#apple wine

Fruit juice from freshly sliced apples is used to infuse dry white wine into a seasonal, warming Fall cocktail beverage. Sometimes referred to as “Apfelwein” this classic recipe is updated with cinnamon spices and natural sweetener. Make yourself a carafe of this spiced apple wine recipe and sit back, sip and relax… Photo Credit: The Sifted Field. The Fall season is full of Apple Beverages:…

29 Aug (Day 3) - I bought Fermaid C, a yeast nutrient for cider. The manufacturer's dosage is "30 to 50 grams per hL" (per 100 L), so this comes to about 2 grams per 5 L.

I decided to add 1/8 tsp Fermaid C to the jug, added the mason jar's contents, gave a swirl (dangerous!), then re-separated to make space for bubbling.

Over the next few days, I watched intently, waiting for the day when fermentation would settle enough to fit all the must in the 5L jug. That finally happened on day 6 (1 Sep).

Here are some log entries:

Day 8 (3 Sep) - Just realised I haven't been keeping taking good notes on this wine. Airlock is bubbling much slower now. Activity is calmer up top: less foam and almost no cap. Brew volume is at about the 5L mark. Air lock bubble: 5.5 seconds. We've entered the lava lamp phase! 😍 [yes I drew this emoji] I'm swirling the vessel every now and then to dissipate the solids at the top."

Day 9 (4 Sep) - Really loving watching the LAVA LAMP! The airlock bubbling is quite inconsistent now. I think the little headspace + shape of the neck contributes to that. During active "geysers", the airlock bubbles every 5-6 seconds. But when the big geysers aren't happening: 11-15 seconds between bubbles.

Day 10 (5 Sep) - Next to no activity today. Took a sample.

Sp Gr: 1.002. That was fast!

Scent: Faintly apple + sweet.

Taste: Tart! Acidic. Dry, no sweetness. Not sure whether I detect any apple at all.

Day 11 (6 Sep) - Almost no fruit cap! Decided to rack to a new jug. I'll strain and then squeeze the strained solids. From squeezing the solids, I extracted about 2L of liquid, which I siphoned into the new carboy. The contents look pale, like creamed honey, uniformly cloudy at first. Total volume is between 4.5L and 5 L marks. Will check back in a few hours.

When I went to buy honey, my beekeeper threw in a bag of apples for free. It was late August, which is early in apple season for us in Manitoba.

The apples were round (some flattish, some leaning conical); pale yellow-green with some streaky russetting; thin-skinned, browning immediately. Some had a slight rosy blush. I don't think they were fully ripe.

Tasting them, they were tart! Gently fragrant with a mild sweetness. Soft-fleshed, but I'm not sure I'd call them "mealy".

To me, this is the archetypal "backyard apple" that I've encountered in the city--though this beekeeper is in rural south-eastern Manitoba. Growing up in suburbia, I remember lots of kids bringing their abundance of backyard apples to school, their parents entirely not sure what to do with them, but also not wanting them to go to waste. They looked very similar to these, but I also remember them having red cheeks--perhaps later in the season as they ripened. I can't know for certain whether my beekeeper's apples are the same; and I can't know for certain what variety my childhood "backyard apples" were either. But it felt nostalgic.

(Note: my partner's experience of "backyard apples" is quite different, since he grew up in a different region. His "Manitoba apples" are hard, thick-skinned, and very tart. I wonder if they could be the same apples, but at different stages of ripeness?)

I decided I'd make alcohol with them, and try to use as much of the fruit as possible (including skins, but excluding seeds). So here's what I did:

Halve the apple. Use a melon baller to remove the seedy core. Roughly dice (1-2cm cubes). Use an immersion blender to purée.

I got about 900 mL of apple puree from my free apples, saving a few for eating.

Into the fermenter:

900 mL crushed apples

3.78 L apple juice (store-bought)

120 mL corn syrup (golden)

1.75 cups cane sugar

1/8 tsp pectic enzyme

I was aiming for an ABV of about 10%, so I needed to add extra sugars. I had a little bit of corn syrup left in the bottle, so I used that; then moved to cane sugar.

Rehydrate yeast:

1 tsp Lalvin EC 1118

1/4 tsp Go Ferm

bit of warm water

OG: 1.075ish

I had more must than I was comfortable fitting in my 5L glass jug, so I put the excess in a 500 mL mason jar with an airlock.

Look at that beautiful colour!

Day 2 (27 Aug) - Boy am I glad I didn't try to fit it all in the jug. It had formed a "cap" of fruit and trapped gas at the top of the jug. I kept vigilant and swirled the jug every so often to help dissipate the cap.

August 2, 2024

215/366

It's been a long week 🍷

Boone's Farm Apple Wine -   Janet Fish , 1972.

American, b. 1938 -