Raspberry Wine From Frozen Fruit

I have started a new batch of raspberry wine, mainly to free up some space in the freezer but also because I like wine!  This will probably taste different to my first batch of raspberry wine (which can be found at this link) for a couple of reasons; the first reason is I didn't use the same technique to make the wine and secondly (and more importantly) the alcohol content will probably be much higher, I'll explain why later.

The method I used for this batch was as follows....

Firstly I defrosted a large bag of berries; they had frozen into a large block and when defrosted a lot of juice had already been released. I didn't weigh the berries but have an idea in my head of how large the bag was, slightly smaller than a bowling ball!

The next step I did was to pour a kettle of boiling water over the berries, approx 1.7 litres, to encourage more juice to be released. Then I poured the mix through a sieve in an attempt to catch any seeds and reduce the amount of pulp going through. With the pulp that was left over I poured the same amount of boiling water again and repeated the last step. Satisfied that I had got a good amount of juice from the berries I discarded the remaining pulp, it had lost most if it's colour anyway.

The pulp still full of juice.

Below is a video of me shaking the juice out!

When the mix had cooled enough I added a teaspoon of pectolase to further help break the fruit down and covered the bowl to leave it overnight. The next day I added the sugar, this is another area that I differed from the previous raspberry wine; instead of measuring the amount of sugar that went in I just measured the gravity and stopped adding sugar when I was happy. It was roughly 1.75kg of sugar but the main point is that the SG was 1.111 which will give a much higher alcohol level if all this is converted. For example, if the final gravity is .99  then alcohol level would be over 16% which I'm more than happy with!

When all the sugar was dissolved I moved the mix into a clean sterilized demijohn, again passing it through a sieve to collect any pulp. Once it was in the demijohn I added a teaspoon of yeast before putting an airlock on. The demijohn was then put to one side in the kitchen with plenty of kitchen roll underneath, just in case it overflowed like my plum wine did!

While I was waiting for this wine to start working I racked the plum wine. It seemed to have stopped bubbling and has been fermenting for about 3 months. There was a think layer of sediment in the bottom of this demijohn, partly from the fermentation and partly because I left a lot of pulp in the juice. This seems to have formed into small balls and sunk to the bottom. Now it is in a fresh demijohn and its clearing nicely. I had a small taste of the wine and am impressed with the flavour so far. Give it some time to mature and it'll hopefully taste great!

The debris in the bottom of  the plum wine.

Once a couple of days had passed the raspberry wine was bubbling away very happily. It has got an amount of pulp that has formed into balls, similar to the plum wine and due to the strong fermentation these are all floating at the top. Luckily there isn't as much as was with the plum wine so haven't had a eruption like before.

The raspberry wine at the front and plum behind

Raspberry Wine

As there was a huge glut of raspberries again this year, along with jam, we decided to do a batch of raspberry wine. I did a quick Google search and came up with a recipe found at this link. I didn't fully follow the recipe but used it as a guide.

A small section of raspberries, there is about 30 metres of them!

8 kilograms of berries!

We started with a huge container of raspberries and started straining the juice out for use in seedless jam. First off we filled a muslin square with berries and once a knot was tied in the top we started squeezing the juice out. When we had 3 kilos of juice we put that to one side and used that to make the jam. What was left in the muslin was then squeezed out into a bucket along with 7 pints of water, a crushed campden tablet, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient, half teaspoon of pectic enzyme, half teaspoon of citric acid and about enough sugar to bring the mix's starting gravity to 1.092. I then left the mix over night and then squeezed the bag before adding a teaspoon of wine yeast. After 5 days the mix had reached a gravity of 1.020 so I squeezed as much juice out of the bag as I could and then racked it into a glass demijohn and added a airlock. I will now leave it a few months before racking again.

The mix in the fermenting bucket with the hydrometer to measure the gravity.

The wine in the glass demijohn.

Dandelion Wine Fermenting

After leaving the dandelion brew for 4-5 days in a covered bowl it was time to put it in a demijohn for fermenting. I used a sieve to scoop off as much of the dandelion "debris" as possible and then poured the remaining liquid through the sieve a few times for good measure. 

I then poured the remaining liquid into a demijohn (in this case a 3 litre dilute pop bottle). Before the dilute pop bottle I used a larger glass demijohn but this was too large for the amount of liquid I had. At this point I was panicking slightly as I have used the same amount of sugar as I should have used for a larger batch, meaning there is a higher sugar content. This will mean a sweeter wine which is no problem! At this point I should have taken a S.G. reading so I could work out the alcohol level at the end but didn't have time so will play it blind.

The next day I had a look at the mix and am happy to report that it is bubbling away quite happily. Now I need to wait a couple of months before racking the wine, then maybe another rack followed by bottling the wine and finally leaving for upto a year to develop. I will update as I go!

Racking The Mead

I have decided it is time to rack my second batch of mead.  I'm doing this to separate the mead from the layer of sediment at the bottom; the sediment is known as the lees.

The first step was to make sure all my demijohns are sterile. I used a sterilising powder mixed with warm water then left for 10 minutes to do it's work. I have put some kitchen towel in the necks to stop dust getting in the demijohns.

I then brought my primary fermentation vessel into the kitchen and lifted it onto a chair. This was rather heavy as it contains 25-30 litres of mead!

Next was to put the siphoning tube into the large fermentation vessel and give the tube a good suck so that the mead was travelling down the tube. I managed to get a little in my mouth so I will count that as my tasting. If I'm honest it doesn't taste too nice at the moment but it definitely has a boozy edge to it.

This shows the airlock applied to the 2 gallon demijohn.

These pictures are the same again but for the smaller demijohn....

 ....and again for the glass demijohns. In the photo on the left I've had to raise the demijohn as my siphoning tube wasn't long enough to get to the bottom of the big fermentation vessel.

 This is the sediment or Lees that is left behind. It looked and smelled rather nasty so was disposed of rather quickly!

In the above photo from left to right; Ginger and Lemon Mead, JAO Mead and the last 4 are the Mead I just racked. The JAO Mead is really near to being ready to drink as it's nearly totally clear. These are all in my daughters room at the moment; she is still sleeping in my room as she is only 3 months old. This is due to her room being the warmest and darkest as she has very thick curtains.