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Sparkling Apple Wine |
Apple Wine PdB
Enough good apple bits to fill a 20 L bucket or barrel
1 sachet wine yeast
8kg sugar (white or brown)
1 kg raisins
Juice of 9 lemons
A small cup of tea
Chop up the apples and put them in the bucket. Fill the bucket with boiling water. Put the lid on and leave for a few days. Stir twice a day.
Strain out the fruit (feed it to the pigs) and add the sugar, the raisins, the lemon juice and the tea. Fill the bucket again to 20 L and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the wine yeast, stir, cover with the lid and leave in a warm place. We left ours on the kitchen bench wrapped in towels. Leave for two weeks or so and then transfer to a demijohn. Try to do this without transferring any sediment, by syphoning it into the demijohn. Make the quantity up to 20 L again by adding water.
Leave in the demijohn in a cool place for several months. Once the liquid is clear syphon the wine into sterilised bottles and lid. The wine is drinkable at this stage but will most certainly improve with age.
In the summer I don't really like to drink beer but I do like a glass of cold cider occasionally. Clearly it is not summer now so after a hard day's work a mug (my very large special pottery mug) of mulled cider is a great warming treat. First make the cider though.
Apple cider
To be perfectly correct one makes cider by crushing the fruit but most of us don't have the equipment.
Any type of apples are fine for cider though a mix of sweet and bitter is best.
Chop whatever quantity of apples you have, cores and all into large chunks. Place the pieces in a large plastic or crockery container, though don't fill it too full or it will overflow when fermenting. Cover with boiling water and then put a cloth over the top. Leave for 10 days stirring daily.
Crush the apples with a potato masher and strain the liquid through a jelly bag or muslin. Feed the pulp to your pigs! Add 1 cup of sugar to every 4 L of liquid. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Strain again into 2 L plastic bottles and screw on the tops lightly. Leave until the fermentation has stopped and then syphon into clean plastic bottles and screw on the caps tightly this time. You can drink the cider in two weeks but it does improve a bit with age. Your cider may well be very fizzy so chill well before opening.
On a cold night after a good day's work when the fire is going and all is well with the world mull some cider on the woodburner.
In a pot that can go on the top of the woodburner make a sugar syrup with 1 - 2 T of sugar to each cup of water. On the stove bring the water to the boil and add 2 or 3 cloves a cinnamon stick and half a sliced lemon or orange. Simmer for 5 minutes, add 1 - 2 cups of cider and then reheat on the top of the woodburner.
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