Sunday 23 June 2013

Birch Sap Wine Bottled!

Last month, Anna helped me to 'rack-off' the Birch Sap wine.
This is simply syphoning the wine into another sterile demijohn to
leave the sediment behind. The sediment is a build-up of dead yeast cells;
if the wine is left too long on the sediment it can affect the final taste.

We took a final hydrometer reading which was virtually off the scale!
This means that almost all the sugar has been converted and the wine will be
'dry' and quite strong in alcohol. I'm not very keen on sweet white wine so this is
how I like it and the relatively high alcoholic content should mean that it will store well too :)


I read that the sediment makes a very good fertiliser so I rinsed the original demijohn
with water and poured it on my rhubarb outside the shed door.

As you can see, it was still quite hazy and the wine had to be left another month
to drop a second sediment. We also added some stabiliser to ensure that all
fermentation had finished to prevent it re-starting at a later date

So this evening, with the wine now crystal clear I was ready to syphon it into bottles.

It produced enough for 9 bottles and tasted great with quite an appealing
earthy yet citrous character. I think it will be perfect by Christmas - if it lasts that long!!

18 comments:

  1. Dear Jerry this wine looks good! A great job that gave a great result...
    Must be special to fight the cold winter, staying strong and healthy as the birch trees!

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    1. Yes Rita, some say it is very good for you

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  2. Loved to follow the process, Jerry! Cheers!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it Judy - the best bit is still to come!

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  3. Great following the progress and what a lovely clear wine it has produced - looks and sounds delicious :)

    I am beginning to wish I hadn't got rid of all my winemaking equipment as seeing your wine has made me want to have a go at winemaking again!!!

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    1. That's very kind of you - yes, give it another go, it's pretty easy to get hold of the things you need.

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  4. It's an amazing process, and it looks fantastic, a job well done, and I like the fact that nothing was wasted and your rhubarb also benefited:=)

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    1. I suppose I could do the ultimate in recycling it by then turning the rhubarb into wine!!

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  5. That looks and sounds like an excellent result Jerry. I don't like sweet wine either, this seems like it will be delicious. You must update us when you try it properly.

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  6. Love the look of this wine in the demijohn and bottles, it's such a great colour.

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    1. Thanks Ann - I think it's turned out well because it has cleared so nicely.

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  7. Hola Jerry, he disfrutado mucho con tu post, ya sabes que me gusta ver todo el proceso detallado tal como lo muestras. Me ha gustado mucho ver las botellas de vino preparadas para ser bebidas, tiene muy buen aspecto, no sé si os quedará alguna botella para la próxima Navidad :)
    Anoche visité el nuevo blog de las arpas, es muy atractivo y te felicito porque eres un gran artista.
    Con mis mejores deseos, Sonia.

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    1. Thank you Sonia, I have already had one bottle which was great chilled so I will have to be very self-controled if I'm to still have some by Christmas. By the way, I'm glad you like the new harp blog too.

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  8. Ese vino tiene un aspecto estupendo. Estoy del todo de acuerdo con Sonia en lo del vino y en lo del blog de las arpas. Best wishes, Jerry.

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    1. I'd love you guys to be able to try it - perhaps you will have a go at making some one day.

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  9. Hi Jerry
    I seem to have lost my original blog! I have tried to get it back but unable to so have decided to start a new blog with a similar name:

    www.annatstudiohyde.blogspot.com

    Do hope you will follow,
    ann

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  10. Congratulations! I'm sure you must be quite pleased with a successful batch. And you got it the way you wanted to have your wine—dry and strong in alcohol. I expect you'll try out more flavors by then. And by that time, you'll probably get your bottling methods down pat. It's easy to bottle your first few batches when you're producing only relatively small amounts of wine, but when you try your hand with bigger batches, you might want to invest in good equipment like a floor corker and a filling machine.

    Dabrico, Inc.

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