Recipe: Apple Wine
How to make apple wine. Apples make a lovely table wine.Like most country wines the basic recipes are simple. With Apples the hardest part of the process is the pulping and pressing of the apples. The most rewarding option is to use fresh fruit when in season. However, you can make apple wine year round by using cider kits and using a wine yeast instead of the supplied cider yeast. Avoid using pure apple juice, as eating apples, which are primarily used for making apple juice, do not make the best wine. Cider apples are ideal, cooking apples a close second and using crab apples for upto 10% of your apple mix will make a significant improvement. Many advocate using as great a mix of apples as possible.
This recipe makes one gallon (4.5 L).
Equipment Required
- 1 gallon starter kit
- 22 litre bucket and lid with no hole
- Trial Jar
- Pippette
- Straining bag
- Glass Bottles
- Wine corks (Depending on bottles being used)
Recipe for Apple Wine
Ingredients
- 10 kg of mixed apples
- 1.3 kg Brewing Sugar
- 4.5 litres Water
- 1/2 tsp. pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
- 1 sachet of Gervin GV5 White fruit wine yeast.
- Chop or crush the apples in to small pieces.
- Place apples in sterile food grade bucket.
- Add the water, pectic enzyme and yeast.
- Leave in a warm place for about a week stirring vigorously, from the bottom at least twice a day. (This system breaks all the accepted rules of not sterilising the fruit. However, we have never known the recipe to fail.)
- Strain the juice from the pulp and press the pulp.
- Add the juice from the pulp to the must.
- Add the sugar
- Transfer to fermentation vessel and continue fermentation.
- When cleared and fermentation complete, remove the wine from the sediment (rack off).
- Add a crushed campden tablet and a measure of potassium sorbate. Stir well and leave for 24 hrs before maturing for 6 months. For best results mature in oak cask. Otherwise mature in glass bottles.
