Brewlog - Roses on White Lace : Red Currant Second Run braggot

[Chevette Girl]

One of my favourite wines crossed with one of my favourite songs? How could this possibly go wrong...

1 gal red currant wine lees plus the fruit bag, already fermented with RC-212
1 gal water
500 g amber DME
1/2 oz Fuggles hops (yeah, I went out and bought something other than Saaz! it smells really nice) added after boil
Maybe half a pound or so of crystallized honey that's really old
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
3 vanilla beans

Boil the DME in the water, add hops (again, stapled into a coffee filter), cover and leave to sit hot around an hour (temp dropped from 205F to around 150F), pour into the honey bucket, allow to cool further while melting the honey.

Energizer and vanilla beans added to fruit bag and lees, will pour warm honey wort over it once I'm sure the temperature won't kill the yeast.

Gotta get this moving, the crabapples are coming, the crabapples are coming!

 

[Chevette Girl]

So as I was stirring the honey into the wort, I popped the coffee filter baggie the hops had been in. So they're now free.

SG of honey in wort was around 1.080 and the original wine was around 1.100 so I'm going to assume that a theoretical starting gravity is around 1.090 for purposes of alcohol calculations.


...and the crabapples are here, Chevette's trunk is full of 'em.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Removed the fruit bag and poured it into a smaller fermenting bucket, I may have to rack it to a few 1 gal jars for clearing since I'm out of 1 gal carboys and I think I need the bucket for the pear wine I'm starting... it smells really nice!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Bottling day! It's a lovely red colour, I'll get a photo once it's labelled. Smells good, I can detect the vanilla, and it tastes like a beer. No bitterness, although I don't smell as much of the Fuggles as I thought I would. Primed with 1/3 cup honey after racking it off the sludge and it's sitting around settling out till I get enough clean bottles together.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Cracked the lid on the one flip-top bottle and it hissed! It's carbonating already! I can't wait to taste it!! ;D

 

[Chevette Girl]

I had one today. It's not terriffically carbed, but I think I really like it. I may try a little heavier on the Fuggles next batch, although this was really nice for something that started out half wine. Sorry, I probably won't get these labelled till after Xmas... crunch time...

 

[Chevette Girl]

There's a taste about it that makes me not want to drink more than a bottle. Oh well. The first half is very enjoyable, then finishing it's not as much fun. And I never did get those labels printed... maybe if I drink them all first I won't have to dig out the printer and the labels?