in and the bucket then sat for 24 hours.

Strawberries before mashing (obviously)

Strawberry wine's most tedious stage came next. On Monday evening I sieved the liquid into a demijohn, putting the pulp in a pan. I covered the pulp with two pints of cold water and let it sit for around half an hour. I then drained this into the (cleaned and sterilised) bucket, throwing out the pulp, and poured the liquid in the demijohn into the bucket. This all took far too long. I added the yeast (which is champagne variety because I have run out of everything else) and a teaspoon each of tannin, pectolase and nutrient.

On Thursday evening, immediately after work and before the Yorkshire Icon Orchestra concert (which I was dreading) I put the wine into its demijohn. This was a rapid job, and the colour is as red as I have seen it.

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.

Making Spiced Beetroot Wine ...

Despite starting this on 5th June, this is my November wine. I have decided to dedicate November's article in Home Farmer Magazine to Spiced Beetroot, but as its colour is the most dramatic thing about it I needed to begin this in June so that suitable photos can appear (and I will post some on this blog once they are taken and uploaded!). This will be my first 'cheat' of an article.

The place where I bought the beetroot, Noshis in Harehills, has an interesting approach to pricing. If in doubt, they charge a pound. So on Saturday I bought three oranges that were priced six for a pound, and was charged one quid. I also bought the beetroot, which was unpriced, and again paid a pound. I like this method: "Some fruit? That will be a pound please. Some veg? Call it a pound." Our fruit and veg bills have dropped since Paul's greengrocers closed. I definitely miss him, but also like the ethnic atmosphere of Noshis.

I began the wine on late Sunday afternoon, 6th June, after making my elderflower and racking my dandelion. Keeping the beetroot till last seemed sensible - I did not want its purpleness leaching into my other brews. I chopped 3 lbs of beetroot into chunks after washing, but not peeling, it and I let it come up to the boil in 6 pints of tap water. Whilst it boiled for half an hour I put 3 lbs sugar, 2 pints cold tap water, juice of one lemon, 5 cloves (down one from last time I made this), not quite 2 oz root ginger sliced thinly, half a teaspoon of all-spice and a small amount of grated nutmeg into my bucket. I hope the spice does not impede fermentation. I then poured the boiling liquid over all this and threw out the beetroot, which strikes me as a waste, and stirred until the sugar was dissolved.

I added the yeast and 1 teaspoon of nutrient on Monday late afternoon. The man in the wine shop suggested that a Madeira yeast would be best, but didn't have any, so I used a 'High Alcohol' yeast instead (the label of which is pleasingly purple). I put this into its demijohn on 10th June, after playing quintets in Harrogate. It was a rapid job, and I could have used half a pint less water in my ingredients. The demijohn is now in the bath, wrapped in silver foil, and bubbling away happily to itself.

Making Dandelion Wine

This month does not resemble Aprils I have known. We have had no rain and almost continuous sunshine. Dandelions appear to love it. Roadside verges are blanketed in a glare of golden yellow.

I have given dandelion wine a four year break, in the hope that it will be better this time. And it had to be dandelion this year because I said it would be in Home Farmer Magazine. April is a difficult time for wine anyway because buying ingredients feels like cheating. So, towards noon on Sunday morning, 17th April, I put on sun cream, donned my Hat, and drove to Lawnswood Crags. I took a measuring jug with me to allow me to measure whilst I picked, rather than come home with either far too many or irritatingly too few flowers.

Getting six pints of flower-heads proved rapid work. An old man asked if I was making a potion, and a young girl with Downes Syndrome asked questions, but otherwise I was undisturbed.

Once home I put the dandelions in the bucket, picked three from our garden and also put in most from the posy of dandelions Angie and Phil brought with them last night. I rescued one ladybird and as many money spiders as I could and poured over seven pints of boiling water.

On Tuesday evening, 19th April, after a boozy lunch with Rodney and an afternoon of feeling unsteady and squishing 86 sawfly grubs, I added 3 lbs sugar and the thinly peeled rind of 2 lemons and one orange. This was then poured into a big pan, brought to the boil and kept boiling for ten minutes. It took an age to start boiling, and the floating carpet of dandelions made it difficult to tell when it was. I used the time productively to bottle my Blackcurrant Wine. The whole mix went back into the bucket over the juice from the citrus fruit. Claire dislikes the smell now permeating the house, but I think it pleasant.

I put in one litre of white grape juice, the yeast (Hock variety) and a teaspoon each of pectolase, tannin and yeast on Wednesday morning. I shall filter out the dandelions and put the liquid into a demijohn on Saturday.