Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all,

this is my first post, so it may be a silly question.

I have a healthy crop of crab apples and would like to turn them into some form of alcohol. Has anyone got a recipe for crab apple wine etc ? Preferably one that doent need all sorts of acids or additives to get it to work.

I also have quite a lot of elderberrys and blackberrys. Perhaps one recipe for all three ?


Thanks in advance

DrDoug

hi Dr D and welcome to the Vine! everyone is really friendly and has lots of useful tips and advice! sorry, just checked my books but cant find anything on crab apples - sure someone else will be able to help you though! dexterdog

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Hi Dr Doug and welcome - as Dexter says there's loads of experts on here who can help you and you can do a search to find recipes for elderberry wine etc. The only recipe I've got for crab apples is rowan berry and crab apple jelly Something alcofrolic sounds much better

We made crab apple wine a long time ago. 3 lbs crab apples. 3lbs sugar 1 gallon water. 1oz yeast. Halve the apples, pour over the water boiling, leave to sok for a week. Strain onto sugar and add yeast. Put liquid into demijohn as per usual and leave to ferment out. Best kept for 12 months or so before drinking. Also best made with reddish crabs!

There's a good wine you can make with blackberrys and crab apples. I'll fish it out. Also elderberry and blackberry wine is a good combination. You might find pressing juice out of crab apples is quite difficult without a fruit press/juicer though. Most recipes I've seen recommend using windfalls, maybe so that they're easier to press.

Just had a fish about on the internet and found this site: http://homemadewine.net/recipes/recipes.html

looks like some really great recipes, I particularly like the sound of the plum melomel! Mmmmm. No plum trees round us so maybe someone else could try it out if they have a glut they can't think of how best to use?

Ah, here we are...


"Blackberry and apple

Ingredients:
2lb blackberries
8lb apples
1/4pt concentrated grape juice
1tsp pectolase
1 vitamin b1 tablet
2 1/2lb sugar
water
yeast and nutrient

Method:
If you have an extractor express the juice from the apples, otherwise liquidise them or crush them after chopping them. Put the juice or pulp to one side and put the washed blackberries into a polythene bucket. Put the sugar into a saucepan and just cover it with some of the water; bring to the boil until the sugar clarifies. Pour the boiling syrup over the fruit, stir well, and then add the apple juice or pulp. Allow to cool, then add 3 pints of water, the vitamin tablet, concentrate, pectolase, yeast and nutrient [note - actually I would add the yeast and nutrient 24hours after adding the pectolase, this seems to be the accepted process for other wines, and the instructions on the back of my packet of pectolase!]. Ferment on the pulp for five days, once the fermentation has got going, then strain into a fermenting jar. If the ferment is not too vigourous top up with cold water to the bottom of the neck and fit airlock. Ferment out, rack and bottle in the usual way."

From CJJ Berry's First Steps in Winemaking - the bible of homebrew, I recommend you get your hands on a copy.

CJJ BERRY is the daddy when it comes to home brew, another of his good guides is "Amatuer winemaker recipes", also a cracking one is "home made country wines" collected from the farmers weekly compiled by Dorothy Wise,got a few different ones to try in there.Recommend apple and raisin,but beware of the second fermentation which can lead to a few exploding corks!