My Other Hobby - Winemaking

[rsterne]

Since 2013 I have been making my own wines from our home grown grapes, raspberries and apples.... This year we have a bumper crop of grapes....



There are only 2 vines, growing on a fence 10 ft. long and 5 ft. high, and this year we got 53 lbs. of grapes....



The grapes are the "Valiant" variety, which is cold hardy down to Zone 2 (we are Zone 3 here in Coalmont), and they have seeds, so not great for eating, but they make a fabulous wine.... I steam extract the juice, and this year I got 23.5 litres (the wife grabbed one to make grape jelly)....



Here is a photo of the start of this year's vintage.... with the juice fermenting in the primary fermenters (buckets)....



The 2 smaller buckets contain 6 gallons of table wine, while the larger bucket in the middle has just over 3 gallons of grape dessert wine (fabulous with a cheese plate on a cold winter's eve).... Here are photos of our first vintage....



The label is my wife's work, reflecting our battle to get the grapes before the local bears gorge on them in September....



The wine is the deepest red you can imagine,  you can "bearly" see through a glass.... 

Bob

[rsterne]

I just freeze-distilled some apple wine to make Apple Jack....



I first made a fairly sweet, apple dessert wine using our Transparent Apples.... When finished and cleared, I freeze-distilled it three times, which gets rid of about 75% of the volume, leaving a VERY potent apple "jack", of about 40% alcohol.... Believe me, it packs a real punch, but it is for sipping ONLY.... If you drink too much, you will end up with the worst hangover you can imagine, because freeze-distilling leaves behind all the fusil oils as well as the alcohol.... The above came from a gallon of apple wine.... yield 1 quart....

The original settlers in the American colonies had a name for this hangover, they called it "Apple Palsy"....   .... It was discovered by leaving a barrel of apple cider outside over the winter.... It froze from the outside in, forming a layer of ice on the inside of the barrel.... and concentrating all the flavour and alcohol in the middle.... The colder the winter, the more concentrated it became....   

Bob

[MacGruff]

That sounds like quite a fortuitous discovery.

Wish I had some to sip.... I bet the concentrated apple flavor is something else. What kind of apple was it? And, did you try it with difference types of apples to see if the flavors change (I have to believe a Golden Delicious base is different than a Granny Smith, etc.)??

[rsterne]

This Jack was made with Transparent Apples.... We have three apple trees on our property, one of those, a Liberty, and my favourite, the Gravenstein.... IMO the finest eating apple ever.... 

I made Apple Jack in 2019 using a blend of all three, and demerara sugar (which added a deeper colour), and it turned out lovely.... Last year I had excess Transparents and Gravensteins, so I made both, but the Gravenstein wine is not cleared enough yet to "jack" it.... Different apples definitely produce different results.... I also made Raspberry Jack and Grape Jack last year.... They are all delicious, the grape tastes quite raisiney, like brandy....

Bob