Blackberry & Apple Crumble & Custard Wine Recipe
You can watch us making the blackberry and apple wine recipe on our YouTube channel as this might help you understand some of the processes that aren't usually used when making a wine.
If you love Blackberry and Apple Crumble with lashings of custard, then you are going to love this wine! It has all the flavours to remind you of that after sunday lunch pudding. With lots of delicious blackberries, mixed in with lots of apples then topped with lots of pastry flavoured crumble and then lashings of vanilla custard on the side. Just wait, this is going to be epic!
We are going to make this wine slightly differently as we want to stress the yeast into making a compound called diacetyl. This will give us the mouthfeel and flavour of the pastry crumble. This means we have to use a higher temperature to cause a fast fermentation with no extra nutrients. We will also need to get rid of the yeast and lees quickly to maximise the diacetyl concentration to help us get a delicious flavour in the finished wine.
We will also be adding a non fermentable (yeast cant eat it) sugar at the end. This sugar is called lactose and come from milk, so adds a creamyness both in flavour and mouth feel to the finished wine. And of course custard is flavoured with vanilla, so we need some to really help the custard flavours come to life.
So, once it is finished, we will have a wine that will remind you of that favourite British pudding, Apple and Blackberry Crumble with custard, but all wrapped up in a delicious wine.
Now this wine is going to be quite sweet and not to mention delicious, so you may want to bottle it in smaller bottles, so you dont end up drinking it all in one go.
So lets get down to making it. To make Blackberry and Apple Crumble Wine, you will need...
Equipment: (We have a fruit wine starter kit if needed)
Brewing Bucket
Demi-John with Air-Lock
Syphon
Muslin or Straining Bag
Steriliser
Hydrometer
Thermometer
Bottles & Corks & Corker
Ingredients:
900g (2lb) Blackberries - really ripe
1150g (2 1/2lb) of Mixed Apples
1150g (2 1/2lb) Granulated sugar
250g Lactose
40ml Vanilla Essence
6 pints Boiling Water
1 Sachet of Desert Wine Yeast
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
1/4 tsp Malic Acid
Fermentation Stopper
Campden Tablet
Finings
Method:
1 - Core and grate the apples
2 - Put the blackberries in your fermenting bucket and smash with a potato masher
3 - Put the grated apples in with the blackberries
4 - Pour on 6 pints of boiling water
5 - Add the sugar and stir until dissolved
6 - Put the lid on and leave to cool to 24°C.
7 - Take a sample and a reading with your hydrometer and keep this safe
8 - Add the pectolase & malic acid and stir.
9 - Then sprinkle on the yeast and stir it in.
10 - Loosely put the lid on and put it into a warm cupboard (24°C) for 5-7 days.
11 - Check the fermentation is complete using a hydrometer. The reading should be around 0.996. If it's a little higher than this, pop the lid back on the fermenter and leave for another day or 2 to finish fermenting.
12 - Pour the wine through a straining bag into a sterilised bucket to catch all the apple and blackberry pulp.
13 - Squeeze the straining bag to extract as much of the wine trapped in the pulp as possible.
14 - Add the fermentation stopper (as per the instructions on the packet) and 1 crushed campden tablet.
15 - As we are going to use finings, we need to degas the wine of any dissolved CO2. You can stir it, or use a degasser. You will notice lots of bubbles and gas being released. This is trapped CO2. This needs to be removed to aid the clearing process. Stir the wine around 3 more times, Stirring for 30 seconds and then leaving to settle for 5 minutes in between stirrings.
16 - Now add the finings and stir
17 - Syphon the wine into a demijohn and put the airlock in and put somewhere cool for 48 hours to fully clear.
17 - Once clear, syphon the wine back into your clean sterilised fermenting bucket being careful not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the demijohn.
18 - Take 200ml of the wine and put into a milk saucepan and put on the hob
19 - Turn on the heat and pour in the lactose.
20 - Stir to dissolve, it will turn milky, but keep heating and stirring and suddenly it will turn clear.
21 - As soon as it turns clear, turn off the heat and add in another 200ml of wine and stir.
22 - Pour the saucepan wine and lactose mixture back into the wine in your bucket and stir to mix it all together.
23 - Add the Vanilla extract and stir.
24 - Bottle straight away and seal, then ideally leave for 3 months for its full flavour potential to be reached.
You can also watch us make it in our Video on How To Make Blackberry and Apple Crumble Wine on our Youtube Channel.
I hope you like this wine. Something a little different and indulgent.
Cheers and Happy Brewing.