Carrot Wine recipe

[samnorfolk]

Has anyone ever tried Carrot wine? i was debating on attempting some after my Dad said he remembered trying it and it was really nice....any recipes or thoughts??

 

[Moley]

Yes, frequently :thumb:

Don't overboil the carrots, they should be softening but not squishy, otherwise you could have problems getting it to clear. I would suggest it needs keeping for at least a year though.

 

[oldbloke]

2011-11-27
4lb carrots, scrubbed, sliced, simmered ~30 minutes
Strained onto 3lb sugar, 1Tbsp citric, 1/2lb chopped raisins
Simmered ~20 minutes
Into FV, cooled to 21(ish)
Gervin GV1 yeast, nutrient, 2tsp pectolase
Stir daily ~week
Strain to demi
2012-01-26 Racked. Long way off clear, taste promising
2012-03-23 Racked. Beginning to clear, taste promising but still sweet - plenty of sugar left to ferment
2012-05-20 Finings
2012-05-24 Bottled, with sulphite. Good taste, just a tiny hint of bitterness.
Less sugar next time

Very nice after a bit of aging. Soon as I get these mixed berries out of the demis I'm making the next lot.

 

[samnorfolk]

i get the scrubbing, slicing simmering part then do strain that through muslin into 3lb sugar, Citric Acid and chopped raisins then simmer all of this for 20 mins??
How much water should i use?

 

[oldbloke]

"Enough"
Doesn't matter enormously, I think, you can dilute when it goes into the fermenter. I assume the simmer is just to get the sugars etc out of the raisins.
Biggest pan you have, I suppose.

 

[Mrs Doubtful]

This may be a silly 'newb' question but hey ho, if I don't ask I'll never know...

Can you make this WOW style? Say with juiced carrots or cartons of carrot juice from the shop? If so, would I also need to use WGJ/RGJ? I have a juicer and was thinking it may be easier to use and preserve some of the sweetness if I used it raw rather than cooked. I'm not sure that it would clear as was previously mentioned. I'm lazy and hate too much washing up :lol:

 

[oldbloke]

I don't see why not, but check they don't put anti-oxidants in the juice that'll annoy the yeast.
And I suspect real carrots (esp the horse food ones from the garden centre) will be rather cheaper. It's not exactly hard to make with real carrots.

 

[tonyhibbett]

All sweetness and flavour is extracted through prolonged cooking. The carrots will end up tasteless. But the sweetness will be fermented out if you use only a kilo of sugar. Carrots contain roughly the same amount of sugar as blackberries! At a pinch, you could use washed baby carrots, thus avoiding scrubbing and chopping. A juice extractor requires a fair amount of washing up and even without the raisins, you still need to simmer the juice with the sugar, but don't ask me why. Possibly something to do with driving off the sulphur present in root vegetables. Rather than just citric acid, consider a blend of tartaric, malic and citric acid. If chopping raisins is too much of a chore, you can use Youngs wine enhancer, which is pure grape juice concentrate or a litre of white grape juice. Carrots contain pectin, so add pectolase to the cooled must, to help speed up clearing. Either way, it will take time to mature. Carrot wine used to be called 'whiskey', not because of its alcoholic strength, but due to its somewhat harsh 'kick'!

 

[yellafella]

Hi there

Looking to try this as my next brew and going to use my brown demi john to preserve any flavour for its long journey!!

Could some one please work out what sort of metric quantities I would need to make one gallon? I am intending on using a 1L of white grape juice (large stock in pantry) rather than using raisins.

Is 2kg of Carrots off the mark for one and gallon and if not then how much sugar to add please?

Thanks in advance

 

[oldbloke]

My recipe was a gallon. Let's see...
4lb carrot - bit under 2kg, 2kg would be fine
3lb sugar - a bit under 1.5kg. but I note I wrote "less sugar next time", so try 1.25kg
1/2lb raisins - anything around 200-250g would do, or your grape juice

 

[yellafella]

Thanks for that, went with 1kg of sugar because we like it dry rather than sweet and the carrots do have their own sugar

Bubbling away after only 2 days, lets see how this one turns out!!

 

[oldbloke]

With 1kg it'll be dry and about 11%
I generally go for 1.2 or 1.25kg.
When I wrote "less sugar next time" it was coz it was too strong, not coz it came out sweet - almost any wine yeast will eat enough sugar to get up to around 17%.

 

[yellafella]

LOL just added 250gm of sugar to the demi john and got a rather unexpected volcano effect out of the top of the demi john! Couldnt add it with water because I was just at the neck. Lost some liquid but I am sure it will balance itself out.

Thanks for the info on the extra sugar and please others take note not to put dry sugar in a fermenting vessel. The things you learn while doing homebrew!!

:-)

 

[samnorfolk]

Mines happily slowly bubbling away now in DJ..if it turns out anything like the parsnip wine i made i will be very pleased!!

 

[Dave Ne]

please others take note not to put dry sugar in a fermenting vessel. The things you learn while doing homebrew!!

The same happens with sugar syrup, its always a good plan to leave enough head space at the start and then top
with water a week or so later, cheers Dave