Homemade Apple Wine

You'll may have read in my Homemade Plum Wine that I was given some apples by my second cousin and that I had started off some apple wine.

The pulped apples were left in water in a sealed bucket whilst I enjoyed my birthday celebrations and a trip to Ireland. I wasn't sure what would have happened as I haven't made apple wine before.

Opening the bucket it all looked great, just a few spots of mould so I definitely caught it in time. Under the top dried layer the apples showed signs of starting to ferment.

After sterilising a second bucket, jug and sieve the straining task began. It takes a while to strain 7 pounds of mulched apples in 3 gallon of water but the liquid was very clean, unlike the sludgy liquid when making the plum wine. 

After the explosive yeast in the plum wine I decided to be a little more patient this time. I added two and a half bags of sugar and stirred until it had dissolved, then came the patience. 

Sealing the bucket I left the wine 24 hours to see if it would start fermenting on it's own. I was delighted to see evidence of tiny bubbles so syphoned the wine into three sterile demi johns.

There was a very slow air bubble in each which I hoped would increase. It did, by the next morning the wine was bubbling away nicely.

And so the waiting game begins, the plum wine is still bubbling but looking clearer every day and once I'm happy that the apple wine will not over flow I'll move it to join the plum in our Snug. 

I have no idea how long the wine will take, the next stage for both is once the bubbling completely stops I need to syphon it into clean demi johns avoiding any sediment. The waiting will continue then as the wine clears. I will not be adding any chemicals to help clearing, I'm just letting nature do its thing.

Homemade Plum Wine

It's been many years since I made any wine, my wine has always been 100% natural without using concentrate.

In the past I have made dandelion, tea, rhubarb, parsnip, and Hubby made grape wine a couple of years ago.

This year my brother-in-law had an abundance of plums so Hubby popped by to pick a few. He made some lovely plum jam but we still hs loads of plums left...

... so I started off some wine.

I have my maternal grandfather's wine book, it's falling apart but I love it especially as it has his writing in. He made lots of wine but never left it to clear fully, the book says wine is ready to drink in a few months but to be fully clear it can take much longer.

All the equipment needed a good clean and sterilising. I cut the plums but still left the stones in. Step by step the wine was started and then left in the sealed bucket in garage for two weeks.

The next stage was very sticky and a bit messy. I strained the liquid into my sterilised demijohns through coffee filters which took a long time. I think I must have thrown my muslin cloth out, although it would have clogged up very quickly as the plums had disintegrated into mush. 

The recipe said to add 4 pounds of sugar but I only added one and a half as it wasn't dissolving and the demijohn was full.

I don't usually add yeast as the wine bubbles straight away from natural yeast in the fruit but nothing happened so I added half the amount in the recipe to each demijohn ... with bubbling effect.

It was a good job I had left the demijohns on the kitchen windowsill as it flooded over.

I syphoned a third from each into a third demijohn and put them on a spill catching tray in the conservatory where they bubbled away vigorously but without bubbling over.

After a couple of weeks the fermenting had slowed to a gentle pop and all the sugar had been dissolved. 

With huge thanks to my second cousin I now have four more demijohns, our son and girlfriend also found one for me, so I syphoned the plum wine into two cleaned demijohns and they are happily popping away.

My bucket has been cleaned and sterilised and is back in the garage...

... filled with 3 gallon of water and 7 pounds of apples from my second cousin's tree. Fully sealed in the bucket the apples are brewing for about two weeks before the filtering and bubbling process starts, I might see if this wine bubbles on its own before adding yeast.

I've quite enjoyed making wine again, the little bit of plum wine I tasted was very good so fingers crossed it will be lovely when finished.

We still have some apples left, and another bucket, so we're thinking of making scrumpy as I found a recipe in another brewing book. 

Thanks to my brother-in-law and my second cousin for the super plums and apples ... Chateau Hearnden is back!