Vanisle_BC
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In-season winter wine ingredients ?

In summer I make wines from fruit I can grow or buy. Now in cold February I want to make a batch using in-season produce from the grocery store; not expensive or brought from distant places - any suggestions? I guess there's apples but not much else in the way of fruit. What about vegetables? I think I've heard parsnip praised.

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applestar
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I know you said grocery store sourced ingredients, but I moved the thread to the preserving forum anyway. I can move it back if it seems inappropriate.

I haven’t ventured into wine-making, so I don’t know anything, but was wondering if any sweet produce is potentially useful?

Fruits — This time of the year, Apples are refrigerator stored and readily available. What about pears? Harder to keep in storage . Oranges? But you’re in BC so even west coast sources that would have to be imported from California.... expensive?

Maybe inexpensive juices or dried fruits? Are there such things, comparatively speaking after being processed?

Does it have to have lots of its own juices as opposed to adding water? What about Sweet potatoes? Sweeter winter squash like butternut and kabocha? Huh. This reminds me of Gary350’s question about ...was it corn? and how Koji kin turns starches in rice to sugar — in the process of looking it up, I was reading about converting other grain starches to sugar with Koji kin and it’s relationship to malted sprouted grains for making beer... and in a related search, how sweet potato starch is converted into sweet syrup (used for candy-making in Japan as well as fermented — I think to make shochu? Or do I have that mixed up with something else? I think shochu is further distilled)

In wine-making parlance, what is wine and when is it not wine?

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applestar
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Subject: Cultured Probiotics - kefir, kombucha, lacto-ferments...
applestar wrote:You made me curious — I tried to find out how corn syrup is made and I found this.
Don’t know if this will help you any, but it was interesting:
:arrow: https://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Corn-Syrup.html


....at first I tried to find out if Aspergillus oryzae could also be used with corn, but what came up were some articles and websites selling the koji kin as natural growth booster/soil conditioner for various crops including corn. I might go back and read about this more.

—-

...oooh this is really interesting — they have been experimenting with culturing koji on other grains (but not corn, sorry) ...they seem to have settled on pearled barley, and they mention other Aspergillus species as well as other cultural practices and discuss similarity with malt.

Koji – history and process
https://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2013/8/ko ... nd-process

Vanisle_BC
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There's a lot of information there. Thanks Applestar, but most of it's above my level of interest :). I'm a kind of rough & ready maker of simple wines, "kitchen wines" - not too fussy, scientific or purist about anything. (We once made our own label with the motto "Some we bottle, some we just drink.") I Sometimes buy kits or 'real' wine maker's grape juice but otherwise my recipes are just fruit, sugar & water. The amount of sugar needed varies with the sweetness of the fruit.

I think off-the-shelf juices may be hard to work with depending on how they've been processed. Not sure, but I think I once had success with orange juice though not with frozen concentrates - ??

I try to stick to a sort of 100 mile diet but I'm not exclusively religious about it.

I guess apples may be the best bet right now. They're just a bit bulky to work with, but definitely not expensive.

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!potatoes!
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how about a mead? can you get local honey? more expensive than apples (which you'd be better off juicing for wine anyway) but no extra processing needed.

Vanisle_BC
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Hi !potatoes!
Yes, the apples would be juiced. I did make mead once for a medieval-themed family event, but didn't like it much . Same goes for pea pod among other things I've tried. Best for my taste have been grape, plum and above all the rhubarb-ginger, especially if it's slightly sweet. Once it did some sort of second ferment and made a delightful 'champagne.' My wife prefers a 'pseudo-sake' made with rice, raisins & sugar.

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Gary350
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I have been making wire for about 48 years. Vegetables make terrible wine. Citrus makes terrible wine. Blueberries makes good, jam, jelly, pie, cobbler but terrible wine. Concord grape juice makes terrible wine. Certain plants like Rhubarb & Cranberries contain lots of acid use calcium carbonate to neutralize 99% of the acid it makes drinkable wine nothing to brag about. I have made wine from so many things I learned my lesson and make only GOOD wine these days. Grocery store peaches in 1 gallon can make a fairly good wine. Strawberries loose all their flavor and taste like pretty good white wine. Pears make good wine. I do not like apple wine some apples make better wine than other apples. Blackberries make the very best wine if you age it 4 years to get good. Raspberries make excellent wine too it needs to be aged 4 years. Aldie's sells several different types of grapes $1 per lb some of them make good wine. I make wine from wine kits most of the time these days but it has turned into work plus it makes 32 bottles of the same wine so I have to drink most if it myself. I have been having much more fun buying different wines at the wine store that way I trying different wine all the time and not have to drink 32 bottles of the same thing. Even though blackberry wine aged 5 to 7 years will win 1st Place Best of Show at any wine contest you soon get tired of drinking 32 bottles of that so I drink 1 bottle of it about every 3 months.

Start buying good wine to learn what you like so you can buy and make kits. A good kit will cost you $90 to $180 a 6 gallon kit will make 32 bottles of $35 per bottle wine. If you buy 32 bottles of $35 wine = $1232 including sales tax, wine kits will save you a bunch of $$$. I like to buy a different wine kit each time to make every month for 2 years, I have 24 different wines so I don't have to drink the same thing every day. I use to have 867 bottles of wine 8 years ago. About once a month I get together with other wine makers we taste each others wine it is always fun and a good way to learn what wine to buy next.

The top 6 bottles are the very best wine. I am going to the wine store probably tomorrow I probably buy 2 of each. I have been dreaming about another bottle of The Franc. These 6 red wines are the absolute best wines I have found.
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These 6 bottles are the very best wine.  After you drink these you will be spoiled for sure.  The 4 bottles in the middle are the absolute best.
These 6 bottles are the very best wine. After you drink these you will be spoiled for sure. The 4 bottles in the middle are the absolute best.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Sat May 04, 2019 4:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Vanisle_BC
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I too am not fond of Concord wine - but my wife likes it. Tastes differ!

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rainbowgardener
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I'm not a wine maker (yet?) but thinking about winter produce, what about beets? There is sugar made from beets, so they must have some sweetness to them.

Vanisle_BC
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rainbowgardener wrote:I'm not a wine maker (yet?) but thinking about winter produce, what about beets? There is sugar made from beets, so they must have some sweetness to them.
I suspect beets may create a haze that could be hard to get rid of, so not a good choice for a beginner. Most "kitchen" (I.e. vegetable & non-grape) wines rely heavily or almost entirely on added sugar.

Hmm - a quick search online shows lots of recipes for beet wine but no mention of hazes so maybe it's not an issue.



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