Sassy Homemade Wine – Apple Wine from Fresh Apples

Making Apple Wine from fresh apples can be labor-intensive, but the end result has been more than rewarding.  Since Mother Nature messed with the production of apples on our apple tree this year, and my 5-on-1 apple tree is too young yet to produce very many apples, I was in a bit of a conundrum about how I was going to make this year’s apple wine with little or no apples.  So I bought Granny Smith apples.

I read that ‘tart’ apples make the best wine.  I decided I would start off with 20 pounds of apple and see how many gallons of wine that would convert to.  4 gallons is the final tally.Here’s the recipe I use as a ‘base’, then modify as I see fit throughout the process.  This recipe makes one gallon of apple wine:

1. Place fruit in primary fermentor. Pour boiling water over it, add the remaining ingredients except the yeast, stirring thoroughly until the sugar is dissolved. Let sit overnight (24 hours).
2. 24 hours later sprinkle the yeast packet over the top of the contents in the bucket (aka the ‘must’), but don’t stir yet. Wait until the next day to stir thoroughly – stir daily for 5 to 6 days or until frothing ceases. Strain out fruit and squeeze as much juice out of it as you can. Siphon into secondary fermentor and attach airlock.
3. For a dry wine, rack in three weeks, and every three months for one year. Bottle.
4. For a sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup wine. Stir gently, and place back into secondary fermentor. Repeat process every six weeks until fermentation does not restart with the addition of sugar. Rack every three months until one year old. Bottle.
5. If wine is not clear, or still has quite a bit of sediment forming between rackings, Fine the wine as follows.
6. Use wine finings or plain gelatin. Gelatin: use 1 teaspoon per 6 gallons of wine. Finings: 1/2 teaspoon per 5 gallons or as per package directions. Soak in 1/2 cup cold water for 1/2 hour. Bring to a boil to dissolve. Cool. Stir into wine. Let sit 10 to 14 days. Rack. If not clear enough yet, repeat process. DO NOT increase amount of gelatin or finings. The mixture will stay suspended in the wine, preventing it from ever clearing. Bottle once wine is clear.

The wine is best if you can refrain from drinking it for one full year from the date it was started.

Note: Make sure all the fermentation has stopped, or you’ll end up with corks that will randomly pop out of the bottles, making you think there’s something strange going on in your basement like I did. I ended up transferring that wine into champagne bottles, but have to say, the sparkling apple wine turned out to be the best batch yet!

Here we go… I washed all the apples and got ready to chop them up:

See that slicer/corer thingy?  Lifesaver!  While some recipes I’ve found say just to chop up the apples and not worry about the core, I like to make sure the core – and the seeds – are not in any of the fermenting process at all. 

Why?  Because you don’t eat the core or the seeds, do you?  And if you’ve ever accidentally bitten into the core of an apple, it’s bitter.  I don’t want my wine to end up with any bitter tastes, not even a little bit.

The slicer/corer eliminates the core in one step:

Then I can just chop them with the knife into similar-sized chunks:

I kept track of how many cups of apples were going into the sanitized bucket:

Helpful hint:  When pushing the apple slices through the apple slicer/corer thingy, be careful, because those little blades are sharp.  You might find yourself with a nice cut on your thumb that will need to be bandaged with Hello Kitty, as per Princess Nagger instructions:

Turns out that a five-pound bag of apples is equal to 32 cups of chopped apples.  Which means with the four bags of apples, I’ll get 4 gallons of wine (a bit less during the racking process, since we’ll lose some of the liquid when leaving sediment behind). 

Here we have 64 cups of chopped apples ready for the boiling water:

Live and learn.  An 8-gallon bucket will hold exactly to the brim 64 cups of chopped apples and 4 gallons of boiled water.  No room for the initial fermentation, so if you want to avoid a nasty mess, you’re going to need to think bigger. 

I was hunting down 8-gallon buckets last week and came up empty, so I found the next best thing at Lowe’s – a $5.00 10-gallon handle tub.  I sanitized it and it’s ready to go:

Much better:

Now there’s room for it to expand while it ferments.  I’ll be stirring this several times a day for the next 5-6 days to get the most out of the fermentation, as well as make sure the apple chunks release every last drop of their juice for the wine.

Of course it needs to be covered during this stage, but not air tight, so I covered it with a sanitized  dish towel:

I wanted to make sure the towel stays in place, so I needed to secure it somehow.  Since I don’t have any clothespins, I opted for paper clips instead:

Works like a charm!

Around midday today I’ll be adding the next important ingredients (updated to note that all of the ingredients pictured need to be added to the apples/water at the beginning, except the yeast – otherwise, your fermentation may not start):

Saturday or Sunday I’ll be straining the juice out of the fruit and transferring all the liquid into a carboy.  I picked up some fresh apple cider to ‘top off’ what I will need to top off after it’s all said and done to see if I can ultimately have the 5-gallon batch I want to have.

I just need to make sure the “less than .1% of potassium sorbate and or sodium benzoate to maintain freshness” won’t compromise the secondary fermentation if I add the cider to it – because those are ingredients you add to stop fermentation.  But I think since it’s less than .1% it should be safe.  We’ll see!  Next week you’ll get to see the next steps in the process.

Edited to add: The ‘less than .1% potassium sorbate’ didn’t stop fermentation at all – so no worries when you use that cider to top up.

This newest batch of Apple Wine is going to be fun for some experimenting I want to do.  I found a vague ‘Apple Pie Wine’ recipe online that I’m wanting to try – sounds delicious!  I’ll make one or two gallons of this batch into the Apple Pie Wine, and if the Spiced Apple Wine I’m currently making with last year’s apple harvest turns out excellent, I’ll do at least a gallon of that and the remainder will be the straight-up Apple Wine that has been turning out scrumptious.

Meanwhile, the Spanish Tempranillo is coming along nicely, as is the Wild Blueberry Blush.  I also discovered another wine kit that I had purchased in the Spring,  stashed in the basement and promptly forgot about it.  So I have another wine kit to start:

Bourgeron Blanc is also known as ‘White Burgundy’ – I’m curious to see how it turns out.  The description of it reads:

“A fantastic blend which compares in flavor profile to the great white wines of France’s Burgundy region.  Made from a select choice of California premium grapes, this is full-bodied wine with a robust flavor, accentuated by an aroma of fresh ripe peaches and apricots.”

In addition to that wine kit, I have another one that I just ordered (it arrived Friday):

I enjoy a good Shiraz, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this White Shiraz turns out.   Its description is:

“Complex layers of honeysuckle, strawberry, apricot, and tropical fruit. Smooth and round with notable strawberry flavor and a suggestion of tropical fruit. Serve lightly chilled as an aperitif or with light foods.”

I also started another double-batch of Kahlua on Sunday, which will be ready to bottle on Wednesday, and I picked up some Syrah wine to make wine jelly out of later in the week when the jelly jars I ordered arrive.  Grand Pooba is also starting the season off early – she ordered some of the Chocolate Covered Kahlua Cherries so I’ll be making a batch of those today, too.  It’s going to be a busy week for sure!