Wining. Every Day.

Not ready yet.  Ignore.

The blackberry wine turned out OK.  By "OK", I suppose I mean "not terrible".  But that, I think is only because I tried to drink it much too soon.  It had a cloudiness to it that you're not supposed to see in wine, but which according to my research, dissipates if you're patient enough to leave it to do so.  So anyway, three bottles left, which I'm trying not to touch until at least...Christmas?  We'll see how that goes.

Now that's bottled away, anyway, and somewhat out of sight, I've turned my mind to the next batch.  This one: apple wine.

For whatever reason, this seems to be a popular Canadian/Nova Scotian wine, as seen in the videos I've been using for guidance here and here.

Why apples?  Well, because the orchard round back of the allotment has been shedding them like nobody's business.  In just two jaunts, only days apart, I easily accumulated over 6kg of windfalls, mostly from a single tree.  This was by no means all of them.  Abundance!

I've been taking video snaps as I've been going along, which I'll mesh into an informative and educational video on my YouTube channel once the process is complete, but here's a little sneak preview of the process.

Apples, chopped up; skins and pips and all, soaked in my new fermenting bucket for days and days.  Observant observers may observe a cinnamon stick in there.  Because apples, and because cinnamon.  Though I didn't leave it in there for long.  I just suggested it to the mixture.  If it feels like tasting mildly of cinnamon when all's ready and done, then you'll hear no complaints from me.

Here I add lemon juice to the must, to which I'd already added the sugar and raisins (actually, mixed fruit, but whatever) while talking about what I'm doing.  This, of course, will feature in the final instructional video.

Once the ingredients were all in, the sugar stirred around and dissolved over several days, I added the yeast, and performed my first "racking" into the two demijohns, which left me with this:

The airlocks were added to allow fermentation to take place undisturbed.  This is necessary.  I was concerned at first nothing would happen, but within 24 hours, this was happening:

The bubbles are the gas given off as yeast converts the sugar to alcohol.  I think the gas is carbon dioxide.  Something like that.  That's all the science we need for now.  As for me, I can't stop watching it blub.  There's something very relaxing about the sight and sound.  Two weeks in, and it's still blubbing away, with only very slight signs of slowing.  I have to wait until the blubbing dies down before racking off again, which allows the wine to clear as the residue sinking already to the bottom is left behind.  This is how things look today:

Cloudy, but lighter.  It's pleasing to note the change of colour as time passes.  All these things must be appreciated at their own pace.

Related posts

Fruits of the Forage
Home Grown Sandwiches
The Continuing Story of Bread
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