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EoinMag

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Location
Dublin, Ireland.
Ok so this is my first foray into brewing apart from a simple wine kit (I've done and a few beers), which was err drunk out of the bucket, and used to cook, over the space of about two weeks

These wines I've done are all from fresh fruit, raisins, or self pressed cider. Some of them have been on since January and are in secondary, all have been reracked at least once, in another month or so I'll rack again and take the fruits out.

Banana Wine, this is one of the last ones to have been put on, it might need more enzyme to be added, I only got that recently and all brews were at least a month old when it was added as I boiled most of them originally for extraction.
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The one back and centre is an apfelwein, with honey, sugar, dried cranberries, dried prunes, raisins, orange segments and lemon segments added.
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I'm really happy with the fantastic colour that the plum wine is taking on since I added the pectic enzyme.

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Here're my black tea wine in front and grapefruit wine at back.

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I still have a few months on these, I am learning patience (no not really I just discovered that if I put them in the attic that I have to pull the ladder down and it's a lot of work to look at them daily )
 
I put on two ciders at the same time and decided that one would be an apfelwein in secondary while the other one is already bottled and maturing as a cider.
I thought it'd be interesting, unfortunately my first cider experiment ended with 5 gallons of vinegar as the airlock failed badly on me in secondary and it went off.
I am lucky in that my parents have an orchard out back and were able to give me about 100 kg of apples this year and I decided to buy a cider press.

I hope it'll be good. :)
 
Damn, you're really going at it. With the resources I can't say I blame you. There isn't a guy on this forum that wouldn't want to have an orchard in Ireland. :mug:
 
You might want to get a few bungs & airlocks, they'll protect against contamination & oxidation much better than that aluminum foil will. I hope you didn't boil your plums & set the pectins, plums make a really nice wine IMHO. I made a plum melomel a couple years ago & what little I have left is aging very well. Good luck to you. Regards, GF.
 
PM me and give me some details about the bannana wine you are doing -
I've got access to plenty bannanas should I decide to bust out my cane knife
and uhhhhhh... "liberate" a bunch of apple bannanas ... What?! never grind apple bannana? da' buggas Ono, brah! (Translation: Wow! have you never eaten an apple bannana? they are delicious, my friend) won my wife's heart on bannana bread made with Cockaroached ("stolen") apple banannas! :D
cockroached em' from the lanai (outdoor deck) of my local bar, mess up my thumb plenty wit' my cane knife when i cut em' down-too many beeahs for cut bannanas without hurting myselfs. wort' it though i get one wife an' ono grindz out of da' deal!! :mug:
bannanas?! I get plenty! da' apple bannana more sweet than williams bannanas (common bannanas found in the supermarket wit' da' chiquita sticka on em')
I'm interested in using more local fruits in some of my brews. da' buggas grow wild ovah heah' island stylez! :drunk:
 
You might want to get a few bungs & airlocks, they'll protect against contamination & oxidation much better than that aluminum foil will. I hope you didn't boil your plums & set the pectins, plums make a really nice wine IMHO. I made a plum melomel a couple years ago & what little I have left is aging very well. Good luck to you. Regards, GF.

I did boil it, but the pectic enzyme is clearing it nicely, I put it in about ten days ago and it's turning from a milky pink to a lovely plum coloured red, so it's working out fine.

Re:Bungs, I only got a few of them recently and will put them on the bottles shortly, I just have to find the caps, I know they're around somewhere, it'll take a bit of modding too, so i've been slow to take it on until I find the original caps for the bottles. I think longterm that foil is not the solution in secondary.

Snuffal: I've basically modified Jack Kellers recipe a bit, I'll post it to you as soon as I can.
 
I say you throw the recipe up just in this thread. I may not be making it anytime soon, but I'd love to see it.
 
You have a lovely assortment going on right now. You will have to let me know how your grapefruit wine turned out, I've never tried to make it before, sounds interesting!
 
I'll post all recipes when I get the time, they were kinda all based on Jack Kellers, with small modifications for my ingredients or methods, when I have some time tonight at home I'll post them.

The plum is exciting me(ooh err matron ;)) cos of the fantastic colour it's taking on since the pectic enzyme has started to clear it.

MyZooTwo: The grapefruit was recommended to me by a friend in the UK who says it was one of his parents favourite a few years ago when they did a lot of their own fruit wines. It's going to take a long time to mellow I think as it has a lot of oil from the rind sitting on the top of the bottle, and it was very bitter when I tried it last, I'll be reracking it soon though and that should remove the contact with the oil, I think it'll be a year or so before it's worth going near at all.
 
Ok so the banana recipe is the one in the five gallon water cooler bottle, the recipe for that was as near as I remember.

5Kg of bannanas
5kg of sugar
juice of a lemon
3 cups of orange juice.
A cup of strong black tea
Water to 5 gallons
Yeast nutrient
KV11116 cos it's what I had.
1Kg of raisins
Pectic enzyme

IN secondary I added a kg of golden raisins and then a little later some pectic enzyme as I didnt' have it at the beginning.

OG was 1.095ish as I remember, without going to check right now, I'll correct later if I check it.

I chopped the bananas into slices with the skins still on, then boiled them in a cheescloth in a pot and simmered for half an hour. Then I took it off the heat and let it cool. When it was cool, I cleaned my hands and then got to massaging the bag to extract as much starchy banana as I could, it produces a milky soup. This was poured over the sugar in the bottle then made up to 5 gallons with water, the rest of the ingredients were then added and put into primary. After a month it was put into secondary and the raisins were chopped and added, a short while later I added the enzyme.



Then the grapefruit wine was more or less the one below with an addition of raisins in secondary.
That's a Jack Keller recipe too, or at least from his site. I also used the same yeast as above as I had no sauterne, can't remember OG now but I think it was around 1.090



GRAPEFRUIT WINE (Dry) (1)

* 6 large grapefruit
* 2-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
* water to 1 gal
* 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
* 1 crushed Campden tablet
* 1 tsp yeast starter
* Sauterne yeast

Scrub grapefruit clean. Peel one grapefruit thinly, making sure no white pith adheres to peel. Put peel in primary with half the sugar, the crushed Campden tablet, juice from all six grapefruit, yeast nutrient, and enough water to bring up to one gallon, stirring well to dissolve sugar. Cover primary with clean cloth. After 12 hours, add pectic enzyme. After additional 12 hours, add yeast. After two days of vigorous fermentation, add remaining sugar, stir well, and allow additional two days vigorous fermentation in primary. Discard peel, transfer to secondary and fit airlock. Rack every 30 days, topping up each time. After fifth racking, bottle and set aside at least 6 months. [Adapted from Dorothy Alatorre's Home Wines of North American]
 
Oh I just remembered, I also threw in about 1kg of bananas just broken up to float on top, they were well fermented by the time they came out, yet not black and oxidised so it was a good indicator that my foil cap worked very well in primary.
 
Good stuff EoinMag, man you're lucky having an orchard out back.

I'm a newbie myself (3 months of brewing) here's what I'm currently making , I've made more but I drank them way too early... learning patience.

5 gallon White grape juice + apple juice
Tinned Peaches in the bucket
Tinned strawberry
Pineapple + white grape juice (split in 2, had maaad foamage)
Turbo cider, made with 500g honey
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BTW Eoin

How is this tubing connected to the bung??? Did you widen the hole in the bung?

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It just jammed in, nothing special done at all, just happens the diameter is good for a tight fit.
The tubing is from an old siphon I cut up as I have 4 of them from different beginners kits I got.
 
I've put the airlocks in those plastic bottles for the grapefruit and the black tea wine.
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The apple wine is going a nice colour and clearing nicely also. I think the plum wine might need to be hit with a bit more pectic enzyme when I rerack it next.
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I decided to try the plum wine tonight and poured off a small bit from the carboy as I have no thief.

It's still very young and a bit warm alcohol wise, but man this is tasty stuff. I suspect it'll be fantastic if bottled and left for a year or so.
 
If you don't have a thief, at least use a turkey baster. It works just as well as a theif, but it is easier to get and there is no need to oxidize your wine by pouring from it.
 
If you don't have a thief, at least use a turkey baster. It works just as well as a theif, but it is easier to get and there is no need to oxidize your wine by pouring from it.


It's bottled now so I don't see it being an issue.
While bottling we drank a bit of it and it's very very good for a two month old wine made from scratch, very impressed with it even if I do say so myself.
 
Just a quick update, having a brew day today, I decided that 1 gallon of plum wine was silly as it's so good, I've drank most of what I made already, I still have 1.5 litres of it. I've decided that 1 gallon carboys are only to be employed in the future for testers as it's not enough. Once it's had a run in a gallon and it works I'm gonna lay down 5 gallons.
I thieved some of the wines that are maturing in the attic seeing as how I was there anyway.
Plum wine is bottled and very good.
Tea wine is fantastic, it'll come good with a bit more aging.
Grapefruit wine is good, tastes like err grapefruit.
Banana wine is too hard to get at as I've taped the cap on, so not tasting that one yet.
Apple wine with cranberry and other fruit addition is tart, but not unpleasantly so and a bit hot still so will need a while as it's quite high in alcohol with all the after additions I made to it.

All in all, tea wine is already really good, but still being left as is for now and the others will benefit from a good bit more maturing.
Am looking forward to some of these in the summer :)
 
2oz black loose leaf tea.
1kg sugar.
KVI 1116 yeast.
Nutrient
Juice of one lemon
lemon zest with no pith
Pectic enzyme
1lb of raisins for secondary.

I didn't put up the tea wine recipe and Tusch is looking for it, so it's after a jack keller recipe again but modded.
I used about 2 oz of good assam black loose leaf tea and boiled that up gently in a pot to make a really strong black tea.
I strained this into a gallon fermenter and then made it up to 1 gallon with water, I added 1kilo of sugar, the juice of one lemon and the rind.
When I went to secondary and put the airlock on I added a pound of chopped raisins and removed the lemon rind.
 
Yeah, I've bottled the tea wine, apfel cyser and the grapefruit wine.
The tea and the grapefruit are very good. The grapefruit needs a bit more time but it's been a big hit with the girls, I don't like it myself as I don't really like grapefruits.
The tea wine is a lovely tasty drink, doesn't need much mellowing but it hasn't cleared, not so bad as it's only a mild cloudiness.
The plum wine is already all gone, very young but it was tasty and I didn't have a lot of it, but I followed it up with an improved version which contained more plum juice run and didn't get boiled, that one is gonna be great, I think plum wine will become one of my staples. I will be doing all three of these again, banana wine will take a lot of time before it comes good.
The Apfelwein is not so good, but that is down to the apples that went into it being cookers, but I am letting it mellow a while to see how it pans out.
The banana wine is waiting to be bottled as I was waiting to bottle that in wine bottles and not in beer bottles as I did with the others, I only got the corker and corks recently.
 
OK update again. The banana wine is just over a year old now, and it's coming very good. It was dry and bitter because of the skins, but that is abating now and is fading into the background, in another year it'll rock, but it's already quite pleasant and drinkable, am actually trying a glass at the moment.
 
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