Just to close up our gardening season I thought I would share a few pictures of our Apple Wine and Apple Juice preserves. To start it off; It took 5 hours with 6 people over a two day period (two locations)
to gather the Apples. Two hours at the local press. (right down the road, thank God) About two hours filling the kegs. and 5 hours mixing in the yeast and sweetener. All together 1800 liters Applewine, and 50 liters sweet applejuice heated and bagged. wich took a good 4 hours too.
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Thanks for the info Jak. Yes we do get exposed to a large number of chemicals. Well 2 years ago, the medical community analyzed umbilical cord of babies and found 200 different chemical. That is good that the containers do not smell. A lot of people around the world uses food grade plastic containers to store rain water.
Hello Rosemary
We always talk about trying out some winter apples for wine but never got around to it. We would have to press them ourselves and it is a bit more work, but who knows maybe someday.:-) And as far as the plastic containers, well, I guess there could be some release, but they are in a cool temperature and never see daylight. (well, once a year to clean them but that's it) I can't imagine that it is more than I am exposed to through other daily packaging that we are pretty much forced to buy. Even when bought new the containers have a very neutral smell not of plastic at all.
I am wondering if you make Ice Wine with your apples. I am not sure what is your agriculture zone. It is a apple wine that is made from apple left on trees and exposed to the cold of winter. It is a sweet wine because the apples dehydrated during the winter. The apple are harvested after New Year, but before the spring thaw. The Ice Wine bottle are small and pricy. It is a good dessert wine. We do the same with grapes.
I do not get headache from drinking wine, but because I drink so rarely, I get tipsy rather fast.
Quick question Jacks I notice from the picture that your containers are in food grade plastic. Are there any health hazard from them?
Sorry Cheryl, Yes. But it is not a preservative it is to keep the wine from starting to ferment again on its own. You have to kill the yeast cells still alive. Too much can give you a headache. We add as little sorbate needed to kill the yeast. too much can also be tasted when drinking, and it does not taste good ;.( We put as little as possible in, and we always keep our eyes on the air sealed closed kegs. If they start to expand or start dripping from the spout, then we add a bit more. But yes, after the initial fermentation we ad sorbates and top off the keg and close it air tight so that no air is left in the keg. This helps to restrict the yeast to start up again..
Sorry, kind of a short time to explain everything.
I've never made apple juice, cider or wine, but I have dehydrated apple slices and made applesauce from my one apple tree.
Wine without headache? Cool! I don't drink alcohol because of headaches. I always thought it was the preservative put into it.
Hello Cheryl
Thanks :-)
It is actually Apple cider. When I was growing up my uncle made some (In Michigan) but I believe it was called "Apple Jack"
Much sweeter, and being sweeter it also has the side effect giving headaches. We make ours so that the acidity is between 7-7.5% and the Oechsle is about 65. This gives us a great wine tasting wine that doesn't give you a headache even if you drink a bit too much :-) Instead of sugar we have used honey in the past and mixed and tested untill we found the right amount to mix, and did this for two years and loved the outcome but it was labor intensive mixing everything together, so we switched to "Bee food" A pure liquid sugar in liquid form used to feed bees in the winter months. This works perfect. The wine made with honey was actually our favorite but Grandpa has cut back on the hives and we needed quite a bit (ca. 30ltrs) wich puts a dent in the honey supply.
I guess the picture may look a little out of bound because of the amount and all but if there are no apples next year we could possibly get through it for anothe year (More than likely not a whole year) Preserved right it can last a good few years.
I just got finished slicing apples and hanging them up to dehydrate before I came online. Rather simple and a very tasty snack. Ever do it?
Wow! That's a lot of apple wine. Thanks for sharing. Do you make apple cider?