Red Grapefruit Wine

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arturobandini

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Been threatening to make gooseberry champagne for some time but that's been put on hold until I can actually find some gooseberries! I wasn't expecting fresh until June but even canned seems impossible to get hold of! Poor humble Gooseberry.

I saw a load of red grapefruits on offer in the greengrocers and grabbed a load for an experimental Red Grapefruit wine.


Ingredients

Enough Red Grapefruits to give 750ml of juice.
Rind of the Grapefruits without any of the white pith
300g Sultanas
Water to five litres
Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar to OG 1.080
Teaspoon of Tannin
Teaspoon of Yeast Nutrient
Wine Yeast

These ingredients are just what I used as I made it all up so you could refine it/tweak it to your tastes or whatever you've got. Any equipment used you must assume is sterilised because...it was!

After washing (with a crushed campden as precaution) the Red Grapefruits I removed the rind of the Red Grapefruits and juiced the flesh (no flesh to be used in the wine) and added both to a pan and set to boil. I blended the sultanas with water until thoroughly shredded and added this to the pan with around 1kg of sugar. Once the mixture had been boiling and I was confident it had all been infused well I added some water to cool the mixture slightly and let the must settle to pitching temperature.

The must was then strained through a muslin sack and poured into a 1 gallon demijohn. Diluted with cooled water the Specific Gravity was taken and read at 1.080 which was good enough for me! I used a packet of generic wine yeast which was rehydrated and added to the must at 20c and placed into the fermentation cupboard.

Once the initial fermentation has taken place i'll rack into a clean demijohn and carry on as and when sediment develops in the demijohn until sufficiently bright enough to bottle and mature.

Should come out around 12% give or take and perhaps be ready for some summer sampling.
 
Sounds nice arturo, hopefully you'll get a great colour in your wine too. Citrus makes a nice wine in my experience and adding zest is something i have always done with my orange wine.

When i make orange wine i don't boil the juice, but i do pour boiling water onto it. What difference in flavour do you expect from boiling?
 
Not a great deal to be honest it was more a sterilising method for the sultanas and fruit and to dissolve the sugar.
 
Going off like a train this morning for some reason. Only used rehydrated wine yeast and it's at 20c but it must be happy about something.

I've made Orange Wine before Percival. I used a mixture of Marmelade and Sweet Oranges with Sauternes yeast and it came out pretty delicious eventually. I find citrus wines need a fair amount of racking and time to drop nice and bright but when they do and if you can mature them a bit they are absolutely delicious.

I'm at the stage now where I just make wine out of whatever I see on offer in the local greengrocers. I picked up some Parsnips the other day with an eye to making some wine but my girlfriend has put her foot down and they're to be roasted and eaten. O! The Humanity!
 
I made my first Parsnip wine in mid december, there's a thread (might be called tanglefoot) if you are interested or want a recipe. Its already clear and i should be racking it again soon as there's a thin layer of fine sediment and i want to move it somewhere cooler. I Used sauternes yeast, its rapidly become my favourite yeast since my homebrew shop recommended it along with another (forgot what other!) that i haven't used yet because the sauternes has won my heart. It was my first proper forray in experimenting with yeasts.

I find my orange wine is among my fastest to condition sufficiently for a good drink. About 3 months in and its nice stuff, tho 6 months is somewhat better, and the 6 remaining bottles are now approaching 9 months old. Better get another batch on the go!
 
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