Last of the summer wine...

Dear Blog,

The last couple of blog posts I have started with an apology and this is no different.  Sorry for making you wait for so long between posts; it's not that you have not been on my mind but I haven't had the time to devote to you.  I'm sorry!  I've got loads of things 'in the bag' to write about and I promise to do better!  Promise!

Ah, September!  This has be to be my favourite month of the year. Mother Nature flicks a switch and the vistas change from the vibrant greens of summer to the yellows and russets of autumn.  Trees are laden with fruit and fields are golden, mushrooms are starting to appear in fields and woods.  Sunrises and sunsets are more spectacular and nights are drawing in.   Christmas is accelerating towards us and thoughts of nights snuggled up on the sofa have a romantic soft focus in our minds.  It is no coincidence this is the month Gayle and I chose to get married (in 11 days at the time of writing!).


September is a productive time to go foraging and this is what we did this weekend.  The kids have thoughts of blackberry and apple crumble in mind, I however am thinking wine!  Gayles Mum and Dad (Tony and Jane) have quite a few fruit trees and these furnish us with masses of fruit this time of year and we had a cardboard box full of plums that were on the verge of going rotten.  Now, I hate to waste anything and I saw these plums as an excellent base for a wine, but I needed something extra to give it a little bit more interest.  The magic ingredient I decided upon was - any edible fruit I could find in the hedgerows of Cleobury Mortimer!  So off we went on a pre-lunch foraging-fest with the kids.  There was heavy  competition for blackberries from the kids and Gayle, but I was more interested in finding elderberries.  I've made elderberry wine before (and elderberry champagne, but that's another belated blog entry) and it was pretty good, but I've always wanted to make a 'hedgerow' wine with what ever I could find, I can't say why, like many of my culinary obsessions, it's just always intrigued me.  We found a lot of blackberries, which the kids chomped on as we went, but we were almost too late for the elderberries as the birds had been having a field day.  But, thanks to a great spot by Finley on our way home we ended up with 1/2 a carrier bag full.  Result!

Back home, while Gayle was cooking lunch, I sat down with a pint of homebrew, a bucket and our spoils.  Before I go on and give you the detail of how I've gone about this I should tell you that this an experiment and I've kind of invented this recipe, but it is loosely based on other wine recipes I have read.  There appears to be a decline in homebrew shops and I have not been able to get hold of any Camden Tablets or peptic enzyme which will help cleanse and stabilise the wine.  If I had the chance I would have included these but I guess I will find out how important these are when I taste the results!  As I had such a good forage the quantities shown are for 2 gallons of wine, adjust your recipe accordingly:

Here's what I used:

(Roughly)
1.5Kg Plums - very ripe but not rotten
1Kg Elderberries
3 Good handfuls of blackberries
2Kg Sugar
3tsp Citric acid
14 pints Boiling water


Equipment for now:
Brewing bin
Milton tablets
Large wooded spoon


Stuff needed later (in the next blog!):
Wine yeast
Yeast nutrient
2 Demijohns with bungs and airlocks
Funnel
Sieve
Syphoning tube
Hydrometer
Muslin cloth or straining bag


First of all you will need to sterilise your brewing bin using the Milton tablets, follow the instructions on the packet for this and do not skip this step.  Cleanliness is VERY important when it comes to homebrew.  Once sterilised, put the blackberries in the brewing bin, then remove all of the berries on the elderberries using a fork (or fingers) and place these in the bin too.  This can be a laborious task but take your time over it ensuring that you avoid getting twigs and the unripe green berries in there.  Next, halve your plums (fnarr!), remove the stone and put the flesh in the brewing bin with everything else.  Pour in the sugar and sprinkle on the citric acid.  Now pour over the boiling water and stir with the wooden spoon until all of the sugar has dissolved.  Place the lid on the brewing bin, but stir from time to time squashing the fruity pulp (the 'must') against the sides until the mixture has cooled.

Ok, now we wait!

As I am working away and have no choice I am going to leave this for 5 days to let the flavours develop and the natural yeasts get to work.  This is called fermenting on the pulp.  I am a little bit apprehensive as I haven't used any Camden tablets or peptic enzyme, but as a I say, this is an experiment!  Based on experience I think it will be OK and hopefully I won't get back to a mouldy mess.  The next steps will be to check the specific gravity using the hydrometer which will tell me the amount of sugar in the 'must' and therefore the potential alcohol content.  I will then add more sugar, if necessary, add yeast and yeast nutrient and then put into the demijohns to ferment.  Watch this space!