oldbloke said:
Might as well stay here...
Okay. Here it is:
My wife brought a bunch of bags of cheap granulated sugar. Turned out the probable reason it was so cheap was cos it was slightly damp. Perfectly good and clean, but it just kept clogging up the sugar shaker which made it a pain to use for tea/coffee. So, I thought I'd try my hand at making some wine. I asked her to keep her eyes open for some cheap fruit; and she came back with four 200 gram packs of mixed pineapple and water melon pieces with a spoonful of passion fruit scattered over as a kind of dressing.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I stuck the fruit in a processor and chopped it up. Not too fine. Brought 7 litres of water up to 30°, added the fruit and 1 1/2 kilos of sugar and stirred vigorously until all the sugar was dissolved and kept it at 30° for about 1/2 an hour. Then I let it cool to around 25° before sprinkling on a 5gm pack of bread yeast.
I covered the pot on cling film, pierced half a dozen tiny holes in it and stuck the lid on. I carried to the utility room (which rarely gets above about 15° and can get as low as 10°
and left it on the counter. Each day I went in, lifted the cling film and gave it a good stir, took a sample for SG testing and sealed it up again.
The OG readings I took were as follows:
(Start) 12/12 1.090. 17/12 1.028. 20/12 1.010. 22/12 0.9975.
Since the last reading indicated just over 13%abv I reasoned it was about done. So, I strained the whole lot through a large vegetable strainer lined with one of my wife's cheese cloths (she makes her own cheese) doubled up. I did this twice. I washed out the 10 litre cooking pot (stainless) very thoroughly (weak bleach solution and thorough rinsing) and returned the liquor to the pot, covered it with cling film and waited another 7 days for it to settle before siphoning it off into sterilised 2 litre lemonade bottles.
After a week in the bottles I decided to try some. Now I know what you are thinking. It must have tasted awful right. 'cept it didn't.
It is dry, but not a hint of vinegar or tannin. The flavour was light, crisp, and well ... slightly melon-y and slightly pineapple-y. (I don't think there was enough passion fruit to contribute anything.) Just all together extremely pleasant to drink.
There is only the slightest hint of anything settled out in the bottles (though a good 1cm of white, creamy sludge made it through the filtering to settle out in the pot).
And whilst the wine isn't "bright clear"; it is very clear with a greeny-yellow coloration, and a slight haze. (The latter I've learnt is almost certainly a "pectin haze".
But the most amazing thing -- to me anyway, but as is obvious, I'm no expert -- is the body. It's almost like one of the heavier Australian Chardonnays, maybe even a white Bordeaux (though not as heavy as the sweet wines like Sauternes).
I just cannot get over the smoothness and amazing mouth-feel of a wine produced from 80 pence worth (20p a pack; my wife loves a bargain :)), just over £1 worth of sugar (1.2kg bags from the pound shop) and a 20p packet of bread yeast.
I've honestly never bought a bottle of commercial wine for less than about £10 that was so pleasant to drink.
Needless to say, I'm hooked. I've since bought a 30 litre plastic fermenter with airlock; 5x5 litre plastic demijohns with bungs and airlocks; some proper wine yeast; some campden tablets; some pectolase; and bentonite.
I'm just waiting for my wife to find some cheap fruit and I'm all set to try and make some the "proper way".
And here (at last) is my question: How do you rate my chances of reproducing the (to my mind, stunning) success of my first attempt?
Buk.
