Already I've committed my first newbie crime of not following the instructions. I don't know why I do this. As, pretty much, a beginner, I should follow the recipe for a tried and tested wine and vary it afterwards. So when instructed to dilute apple juice and add sugar, I couldn't bring myself to water down a flavour-giving ingredient. I started with neat apple juice and added less sugar. I say neat apple juice but it was from concentrate, so at some point it's been diluted. I used the cheap stuff because it is already clear.
Fannying-around step two: I added medium toast, oak chips. Here's where I'm up to so far:
Day 1
4 litres Apple juice (Euroshopper RRP 75p per litre, Specific Gravity 1.046) Aerated in brew-bin and added yeast nutrient.
Hydrated Bioferm "cool" yeast as per pack instructions.
30g Oak Chips into demijohn with a splash of boiling water.
Pitched yeast into brew-bin and aerated with a balloon whisk, then poured into demijohn.
Fitted bubble trap.
Within afew days a head was thrown up and blew out through the bubble trap.
Day 4
Calmed down so added some of the extra sugar needed to make it up to strength: 250g dissolved in a little boiling apple juice, then cooled.
Another blow out.
Day 5
Added the last lot of sugar: 280g in more apple juice.
Day 10
Topped up to the neck of the demijohn with apple juice.
Day 11
Demijohn got filmed by Endemol and may appear on telly, only a minor part, non-speaking.
Day 26
Syphoned off sediment into another demijohn, topped up to the neck with more apple juice. Had a sneaky taste mid syphon: Appley and winey would you believe?
Day 34
Still sitting there, periodically going "blup"
Day 180
Finally got round to another investigulp. Tasting much more like it but a little too lively, so in need of degasing, which is essentially agitating to release the carbon dioxide out of solution. This was combined with the addition of half a Campden tablet, crushed, to kill off the yeast. If I were going to bottle it to keep, I would also have added a similar amount of potassium sorbate to prevent fermentation from any wild yeasts etc that may get into the wine. I was too thirsty to keep the wine too long, so syphoned it into a 5 litre wine box and put it into the fridge overnight to chill. The resulting wine was very drinkable; a nice level of acidity, gentle oakiness and a subtle apple flavour.
This recipe I will certainly be repeating as my house wine, so easy and so cheap, less than one pound a bottle.
Here's a video about the wine
