Making ginger wine

[Blether]

Browsing about idly I came across this recipe for Ginger Wine, the famous addition to turn whisky into a Whisky Mac.

I've never made wine before, but now I have a reason. What does "Stop the vessel down by degrees" mean ? Anyone know ? Will I have a demijohn with a rubber bung that I gradually push in tighter ? Or something else ?

[rooftop1000]

I dont know what that phrase means but for moderns sensibilites you might want some kind of Water Lock on it for the first 2 weeks. I guess the fermentation will have stopped by then and then the brandy will kill any more yeast....

It must have something to do with the wine still gassing off CO2

tracey

[Scallop]

Sounds delicious! Will definitely be giving this a try.

[Nayan Gowda]

Blether,

Just wondering... I was reading today that homebrewing is actually illegal in Japan. Is that really the case?

Cheers,

Nayan

Edited March 11, 2010 by Nayan Gowda (log)

[Blether]

Hi Nayan,

That's a good question. I hadn't really thought about it.

Tracey, thanks for posting. I've been meaning to say thank-you just as I start to make a batch, but haven't yet got round to picking up a container / airlock yet.

Now it sounds like I'll have to moor my brewing kit more than 5 miles offshore. Or fly it on a kite with more than 5 miles of string ?

eta: a quick google turns up this blog on homebrewing in Japan, which links this 1999 article from The Japan Times, which says:

In Japan it is illegal to brew beer with more than 1 percent alcohol by volume. Junko Saito, who with her husband sells homebrewing equipment from their Beer Club Shop in Kobe, says retailers are required to include warnings explaining the law in their catalogs and instruction manuals. Then it is up to the customer to obey the law.

Edited March 11, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Blether]

I surprised myself tonight by pickimg up one of these: an 8.4L 果実酒びん / kajitsushu-bin, aka 'fruit liquor bottle'. It's polyester, has a good wide opening and a lid with a built-in pressure relief valve and a sub-opening for pouring that has its own screwtop, and it cost all of 980yen. Eat your heart our, Mrs. Beeton.

It's also on page 35 of the maker's catalogue, or see this Google search, which for the moment at least returns product pages on both Rakuten and Amazon, amongst other things.

On the label it proudly proclaims in English, "Pack in Heaps with compact size ! Light but sturdy !", and can only say I am totally down with that.

So... by coincidence I'm on the point of re-stocking on ginger. I'll add plenty of sugar, some raisins and a lemon to the list, and get cracking.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Blether]

Well, I have a batch of ginger wine bubbling away.

This recipe is adapted from the original published in Mrs Beeton's famous work and makes 4.5 litres (8 pints).

Saturday, I thought I'd make double the recipe, maybe having to discard the last pint or so of mixture, depending on how the '8.4L' container worked out. Anyway, my stockpot is stamped "7 (US) quarts / 6.6L", so I started out with all the sugar, ginger and lemon zest, and as much water as would fit, and boiled for an hour. I first chopped the ginger in lumps of about 3/8", put it in a plastic bag and bruised it in a friendly manner with a claw hammer held sideways.

There was no scum. I quickly cooled this stockpotful to lukewarm (thermometer checked at ~31C) in a sinkful of cold water, poured it directly into the fermenting bottle, and added 1/4tsp of Saf-instant dried yeast.

The ginger floated throughout the boiling period, and remained floating in the fermenting bottle.

I then boiled another batch of water in the unwashed stockpot, again cooled this (29C before I even first measured) and added as much as I could to the fermenting bottle. It had become clear when I measured the water going into the first potful, that there was going to be quite a lot left over, not just a pint or so. Of course the recipe's "makes 4.5L" doesn't seem to take account of the volume of the sugar, in particular... or is 'simmer' supposed to mean 'boil furiously' ? Or will the volume lost in decanting & bottling leave a '4.5L' final yield ? In the end, where the recipe calls for 16 (British) pints of water for a double batch, I could only fit 11.5 pints in total - 72% of the water called for.

The ginger and the yeast that had been floating on the surface sank like stones when I poured in the additional water. There was no discernible yeast activity, no frothing, not even a bubble and I was concerned that things weren't going to work out. Anyway I covered the opening of the bottle with a cloth and left it overnight.

On Sunday, I still saw no activity, and added just a pinch (less than 1/8tsp, I'm sure) more dried yeast, before chopping the raisins and adding these and the lemon juice, stirring everything briefly and sealing the bottle with its lid.

This morning I stirred again briefly, and sat the bottle in front of the gas fan heater for a while. In a short time I could see distinct gassing, and I think this proportions-skewed lot of ginger wine is on its way to becoming... something. There is no hiss of escaping gas when I loosen the lid, so I believe the pressure-relief valve is doing its job.

I have questions.

How will the higher concentration of sugar affect this wine ? Will it likely end up sweet with the yeast dying early, or strong, or something else ?

Why does the recipe ask for the - what's the correct word for the mixture, anyway ? wort ? - the mixture to spend a night in a bowl before transferring to the fermenting vessel ?

Why hold off on putting the raisins and lemon juice into the mix ?

[Nayan Gowda]

How will the higher concentration of sugar affect this wine ? Will it likely end up sweet with the yeast dying early, or strong, or something else ?

It is going to be much sweeter than the original recipe; it will also, of course, be stronger unless you pro rata the brandy addition for the amount of water used. The original recipe would yield potential alcohol from the fermentation of the sugar alone of around 17%. This is higher than most yeast could tolerate; so the addition of any more sure is unlikely to yield anymore alcohol.

Why does the recipe ask for the - what's the correct word for the mixture, anyway ? wort ? - the mixture to spend a night in a bowl before transferring to the fermenting vessel ?

Not sure about the word for the mixture, but I presume the reason that it spends a night in a bowl is to help acclimatise the yeast to its medium; it also gives you a chance to see, easily, if the yeast has started acting or not.

Why hold off on putting the raisins and lemon juice into the mix ?

Again this is to do with the yeast. The wee buggers don't really like extreme environments, especially when just starting out. If the acidity, or sugar concentration were too high they might struggle establishing themselves.

[Blether]

Thanks, Nayan, that's helpful. I guess I have some time to buy a second container and make up the water. Sweet doesn't sound so good.

[Blether]

In the end I didn't have the opportunity to pick up another fermenting bottle. On Thursday I simply discarded the appropriate amount of mixture (3.5 pints), and replaced it with boiled-and-cooled water to get the correct dilution per the recipe. Fermentation continues.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Blether]

A late update (late compared to the events):

The wine was still gassing reasonably well at the prescribed time limit. What with the old recipe, the bodge I made of the proportions for a large part of the indicated fermentation time, and my own inexperience and unfamiliarity with what would be the accepted readings between the lines in Meg Dodds' day, I decided to taste it during each daily stir and go by sweetness.

Finally, though there was still gassing, I decided it tasted right and added the fortification (my standard smooth, mellow whisky, Teachers Highland Cream, in place of brandy) after exactly 4 weeks, not 2. Ambient temp was a pretty constant 20C or so throughout.

It remains sitting in the dark cupboard where I put it then. It must be close to 4 weeks there, too, now - I've barely even looked at it (I've simply been busy).

Can anyone (Nayan ?! ) comment on what the likely keeping properties will be ? I'm planning to simply decant into screw-top wine and whisky empties. Am I stupid ? No, wait a minute, I'll rephrase that: is that stupid ?

[Blether]

Sorry - also, if it doesn't get clear, should I be thinking about finings for this recipe (/ is there some other approach) ? How long should settling take / how long should I leave it before intervening ?

Edited April 29, 2010 by Blether (log)

[helenjp]

How's it looking? If you made it with fully ripened ginger (bought in late autumn or winter) I think you shouldn't run into too much trouble?

If it's the ginger flavor and not the hard work you are after, try a ginger shochu when the new ginger crop comes out (June-July), with a bit of lemon if liked. Really nice on the rocks in summer and much lighter than the Stones type.

[Blether]

I still haven't even looked, and I'm off for Golden Week tomorrow ! What a freakin' day !!

Thanks for the ginger Shochu idea, Helen, that's a great one. In my sheltered life, I'd never come across a ginger shochu before; I'll definitely be giving it a try (prod me if I seem to have forgotten to tell you how it went).

I will be glad when this natch is in the bag. Commuting to my offshore jurisdiction pied-a-terre and dictating posts back over the radio every day is really doing my head in.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Blether]

Finally I found the two minutes it took to check on the wine. It's still pretty cloudy - I shone in a two-AA Maglite and could see about an inch and a half or two inches into the ginger lumps and other stuff floating on top and sunk to the bottom. So... again, finings ? Filtering ? Something else ? Can anyone help ?

[dougal]

Finally I found the two minutes it took to check on the wine. It's still pretty cloudy - I shone in a two-AA Maglite and could see about an inch and a half or two inches into the ginger lumps and other stuff floating on top and sunk to the bottom. So... again, finings ? Filtering ? Something else ? Can anyone help ?

Late on this but maybe able to help a little.

Checked an alternate recipe. Basic modus operandi as follows - bung the ferment in a covered bucket for the first week, then transfer, via a fine strainer, to a demijon capped with an airlock. (Thus it does not ferment out 'sur lie' as the French term has it. More fermenting with the pulp usually means longer to clear and persisting hazes - and yours does sounds distinctly murky.)

Allow it to ferment until the airlock stops bubbling.

Leave it to settle for a while, then "rack" (syphon) off the clearish liquid.

Repeat the process of standing (days, weeks?) to settle and syphoning until clear.

Then bottle -- and leave for several months !!! to mature.

The normal wine/beer syphoning kit has its inlet off the bottom of the source vessel. A 'glass' U-tube is one method. A blocked end and an inlet half an inch up from the end is another.

And there's a (fairly) sterile method of starting the syphon. http://www.brew-it-yourself.co.uk/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3441 (ignore the stuff about priming sugar, you aren't dealing with a keg-ful of beer)

I gather you have used an instant-mix bread yeast.

Three things regarding that.

Bread yeasts don't generally like high sugar concentrations (working slowly, if at all - "hard to start"), and get killed by fairly low concentrations of their own "waste product" - alcohol - so better for weak beer than strong wine.

Wine (and beer) yeasts also have properties that promote clearing and forming a stable sludge sediment or lees.

People do brew with bread yeast ("turbo" cider perhaps), but specialist yeasts have been developed to do a better job ... and "better" from plural standpoints - including product flavour!

My presumption is that your spirit addition would have been intended to make sure that the yeast was dead - and so not going to continue fermenting, carbonating the drink and then risking popping the cork or bursting the bottle

I reckon that you need to be racking or even straining yours, maybe filtering it, (got access to a Buchner?) and adding some sort of finings (gelatine? egg white?) and anything else you can lay your hands on (pectolytic enzyme?) to try and get it to clear. Remember to keep everything that contacts the product properly sanitised!

Or else enjoy it 'the old-fashioned way', a bit cloudy?

You could taste/drink it now. It shouldn't actually be at all harmful. But it might be more attractive once cleared, and time may smooth off any rough edges ...

Edited May 10, 2010 by dougal (log)

[Blether]

Thanks, Dougal. Yes, as I think I mentioned, I did taste it cloudy, as is, during fermentation. I'd prefer to get it clear, though it's not the end of the world if I don't; and I'm not desperately bothered about it being ready quickly, for its own sake - only to make sure it doesn't hang around so long as to spoil.

I appreciate your tips on yeast; what's available to me in this country remains for me to investigate.

Having fortified it (I only followed the recipe; I guess you're right about that being to kill off the yeast), I'd hoped not to have to worry as much about perfect sanitation as home brewers do. Am I wrong ?

My syphon plan involves a flexible food-grade rubber hose... what's a Buchner ?! How would I use egg whites ?

[dougal]

... It's still pretty cloudy - I shone in a two-AA Maglite and could see about an inch and a half or two inches into the ginger lumps and other stuff floating on top and sunk to the bottom. So... again, finings ? Filtering ? Something else ? Can anyone help ?

...

My syphon plan involves a flexible food-grade rubber hose... what's a Buchner ?! How would I use egg whites ?

Starting with syphoning off from between crust and sludge sounds like a good starting point.

I don't think the source of the hose matters VERY much.

Clear tube is very much easier - you can see how you are doing and whether you are sucking up crud.

At the end, you'll be tilting your tank to keep that inlet in "deep water", and constantly tweaking to stay between crust and sludge.

Narrow bore clear plastic tube is sold for car screenwashers, etc. Wash it out, soak it in your sanitiser, rinse thoroughly, and I strongly doubt that the few seconds it'll be in contact with the product could do you (or your product) any harm.

You need to sort something for the inlet end, so that it does not instantly suck crud. Use something to make the last several inches of the tube straight and stiff(er) - like a bamboo skewer. And double back the last inch or so, such that the open end points up and cannot get within half an inch or so of the bottom of the tank. Food-grade (if possible) rubber bands might be one method of attaching tube to stick.

Hopefully that will get your liquid away from most of the muck, and you can think about 'fining' it.

My understanding is that one egg-white, after being mixed with an approx equal quantity of cold water to a solution (or sol) -- but not to a froth, is at least enough to be added to a gallon of wine, stirred and left for a day or two or three to clear. The haze should be flocculated by the protein and thus settles out, allowing you to rack (syphon) off "bright" product.

I'm a n00b brewer and winemaker, so I'm not the one to explain why/how/what difference the choice of fining method may make to the qualities of the product. I'm sure I've read somewhere that gelatin(e) followed by Bentonite (a specific clay) is the most powerful clearing treatment.

I can't see why one shouldn't repeat the fining process as often as required.

Apart from the fact that every time you leave some sediment behind, you leave (and thus lose) some product...

A Buchner funnel is a common laboratory filtering apparatus, using air pressure to accelerate filtering of solutions where the fine solids clog the filter paper. Using the filter paper flat and not folded maximises its working area, minimising the clogging. http://www.creative-chemistry.org.uk/activities/images/buchner.gif Elderflower pollen (in particular) clogs coffee-filter papers very effectively, making that means of filtering a real test of patience! I recall the Buchners in the school chemistry labs using a tapwater venturi as the vacuum pump, but one of those ideas at the back of my mind is the possibility of using the accessory hose from the FoodSaver vac-packer ...

Edited May 13, 2010 by dougal (log)