Muscadine Wine

Muscadine Wine

1 peck Muscadine grapes

3½ gallons water

15 lbs sugar

2½ tbsp yeast

Process grapes in blender so that they are almost liquefied; should yield about 8 quarts.  Fill blender with ½ cup water to each batch of grapes processed.  Place all ingredients in large vat (I use a cooler) and sprinkle yeast on top, cover and let stand 24 hours. 

Stir well at the same time every day, for the next ten days.  On the eleventh day, strain wine with mesh strainer into glass gallon jugs.  Seal as tight as possible and place in cool dark area without moving for six weeks. 

(There is no place cool in South Carolina so, we placed them on the porch under a table).  One jug exploded on the second day.  It is wise to place jugs in plastic bags or some sort of covering so that if you should have an explosion, the mess is minimal.  Otherwise, purple grape juice stains.

Four days prior to the end of the sixth week, loosen the covers on the jugs.  This will stop the fermenting process. 

 Strain the wine through cheese cloth into sterilized wine bottles, cork and process with wax.  There are no sulfites in this homemade wine.  The wine will start to turn to vinegar in about 18 months so when making this recipe, keep that in mind. 

The second batch I used the same recipe and infused 10 hot Chile peppers, seeds and all.  It has quite a bite to the flavor.  There is nothing quite like the flavor of a homemade batch of wine.

© Crackerberries 2012

Plum Wine

Today we are going on a wine making journey.  Are you ready?  Here we go ….

·         Day #1

1)    Pick plums

2)    Wash feet

3)    Wash plums

4)    Get a big drink of something as you will be busy stomping for awhile

5)    Place plums in large vat (canning pot works well)

6)    Start stomping … at first the seeds hurt your feet, but they toughen up after awhile

7)    Continue stomping until all are mush

8)    Yield: 8 quarts of mashed plums

9)    Get large cooler or other container and clean well

10)         Add 4 gallons fresh cold water

11)         Add 12 lbs sugar; stir to dissolve

12)         Pour in plum mush

13)         Sprinkle with 3-4 tsp. yeast

14)        Cover

·         Day #2 Stir yeast caked plums (looks really gross)

·         Day #3 Stir yeast plums (smells very vinegary and is bubbly)

·         Day #4 Stir yeast plums (smells yeasty, plums are breaking down)

·         Day #5 Stir yeast plums (smells very yeasty, still breaking down, Bear & and tasted it – the dog liked it and I thought it tasted like cider)

·         Day #6 Stir, stir, stir (not so yeasty smelling and plums have broke down a lot)

·         Day #7 Stir, stir, stir

·         Day #8 Drain/strain off liquid and pour into glass jars (wide mouth gallon size work best); cover and let sit in cool dark place, undisturbed for 6 weeks.  Yield: 5¾ gallons

·         Day #9 Heard what sounded like a huge gunshot, a jug broke and plum wine went everywhere (we had contained the jugs in large coolers so the mess was restricted to one cooler) — do not lay jugs on their sides.  Yield: 4¾ gallons

·         Day #10 — 6 weeks later: Loosen caps (be very careful when doing this as it is like opening a bottle of warm tonic water…extremely fizzy) Let stand with covers loosened for 4 days so that fermentation stops.

·         Day #11 Strain, bottle and cap… taste samples while doing so.  Yield: 18 bottles of wine on the wall.

© Crackerberries 2011