A Tiger Barn Cattery Wine Recipe
This recipe is the basic idea for a red currant and plum wine recipe. It should come out a rich amber red colour depending on the variety and colour of the plums. I suspect a late season redcurrant and an early plum would be necessary without a freezer.
This red currant wine recipe with plum was to save one of the red currant wines that was too sweet. By this time it had been divided so much I didn't even have half a gallon of straight red currant left. It was over 3 pints and so it was the largest single constituent.
If you read the record below the story of this recipe is outrageous. There was honey in there and I ended up starting one of the stuck gallons with a new half gallon of Damson wine!
2 lb Red Currants
2 Lb of Plums
6 pints of water
1 campden tablet
1 tsp pectolase
2-3 Lbs of sugar
1 litre of Red Aldi Rio D'Oro grape juice or a pound of Raisins
1 lemon or 1 tsp Citric Acid
2 tsp TronOzymol yeast nutrient
Bordeaux or Burgundy yeast if you don't have one of the Harvest yeasts for red wine.
Drip strain the must into the demijohn, I find that squeezing plum pulp lets too much sediment into the demijohn.
As a rule of thumb for adding sugar: Use a hydrometer and add sugar only a few Oz at a time. Aiming for a starting point around 1.085 is perfectly adequate to end up with a 90 point drop and a 12% wine almost guaranteed.
If you look closely at my records below, you'll find a couple more plum wine recipes too!
From my notes:
One of the great things about having left over wine from previous experiments is that it allows art into science and conversely science into art.
3 pints of Red Currant wine from this experiment
3 pints of Plum I wine
3 pints of Plum II wine
Mix all wines together and place in the airing cupboard, and enjoy the bubbling.
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Plum Wine I
Wednesday 4th August 2010
Picked 10 Lbs of plums from a tree in a garden where my chiropractor used to live using several buckets and a shepherd's crook to lower the branches and dislodge the fruit.
I started by separating 5 Lbs of the ripest plums out of the several buckets because let's face it, if you'd have been knocked out of a tree you'd be bruised and not looking to last long either. I destoned chopped and removed any maggots, washed the dirt off and cut out any bruised flesh. By the time I'd finished I had wrinkled yellow hands.
(I'll be using the other 5 Lbs shortly)
The pulp was given a heavy dose of 8 pints of boiling water and a crushed campden tablet when it had cooled down a little.
Sunday 8th August 2010
Added 1 tsp Pectolase
Monday 9th August 2010
Strain onto 2.5 Lbs of sugar and mixed until dissolved.
Added 1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
Bordeaux Yeast
SG: 1.074
Added 2 pints of reserved sweet Raspberry Wine
Added 2 pints of reserved sweet Blackcurrant Wine
Added 1/2 pint of strong tea.
SG: 1.060
Saturday 14th August 2010
SG: 1.020
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Plum II
Monday 9th August 2010
5 Lbs of ripe, stoned, chopped plums and removed any maggots/dirt/bruises.
Poured over 8 pints of boiling water and mixed pulp.
Added 1 Lb Raisins
Added 1 crushed campden tablet
Before bed, added 1 tsp Pectolase
14th August 2010
Strained onto 2 Lbs of sugar and mix until dissolved.
Added 1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
Burgundy Yeast
Monday 16th August 2010
SG: 1.010
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Monday 16th August 2010
Mixed:
2 pints of primary ferment Plum I
3 pints of primary ferment Plum II
3 pints of the sweet Red Currant
SG: 1.016
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1 Gallon of Plum 'n Red Currant wine.
SG: 1.016
23rd August 2010
1st Rack
Topped up from reserved Plum 'n Red Currant wine.
SG: 0.994
10th September 2010
2nd Rack
Added campden tablet and topped up from reserved Plum II
SG: 0.994
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Clearing & Maturing: 1st Feb 2011
Bottled: 31st January 2011 - 6 x bottles
Drinkable: August 2011
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