Ben Evert.com

 

Third in the Series

This is a nice dry wine with hints of pear and apple in its flavor. For those who have never seen a quince tree, the fruit is yellow to yellow-green—it resembles a pear in color, though it doesn’t have the classic pear shape. (The fruit looks something like a fat doughnut, with depressions where the whole should be on either end.)

Makes 1 Gallon

20 ripe quinces

2 1/4 pounds sugar

Juice and zest of 2 lemons

1 teaspoon pectic enzyme

1 Campden tablet

1 package wine yeast

1 teaspoon yeast nutrient

1 1/2 cups orange juice at room temperature

Grate the quinces as near the core as possible. Boil the grated peel and pulp in enough water to cover, for a maxium of 15 minutes. (Don’t over cook the fruit or you may have trouble clearing the wine.)

Strain the mixture and pour the juice onto the sugar in fermenter. Add the juice and zest of the lemons. Let the mixture cool then add the pectic enzyme. Add a capmden tablet and let the mixture sit, well covered for 24 hours.

In a jar, make a yeast starter culture by combining the wine yeast, yeast nutrient, and orange juice. Cover, shake vigorously, and let stand 1 to 3 hours, until bubly; then add to must.

Add enough water to make 1 gallon and allow the mixture to ferment for 48 hours. Rack into an airlocked fermenter and let the wine ferment to completion (about nine months), racking at intervals as needed to clear the wine. When you are sure that fermentation is complete, bottle, cork and cellar the wine.

Age for at least six months before sampling.

Popularity: 1% [?]

During the past week, I have been working on a bottling experiment. For the experiment, I designed a simple American Amber Ale recipe using dry malt extract and speciality grains. I will have more about the experiment in a future post.

Makes 3 gallons

Ingredients:

5 ounces Crystal Malt 40
4 ounces Cara-Pils Malt
1 ounce Chocolate Malt
3.5 pounds Light Dry Malt Extract
1 ounce Galena hops
1 packet dry yeast
Irish Moss

Procedure:

Crush grains and steep for 1 hour. Strain and pour into brew pot. Add the dry malt extract and bring the wort to a boil. Add 1/2 ounce of Galena hops. Boil for 60 minutes and at the 40 minute mark add Irish moss. Add 1/2 ounce Galena hops to your primary fermenter. Chill wort and pour into fermenter. Pitch yeast and allow to ferment for 3 to 7 days. Bottle and enjoy.

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I received this in my email in September from Natalie Maclean and it might be a bit early for this article. Of course, your own homemade wine always goes best with whatever your eating.

Author/Sommelier Natalie MacLean suggests gobbling good wines at www.NatalieMacLean.com

New York (September 13, 2007) – “No other holiday celebrates the gift
of wine like Thanksgiving,” says Natalie MacLean, author of the
bestselling book Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey
from Grape to Glass. “Wine is a taste of the harvest along with all the
delicious dishes on the table. But actually choosing a bottle can feel
like a thankless task, especially with so many flavors to match.”

Relax. Have a drink. And try some of Natalie’s suggestions for great
wines to pair with Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings. In Red,
White and Drunk All Over, which will be published in paperback next
month, Natalie discusses wine and food pairing for Thanksgiving dinner.
A new chapter in the book also addresses the five toughest matches for
wine: vegetables, spicy dishes, chocolate, cheese, and fast food.

Natalie’s free online matching tool at www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher

Natalie also offers five quick tips for choosing a terrific Thanksgiving wine:

1. Start with bubbly. Sparkling wine is a great aperitif to sip while
you wait for the turkey to finish cooking. It adds a celebratory note
to the meal and goes well with starters like soup and salad.

2. Consider the turkey. Unlike most poultry and game birds, turkey meat
is very dry in texture. So you need a mouth-watering wine to complement
it. Good options are crisp whites like riesling and pinot grigio. And
yes you can drink red wine with white meat: pinot noir, beaujolais and
zinfandel all have juicy, berry-ripe flavors that go well with turkey.

3. Look beyond the bird. The range of side dishes means that you don’t
have to match your wine just to the turkey. Since Thanksgiving dinner
is often a banquet-style meal, with everyone choosing the trimmings,
why not do the same with your wines? Offer both red and white, and
possibly more than one depending on the size of your group.

4. Complement or contrast. A big, buttery chardonnay from California or
Chile can complement the roasted, smoky flavors of squash, chestnuts
and pecan stuffing. But if you’d rather have a contrast to the richness
of cream sauces and dressings, try a crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

5. End on a sweet note. If anyone still has room left when it’s time
for pumpkin or pecan pie, offer a late harvest wine or icewine. If
you’re a chocolate fan, try serving a liqueur with complementary
flavors such as raspberry or blackcurrant.

Natalie’s online wine matching tool isn’t just about Thanksgiving
dinner: it allows you to pair wine with other seasonal fall produce,
game meats, pizza, egg dishes, TV dinners, breads and desserts.
Visitors simply search by wine for meal inspirations or by food to find
great wine choices. The site has more than 364,000 food and wine
combinations, as well as thousands of recipes for those planning
holiday parties and Christmas turkey dinner.

The matching tool is updated regularly, as Natalie responds to her
readers’ suggestions for more dishes and wines. Many of these
suggestions come from the 78,000 subscribers to her free e-newsletter,
Nat Decants, which offers tips on how to buy, cellar and serve wine.
Got a dish or a wine to stump Natalie? E-mail her via the web site and
she’ll suggest a match for you. Happy Thanksgiving!

Popularity: 1% [?]

 

” Any one who has a mulberry tree in the yard knows that these berries can be a real pain in the neck. The fruit falls all summer long, creating disagreeable purple stains on the patio, shoes and children’s clothes. When you do gather enough to make something of them, the stems are difficult to remove and you end up with purple fingers and meager results. In fact, as far as we can tell, there’s only one thing mulberries are really good for, and that’s making wine. Maybe that’s why we found so many mulberry wine recipes. Here is one on the sweet side.”

Makes 1 gallon

5 pounds mulberries

1 teaspoon pectic enzyme

4 pounds sugar

1 Campden tablet

1 package wine yeast

1 teaspoon yeast nutrient

1 1/2 cups ornage juice at room temperature

1 teaspoon acid blend

1/4 teaspoon grape tannin

Crush the mulberries in a 2 gallon fermenter. Pour 2 quarts of boiling water over them. Let the mixture cool, add the pectic enzyme, and cover the container with plastic wrap or foil. Let stand for four or five days, stirring daily.

Strain the liquid through cheesecloth and add sugar, stirring to dissolve. Add a Capmden tablet and let sit for 24 hours, well covered, before proceeding.

In a jar, make a yeast starter culture by combining the wine yeast, yeast nutrient and orange juice. Cover, shake vigorously, and let stand 1 to 3 hours until bubbly, then add to the must.

Add the remaining ingredients, plus enough water to make 1 gallon and pour the liquid into an airlocked fermenter. Let the wine complete the fermentation process. When it is clear, rack and bottle the wine.

Wait at least six months before sampling your first bottle.

 

Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s not beer and it’s not wine, but making hard apple cider is always fun. You can do it the old fashioned way by pressing the apples or you can purchase the apple cider. If you purchase the cider, just make sure that there are no preservatives in it. Personally, I buy the apple cider from a local fruit market.

The recipe I found is from Sallys-Place.com and will make a 5 gallon batch. There is also an interesting history of hard cider on that site that is worth reading.

Enjoy the recipe and the reading.

Cidermaking is easy and fun. Here is a basic recipe for a Farmhouse Style cider (ingredients for five gallons):

Transfer the juice and sugar using a sanitized funnel or food grade plastic hose into a sanitized glass or stainless-steel container at room temperature. Allow the sugar to dissolve and then pitch the lager yeast and affix a fermentation lock atop the carboy It will soon begin to bubble away releasing carbon dioxide as the yeast converts the sugars into alcohol. Allow the cider to ferment and mellow for at least two months before transferring it with your sanitized food grade hose into bottles, a keg, or any vessel you prefer. Then enjoy. Any homebrew supply shop can get you started with the proper advice and equipment.

Popularity: 2% [?]