Christmas pudding wine (aka I came home beered up)

[Maeloch]

I guess this will be an occuptional hazard from now on...

After coming back from the pub I decided to throw everything fermentable I had kicking around the house into a bucket and brew it up with the lees from some banana wine that needed racking. As follows:

3 or 3.5lb demerara sugar (not sure exactly)
1lb sultanas
0.5lb white rice
3 oranages
1 lemon
1 pint apple juice
1 scotch bonnet pepper (not sure what I was thinking...luckily tins of beans, lumps of cheese, pasta, brown sauce, etc all got passed over.)
1 clove
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp grape tannin
1 tsp nutrient
1 tsp pectin/amylase
approx 7 pints of water
Gervin white wine yeast lees

I just cut up the citrus fruits, threw it all in a bin, poured on the water after boiling and let it cool. I washed out about a quarter of the lees from the banana wine with the apple juice and threw it in with the enymes. Gave everything a good stir to aerate and let it go. This morning it's starting to bubble and giving off a smell very much like Christmas Pudding.

It's not a million miles away from JAO, well that's why I had most of that kicking about anyhow. Might throw in some ginger and nutmeg over the weekend (unless any better suggestions?). That it turns out drinkable is all I can hope for.

 

[fatbloke]

The search tool or google is your friend

The "proper" christmas pud wine recipe, actually uses crimbo puds.

Bob has it over at winesathome (co uk)......

Made one last year, but did it as a mead (honey instead of sugar).....

Once our builders have finished it'll be time to see how its getting on....

 

[Maeloch]

The search tool or google is your friend

The "proper" christmas pud wine recipe, actually uses crimbo puds.

Bob has it over at winesathome (co uk)......

Made one last year, but did it as a mead (honey instead of sugar).....

Once our builders have finished it'll be time to see how its getting on....

Ha, that's crackers - tbh I do not like much like the sound of it, but I reserve judgement without tasting!

One more forum to browse at work...

I actually dislike Christmas pud quite a bit, so sober thought has got me a little worried about where this is going. I might squeeze out the citrus juice, take out the peel and throw in a pound of ginger instead - aim for something dryer and gingery, not sweet and citrus. It all needed using up anyhow so no biggie.

 

[fatbloke]

Ha, that's crackers - tbh I do not like much like the sound of it, but I reserve judgement without tasting!

One more forum to browse at work...

I actually dislike Christmas pud quite a bit, so sober thought has got me a little worried about where this is going. I might squeeze out the citrus juice, take out the peel and throw in a pound of ginger instead - aim for something dryer and gingery, not sweet and citrus. It all needed using up anyhow so no biggie.

Well it apparently, is quite "port like" when the recipe is followed..

With ginger, dry can be rather unfamiliar. I did one (ginger wine, that is), and messed up the amount of ginger by a factor of 3 (i.e. 3 times more than necessary). Dry and it was ok, but on stirring a teaspoon of honey into a glass, it was transformed. Very like "Stones" or "Crabbies" ginger wine.....

I'd just let your mad mix run. Just remember that with whole peel in it, it might extract too much bitterness from the pith, making it unbalanced and bitter -like when people change the yeast to wine yeast with JAO........

 

[Maeloch]

I'd just let your mad mix run. Just remember that with whole peel in it, it might extract too much bitterness from the pith, making it unbalanced and bitter -like when people change the yeast to wine yeast with JAO........

In the end I just left it but threw in a pound of chopped ginger. Funny enough, I noticed they've got Mincemeat on offer atm in the supermarket - looking at the ingredients, it's pretty much all fermentables in there and not a million miles from what I chucked in my bucket.

 

[fatbloke]

In the end I just left it but threw in a pound of chopped ginger. Funny enough, I noticed they've got Mincemeat on offer atm in the supermarket - looking at the ingredients, it's pretty much all fermentables in there and not a million miles from what I chucked in my bucket.

Well the "proper" crimbo pud recipe does look like a bucket of alkies puke while it's fermenting.

One of the additional things when racking it, is to remove the congealed fat from the puds as well as the fruit and yeast debris.

I like the sound of the ginger though. Equally, I'm thinking that you'll end up making it reasonably sweet to get the best out of it. Ginger especially benefits from sweetness. Plus the sherry/port attributes its likely to have also, are like that......