Champagne Ideas...

[Steve-h71]

Hi all, I would like to have a go at making a Champagne like sparkling wine. I have read that Elderflowers make a nice flavour, but that is not what I am looking for. I think it would make up part of the flavour but I am looking for ideas for Juices to use. I have searched around on the net for "Hints of flavour", I made a list of these words ....

apple, pear, peach, grape juice. (red and white), elderflowers, tropical fruit, citrus, toastie, strawberry sweetness, toffee, honey, baked apples, rose water, vanilla, straw, toasted oak

I am thinking along the lines of white grape juice, apple juice, peach juice, lemon juice (small amount), a little rose water, honey, small amount of strawberry syrup, belgian candi sugar, and some toasted oak chips to give the toatie taste. I thought I would get the ingredients together and use a small measuring cup (50ml etc) and make up a glass at a time to try and find a blend that would taste like Champagne.

Do any of you guys have an experience of making champagne this way, or is there a more basic recipe to make it. I want to try small batches before making larger amounts, this also gives me time to collect bottles as well. I know champagne does need to condition for a long time etc, so I am ready for the wait etc, I really want to make something really nice for the special occassions and not so special occassions too.

Any input into my venture would be really helpfull, I have loads of enthusiasm but not a lot of experience.

Cheers.

Steve.

 

[Steve-h71]

I guess I could use a 6 bottle chardonnay kit as a base, I could then add grape juice and apple juice along with a few of the other ingredients I mentioned above. Maybe mak it up to around 10-15L.....

 

[MattN]

I have a Munton's 30 bottle white wine kit (nearly ready) and I am going to carbonate 15 bottles. I am going to attempt the disgorging technique although only on 4 or 5 bottles just to see how it goes.

Matt

 

[Steve-h71]

I was wondering about the disgorging too, I guess if you get everything ready and work out in your head how you are going to do it then it should be fine, worst case is you are sat there for a while with the bottle in one hand and your thumb on the other hand over the top wondering what to do next....

 

[Half Full]

I remember Heston Blumenthal did an experi where he gassed Blue Nun wine in an old sodastream and gave it to some city b(w)ankers. They seemed to think it tasted as good, or better than real Champagne. There's a Youtube vid of the episode here [youtube:2xp5mfh2]xlMwud7SxEA[/youtube:2xp5mfh2]

 

[Steve-h71]

Blimey, thats crazy aint it, So maybe I just need to simplify a little, it shouldnt really be that hard to imitate chapagne on a small budget, I am going to work on the 15-18 bottles for £20 budget.

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

I remember Heston Blumenthal did an experi where he gassed Blue Nun wine in an old sodastream and gave it to some city b(w)ankers. They seemed to think it tasted as good, or better than real Champagne.

This doesn't entirely surprise me. You could probably convince City bankers that carbonated cow's **** was a better champagne than Dom Perignon, if you put a high enough price tag on it.

 

[oldbloke]

Blimey, thats crazy aint it, So maybe I just need to simplify a little, it shouldnt really be that hard to imitate chapagne on a small budget, I am going to work on the 15-18 bottles for £20 budget.

Well, believe it or not, I gave some cider to a couple of friends on Saturday night and they reckoned it tasted like champagne.
Suma concentrate, cranberry, tannin, and here's the twist: Munton's Gold ale yeast
Of course it's only 6%, which is hardly champagne territory...
There's room in the demi to just multiply up the juice mix to get it to 15% but that yeast might not go that far

 

[calumscott]

[quote="Half Full":nldbislj]I remember Heston Blumenthal did an experi where he gassed Blue Nun wine in an old sodastream and gave it to some city b(w)ankers. They seemed to think it tasted as good, or better than real Champagne.

This doesn't entirely surprise me. You could probably convince City bankers that carbonated cow's **** was a better champagne than Dom Perignon, if you put a high enough price tag on it.[/quote:nldbislj]

I *might* happen to know of some well healed persons who, some thirteen years ago, we're taken for around 25 quid a magnum by a bloke in a pub, some pomaign (**** perry) and a lazer printer. Millennium Bollinger...

They weren't best pleased when I turned up with the actual stuff at 2.69 from Asda. :lol:

Anyway, OP, just opened my elderflower my grapefruit champoo and it is amazing, simply amazing, blown away that I actually made it amazing.

The recipe is kicking around on here somewhere and even if it's not quite what you're looking for just now it's week worth doing. :thumb:

 

[Steve-h71]

Cheers Callum, I cant have grapefruit due to it doubling up the effects of my medication (aggresive heart disease), it has made me think though that I might not need quite as many flavours in there, the list of flavours was from looking at a web page to describe many different champagnes.
Your not that far from me, I like about 2 miles from the Police station at stratton, nice part of the world I think (well once you get out of swindon that is).
I am going to make a visit to the malt miller soon as I do want to make my own ale, I have the cider bubbling at the moment and the red wine in bottles, so a nice blond ale type brew is next, I will be messing around with fruit juices to get something I think might taste like champagne, or something close that I like.
Thanks for all your replies.
Steve.

 

[calumscott]

Hey Steve, we're not the only ones around these parts, Buster is North Swindon based too. And you're right, it's a lovely bit of the world round here if you don't mind the sogginess at this time of year and the stupid property prices...

Shame about the grapefruit, it lends an amazing tart finish to the wine. Maybe some orange would do the job in its stead?

As to Rob's new place, I still haven't managed to get down there, really must...

 

[Jonny69]

Personally I think you're overcomplicating it with the extra ingredients. I've done two 'Champagnes' and one white wine that would have fizzed up quite well and they have all been very basic recipes. I wouldn't worry about disgorging; just brew it out to dry and let it clear completely by itself (i.e. add nothing to it), then add a little sugar to each bottle so it can fizz up in the bottle. Use a Champagne yeast because it creates a nice crisp fizz.

If you went for a litre each of white grape juice, cheap apple juice from concentrate and peach juice (juice but not 'juice drink') in a gallon demijohn, juice of two lemons and 700g of white sugar you should get quite a nice fizz. But do use a Champagne yeast and not general purpose wine yeast because you'll get a cleaner crisper flavour in a white wine in my experience.

 

[calumscott]

Personally I think you're overcomplicating it with the extra ingredients. I've done two 'Champagnes' and one white wine that would have fizzed up quite well and they have all been very basic recipes. I wouldn't worry about disgorging; just brew it out to dry and let it clear completely by itself (i.e. add nothing to it), then add a little sugar to each bottle so it can fizz up in the bottle. Use a Champagne yeast because it creates a nice crisp fizz.

If you went for a litre each of white grape juice, cheap apple juice from concentrate and peach juice (juice but not 'juice drink') in a gallon demijohn, juice of two lemons and 700g of white sugar you should get quite a nice fizz. But do use a Champagne yeast and not general purpose wine yeast because you'll get a cleaner crisper flavour in a white wine in my experience.

Champagne yeast. Definitely. Use Lalvin EC-1118 as it floculates better than most.

Disgorging - Again, not required if you don't care about the presentation. Do have a suitable PET (or swingtop fizz) bottle and a funnel on hand and decant very carefully. You don't lose a lot of fizz but you get crystal clear wine.

Don't bottle prime though, you should batch prime for consistency at around 8g/l.

Make sure you use beer or champagne bottles. Wine bottles can't take the pressure.

 

[mwestin]

The one i can't seem to find in your list is Rhubarb champagne - it's fabulous! might not be the season though but it's ready in a couple of weeks or so from natural yeasts. The longer you leave it the more alcoholic it gets. Got half the office on brewing it, you need to be around to let the fizz out if you're planning on leaving it for a while as it will explode otherwise. (I stored it in fizzy pet bottles rather than anything glass as it will let you let some fizz out every now and then).

There are plenty of recipes online, i'm sure mine was a combination of rhubarb, sugar, lemonjuice and water. I am not keen on adding loads of other stuff.

 

[calumscott]

Why are we brewing like children? This is how I used to make ginger beer when I was ten...

Make a proper Rhubarb wine, a quick search of the forum returns dozens of recipes, ferment out to dry in a demijohn or other sensible FV with a proper champagne yeast, rack and fine, then batch prime and bottle in decent, strong glass (ale or champagne) bottles.

That way you get a proper, classy, sparkling wine with no danger of blowing anything up or producing gut-rot from random yeast on the rhubarb that might not ferment a decent drink.

Why would you go to all the effort and not reduce the risks of producing something :sick: inducing when it cheap, easy and not timeconsuming so to do?

 

[aneray]

This is something I have been interested in doing for a while now.

Looking through one of my books, 1000 Wine and Beermaking Hints and Recipes by Ben Turner, he advises using pear, gooseberry, rhubarb and white currants but apple may also be used to make a wine of 11%.

I do have a 30 bottle Young's Chardonnay kit coming up to its use by date so I might tinker with it and see what happens.

 

[mwestin]

Calumscott - good point, it was probably what properly got me into brewing though, and it was very easy to make (and tasty - might have been lucky) so for a quick fix was easy enough.

Maybe champagne is something to be looked at properly should i need to.

 

[anthonyUK]

The first TC I made was so dry and tart it tasted closer to Champagne (style) than cider which wasn't a bad thing.
Taste a sparkling wine that you've left to go flat for an idea of what to aim for
My last batch was one of the bargain Chateau du Vin kits which I primed with elderflower cordial :thumb:

 

[Brewtrog]

I reckoned my mint wine would make ace sparkling wine, just too strong for the yeast to prime. the recipe I used was the one in CJJB's 130 new wine recipes.