Gold Wine (Caramel Apple)

Recipe Type: Apple-Wine Yeast: Redstar Montrachet Yeast Starter: NO Batch Size (Gallons): 5 Original Gravity: NA Final Gravity: NA Boiling Time (Minutes): Heated not boiled Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21d @ ~70F Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 50d @ ~70F

~~Ingredients~~
8# lb caramlized sugar
4# Regular Sugar
10 Containers AJ Concentrate
1pkt Redstar Montrechet Yeast
1tsp Energizer
1 Crushed Campden Tablet
Water to 6gal

~~Prep~~
1) Caramized sugar is dissloved in water in advance. (see WAY below for my caramelizing process)
2) Caramel water, sugar, and concentrate are combined and warmed in 3-4 gal of water.
3) Added campden tablet and collected 1 mason jar worth to start yeast.
4) Add must to brew bucket and bring volume to 5.5-6gal.
5) Pitched foamy started yeast

~~Primary~~
Sat in an Ale Pail on my kitchen counter for two weeks. Regular room temp 70F-75F

Oddly around 14 days in a guest thought the brew bucket was full of lemonade (regardless of the words ALE PAIL) and filled a glass. At this point it was surprisingly good, if yeasty and florescent yellow. This resulted in a fair amount of the airlock water being sucked into the pail. Doesn't seem to have affected it, but I thought I'd note it nonetheless.

~Secondary~~
Used blue plastic water jug (the type found at lowes etc). Already had a debate in another thread about oxygen permeability, and yeast settling but it ended up not being any problem (at least that I could taste or see).

Sat in slightly cooler area of the house for 70 days at about 65F-70F. Smelled VERY strongly of caramel during the transfer and cleared VERY quickly within two weeks.

~~Bottling~~
Bottled into 24 regular 750ml wine bottles.

~~Notes & Comments~~
- Smells of caramel but doesn't taste anything like it smells. It smells good, and it tastes good, but it doesn't smell like it tastes.
- TOTALLY out-shined my pies at thanksgiving. People were enjoying this with apple pie
- SURPRISINGLY strong, I've found I get a bit head-achy the next day when I drink this and beer in the same night, but otherwise never bothers me at all.

~~Moral of the story~~
Cheap. Yummy. Enjoyed by all.

~~Caramelizing Sugar~~
2lbs of sugar
1cup water
1/2 gallon of water

1) Heated sugar and water until sugar melts and bubbles.
2) WATCH IT CLOSELY. As soon as it starts to turn brown stir GENTLY until it is light light light brown throughout. Then quickly transfer to the 1/2 gallon of water in a separate pot. Dissolve over low heat.
3) Repeat until the desired amount of caramel is prepared.
4) I ended up with two 4L jugs of caramel solution for this recipe.

I prepared this over the course of two weeks leading up to making the accrual wine. It kept well in the jugs for the couple weeks. No idea how long it would go until it started to turn on me.

Where does the apple come in?

Nevermind took me like three times to see it says aj concentrate lol. This sounds good I may try it next

haha it's all good. I haven't made this one in ages. Might give it a go and let it sit all summer so it'll be all tasty in the fall.

I'm making this now. I'll post OG and FG ratings when I get them. I'm also subbing out the redstar yeast for Sweet Mead yeast. Thats only because I have a surplus of washed sweet mead yeast I want to get rid of.

I made this recipe subbing sweat mead yeast instead. It started at an OG of 1.102, and I'm racking it to secondary as I am typing this. The gravity at secondary, after 21 days, is 1.05. I hope it continues to ferment. Its at 6.83% right now.

KayBeer said:

I made this recipe subbing sweat mead yeast instead. It started at an OG of 1.102, and I'm racking it to secondary as I am typing this. The gravity at secondary, after 21 days, is 1.05. I hope it continues to ferment. Its at 6.83% right now.

Click to expand...

I'm putting together a caramel port recipe, and searching around for what other people have done with caramelized sugar. Came across this thread and was wondering how your wine has progressed.

Brazedowl- thanks for starting this thread. When you say it smelled like caramel but didn't taste like it smelled... did it have any caramel flavor? Any advice considering I want to make something that tastes like caramel? Thanks!

It turned out pretty good. It had a much lower ABV than expected. Ended up only being around 6%. It also is mildly hot. It'll be a good dessert wine, as it is very filling.

It's only 6% alcohol and it tastes hot? That's interesting! How about flavor...does it taste like caramel?

It does have a distinct caramel flavor. I haven't cracked open a bottle yet. Any tastes I've gotten were from when I was bottling. So it may not be as hot as I originally tasted. This one ended up getting forgotten about in secondary. It sat for quite a while before I remembered to bottle it.