beetroot-wine-recipe

Recommended Equipment

Makes 4.5 litre (one gallon) Makes 10 litres (2.2 gallons)
10 litre plastic bucket with lid 10 litre plastic bucket with lid
5 litre plastic (or 5 litre Glass Demi John) 10 litre plastic bucket and lid drilled
Bung and Airlock for container Bung and Airlock for container
Small Fine Nylon straining bag Small Fine Nylon Straining Bag
Siphon and U Tube Siphon and U Tube
Hydrometer with trail case Hydrometer with trial case
Thermometer Thermometer
Funnel Funnel
Steriliser Steriliser
One Litre plastic food grade jug One Litre Plastic food grade jug
5 x 1Litre Plastic PET Bottles 10 x 1 Litre Plastic PET Bottles
 

Ingredients for both sizes

Camden Tablets Country Wine Yeast 400gms of White Grape Concentrate 1.3 Kilo of Brown Sugar Yeast Nutrient Tannin Citric Acid Finings Potassium Sorbate Ginger one chunk Cloves 6 to 12 depending on your preference For 10 litre just double up the volumes. 2 Kilos of Fresh Beetroot. These should be freshly dug (make sure we don’t have any soil). Cleaned thoroughly top and tail then cut in small pieces and boil in a pan of water (3.7 litres you can do it in two pans if you don’t have one large enough) with the Ginger (smash with a rolling pin) Cloves and simmer for about 20 mins. The Beetroot should be tender (but not mushy) and leave them to cool in the water (20 to25C). At this point feel free to add anything that you might think might enhance the wine and give it more flavour. The sort of things is Bananas Raisins Sultans Cranberries Blueberries. If they are hard adding at the time of boiling water if soft they can go in now.

Making Instructions (Recipe)

Make sure all the equipment that comes into contact with the wine is Sterilised before starting. Discard the Beetroot, Ginger and Clove (make some soup out these rather than waste them) and put the water (temperature should be between 20-25C) in the plastic bucket. Add the Grape Juice, 650gms of Sugar, 50gms (4 teaspoon) of Citric Acid, Tannin (a teaspoon) Yeast Nutrient and Yeast. There should be space below the neck on the Demi John so we can add the extra sugar later. Fit the airlock half filled with clean water. Leave to ferment for 5 days. Temperature should be 20-25C. After the 5 days add the remaining 650gms of sugar. If there isn’t enough room remove a little of the liquid. Leave again until fermentation is complete (depending on the temperature as to how long). This will normally be when the airlock has stopped bubbling but always use your hydrometer to make sure. It’s should be around 1.010 or less on the scale and will show the same reading for a few days. Siphon the wine off the sediment back into the sterilised bucket leaving the sediment behind. Clean out the demi john and then pour the wine back into it from the bucket. Add a campden tablet (one per 5 litres) and a teaspoon of potassium sorbate (per 5 litres). Stir or shake well. We need to get rid of the carbon dioxide in the wine before adding the finings. Once done add the finings. Leave in a cool place to clear. When clear you can then bottle your wine. See our guide on bottling. Beetroot Wine can be quite sweet so if you do want to add further sugar to the wine do this before bottling. It is best served as a medium sweet style wine. Really needs one year to mature.

General Guidelines for Fruit Wines

Always try to make sure the fruit is clean and bug free Make sure all the equipment that comes into contact with the wine at any stage of the process is clean and sterilised. Use a hydrometer and thermometer at all times Check out the Guides on the web site. Make sure when shaking a Demi John made of glass that you always release the pressure between shaking. Glass Demi Johns can build up a lot of pressure and can crack or split if this is not done. When bottling the wine see the Love Brewing videos on “Cleaning Bottling Corking and Storage”.