Adventures in Wine Making - Sloe Wine

Recipe

This recipe is taken from the book "Traditional home wine making" by Paul and Ann Turner. (See link on the right)

  • 4½ lb Sloes
  • 8 oz Raisins, chopped
  • 1 gal water
  • 2½ lb sugar
  • 1 sachet Yeast
  • 1 tsp yeast nutrient
  • 1 campden tablet

Wash the sloes, put them into a fermentation bin, and crush them well by hand. Add the raisins and sugard, then boil the waer and pour it on. Cover and leave to cool before adding the yeast and yeast nutrient. Cover again and leave to ferment for seven days, stirring daily.

Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh bag into a fermentation jar. Fit a fermentation lock cointaining sterilizing solution and put the jar in a warm place to ferment to a finish. The wine will stop bubbling and the SG will be close to 1.000.

When no further fermentation occurs, rack the clear wine into a clean fermentation jar and add a Campden tablet. Store for several months to mature, racking again if a sediment forms. Bottle the wine when it is perfectly clear and leave for atleast a year before drinking.

Diary

December 27th 2009

Batch 1:Racked off this one today, taking a SG reading in the process, came out at 990. Just right. I added a crushed campden tablet and have returned it to the airing cupboard to stop fermentation. Should be ready to bottle soon. Interestingly this wine had the heaviest sediment in the bottom, it also had some sort of scum on the surface. I wonder if I will need to rack this one a few times to get it to clear properly.

October 31st 2009

Batch 2:This batch also got ten days on the must, rather than the prescribed 7, I hope this wont have any major negative impact on the result. I transfered the liquor into a demojohn via the now tried and tested colander and muslin filtration system, approximately just over 1 gallon of liquid is now bubbling away in a dark corner of the pantry.

October 20th 2009

Batch 2:Having found a rather abundant supply of Sloes near Utrecht I decided to have a go at spreading my bets and make a second batch of sloe wine. It has gone into the fermentor today, and will be there for the next 7 days.

September 28th 2009

Batch 1:Due to a minor logistics messup (I ran out of muslin) the wine spent 10 days on the must, rather the intended 7. This evening I decanted the wine into a demijohn, filtering it through muslin. It is now ready for it's next few months in the demijohn.

September 18th 2009

Batch 1:After a couple of nights in the freezer I defrosted the Sloes. The transformation was substantially more than I expected. From firm ripe fruits to almost a ooy mess. On the plus side the crushing of them was alot easier. Rather than crushing them with my hands, I did wimp out and use a potatoe masher, far far more effective. The must is now sat in it's bucket for the night to cool before I can add the yeast.

This page last modified Sunday, 27-Dec-2009 23:11:05 CET.