Lazy Marion's winemaking basics

racking the saskatoon/rhubarb wine

Although my wines turn out well, I really don't know much about winemaking.  I don't think it's necessary to know a lot because I'm not the one making the wine.  The yeast is the winemaker.  All I need to do is give the yeast a good home and let it do its thing, then enjoy the results.

Yeast likes the same kind of juice that people do: sweet, with a bit of a tang.  It likes the same kind of temperatures we do, too, warm but not too hot.  It lives in the juice, swimming around eating sugar and producing carbon dioxide and alcohol.  When the alcohol level in the juice gets too high, or if it runs out of sugar to eat, it dies.  That is, basically, all you need to know.

If your juice doesn't contain enough sugars, the yeast will starve before it produces much alcohol.  If there's really a lot of sugar, the yeast will die of alcohol poisoning before finishing it and you'll have a sweet wine.

If the juice gets too hot, the yeast dies.  If it gets too cool, however, the yeast goes dormant and it will wake up again when things warm up.

If you bottle your wine before the yeast has died, it will continue to work in the bottle.  Since the carbon dioxide it produces can't escape, you'll end up with a fizzy wine.

Wine is usually protected from contact with the air so that bacteria and yeasts that are not tasty are excluded from joining the party.  You do this by putting the juice into a container with an airlock.  The carbon dioxide can bubble out, but air can't get in.  When no bubbles are being produced, it means the yeast is finished and it's time to bottle the wine.

Right now, with all the bubbling going on in my house, it sounds like a mad scientist's lab.

Left to right: rhubarb, rhub/saskatoon, last year's rosehip, dandelion

Rhubarb wine

The easiest and most reliable wine we make, our everyday wine, is rhubarb.  We usually brew at least 10 gallons each spring.  The oldest bottle in our cellar right now is from 2004, but we've tasted some that was ten years old.  It doesn't change much over the years, really.  We've decided that aging it isn't very important, so we just guzz it young, giving some of the other wines a chance to age.

We've tried a few different methods and find that the simplest way of making it seems to be the best.  We use 5 lb of rhubarb per gallon.  Each stalk is roughly snapped into many pieces (after removing the poisonous leaf) and tossed into a large crock.  We pour cold water over it and let it stand at room temperature for three days, then remove the stalks and feed them to the goats.  To the pink liquid left behind, we add between 2 1/2 and 3 lb of sugar (more makes a stronger wine) and a package of yeast.  After another few days of fermenting, we siphon it into a container with an airlock and leave it till it's ready to drink a couple of months  later.

Picking the fruit

Snapping the stalks

We started the first batch of the year this week, just a little later than usual.  We wanted a sunny day to pick it but finally got tired of waiting.  Our main patch produced 50 lb of rhubarb, enough for 10 gallons.  The plants looked wonderful when we started picking and pathetic when we finished, but they'll recover soon.  I might add some frozen berries to one 5 gallon batch.  If so, I'll do it next week.

Dandelion wine tasting

There are quite a few home winemakers in this neighbourhood.  We're too far north, here in the Cariboo, to grow grapes, but we make some beautiful wines from other ingredients.  Often, half a dozen homemade wines will show up at a potluck dinner or party.  In the past year, I've been hosting some wine-tastings, for fun and also to share our knowledge and experiences with each other.

Last weekend, we gathered together to taste rhubarb and dandelion wines.  Not many of the people there had made either of these, so I hoped to inspire everyone to put a batch on to brew.  We had three samples of rhubarb and two of dandelion to try, all from last year.  (I'll discuss the rhubarb another day.)

The two dandelion wines were quite different from each other.  The first one we tried had been made using raisins, lemons, and oranges in addition to the flowers.  It was full-bodied and strong, with the citrus flavours being quite distinct.  The recipe for that one can be found at: http://www.countrylivinginacariboovalley.com/  The second was the one I had made.  It was a little lighter, with a more floral taste, and was also lighter in colour.  Opinions varied, with some people preferring one and some the other: it's just a matter of taste.  Here is my recipe:

• Pick dandelions.  One gallon of flowers for each gallon of wine.  Pay no attention to other recipes that tell you to separate the yellow parts from the green; it's too much work and you'll make a good wine without bothering.  Just pick the whole flower head with no stem attached.  It took me between 2 and 3 hours to pick 5 gallons.
• Pour boiling water over the flowers in a non-metal container.  Cover and leave 3 days, stirring daily, then strain.
• Heat liquid, if necessary, to the temperature required by the yeast.  I use champagne yeast and the packet instructions said around 35 degrees C.
• Add about 1/2 lemon , cut into chunks. for each gallon of wine, along with 2 1/2 lb sugar.  Stir, then sprinkle the yeast over the surface.  Leave 3 days more, stirring daily, then remove the lemon.
• When the wine stops frothing, siphon it into a carboy with an airlock.
• Rack it off the sediment into a clean carboy a couple of times over the months.  When it has totally stopped working (no bubbles in the airlock), bottle it.  It's likely to be ready for bottling by around the end of the year.  If you bottle it too soon, it will be fizzy.

Saskatoon Wine

This afternoon, I bottled last year's saskatoon wine.  If I could make enough of it, saskatoon would satisfy my desire for red wine.  Unfortnately, last year's berry crop was poor, so there wasn't much to bottle.  In August, I picked 5 lb of berries and made 1 gallon of wine.  (The year before, i brewed 5 gallons in addition to canning about 50 quarts of berries.)  After tasting a bit each time the young wine was racked, i was left today with 4 1/2 bottles.  The 4 full bottles were properly corked, labelled, and moved downstairs to the wine cellar.

The half-bottle won't last out the day.  Our neighbour is coming over, and we'll share a glass with him.  He's 21 years old, and I take every opportunity to try to convince him that home brewing is an easy and enjoyable thing to do.  He might not get around to it just yet, but give him a few years.  One day, as he's shelling out twenty of his hard-earned bucks for a bottle, he'll remember . . .

               Recipe

   5 lb saskatoon berries
   2 1/2 lb sugar
   1 orange
   1 pkg champagne yeast

   Simmer berries in just enough water to keep them from burning. 
   Extract as much juice as possible.  Add warm water to make 1 gallon.
   Stir in sugar and the orange, cut into pieces.  Sprinkle in the yeast.
   Let ferment one week, then siphon into a secondary fermenter with an air lock.
   Let it brew, racking it off the sediment, until it stops working.  Bottle and cork.