First ever Rosé wine

[Benfleet Brewery]

Having taken some inspiration from this forum I started the process to make Wine for the first time yesterday.
I followed a recipe on CML website for an Easy Rosé but replaced the suggested blueberry juice (which seems to be about as accessible as Rocking Horse s**t) with apple juice.

Very basic equipment. 5 L spring water plastic bottle as a demijohn, cling film and elastic band as an airlock. Now in a free brew fridge at 20 degrees. Fingers crossed.

Ingredients
1 litre of Apple juice
2 litres of Red Grape Juice
700g of sugar
Juice of one Lemon
5g of Crossmyloof Rosé Yeast and Nutrient
1/4 Tsp of Epsom Salts
1/2 Tsp Pectalase
Water to 4.5 litres

 

[The Baron]

Depending on the type of Rose you want a light one or if you want a slightly deeper meatier Rose use virtually all red grape juice as it does not really make a Red wine but a cross between Red and Rose.
I think many brewers have tried to make a true Red with red grape juice and it never hits the mark

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

Depending on the type of Rose you want a light one or if you want a slightly deeper meatier Rose use virtually all red grape juice as it does not really make a Red wine but a cross between Red and Rose.
I think many brewers have tried to make a true Red with red grape juice and it never hits the mark

Im not a lover of Red Wine. I prefer White Wine but White Grape Juice seems to be well into the Bluberry juice and RH s**t category in terms of availability. I’m hoping for something crisp and fruity

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Why do they use epsom salts?


This was my go to Rosé wine from the thread below -

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...ne-how-to-guide-and-recipes.49462/post-456519


Rosé wine

1 litre Red grape juice.

1.5 litre Apple Juice.

750g Sugar.

1 tsp Tannin or a mug of very strong black tea. (3 bags stirred every couple of minutes as you put the rest of the ingredients together)

1 tsp Yeast (i use youngs super wine yeast compound)

1 tsp Yeast Nutrient.

1 tsp Pectolase.

1 tsp Glycerine. (optional)

1 tsp citric acid or juice of one lemon. (optional)

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

I wondered that too so I Googled it first. It appears 1/2 teaspoon Epsom Salt in 5L acts as a yeast nutrient.
Is the recipe you posted for 4.5L? If so, is the rest made up with water?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Yes its 4.5 litres and you top up with water.

Have a look at the two videos in post #1 in the thread above, many members started to use 2.5 - 3 litres of juice to give it a bit more taste, never use 4.5 litres of juice its way too much.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

After over two weeks in the fermenter and the effervescent effect having stopped 3-4 days ago I racked my Rose into a different 5l bottle today to condition. The CML instructions say to store in a cool place. Mine is in a brew fridge so I can be more specific but don’t know what the ideal cool temp is. What should I set it at?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If i remember correctly the lower temperature is to speed up clearing so i guess its not that important, i leave all mine in the kitchen all year round and to be honest i don't think it makes that much difference how cold it is.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

Ok, thank you. I cold crash beer to clear it at 1 degree but thought that might be extreme. Not what I would describe as “a cool place”. it’s sitting in my brew fridge at 12 degrees so I think I’ll leave it like that for now.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

it’s sitting in my brew fridge at 12 degrees so I think I’ll leave it like that for now.

Sounds good and it'll save you some leccy

My kitchen is 18c and my wine is clearing well.

 

[user 44889]

Normally clear mine in my shed which sits at about 10C to 16C. Recon 12C would be perfect. Hope you enjoy your first Wine.. nice one.

 

[New_to_Brew]

I'm doing my first Rose too, how will you carbonate yours? I don't know if it's the same as beer and was wondering what the process might be or how much priming sugar

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

I don’t like fizzy wine so I didn’t carbonate it. Quite the opposite in fact. I spent a lot of time and effort degassing it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I'm doing my first Rose too, how will you carbonate yours? I don't know if it's the same as beer and was wondering what the process might be or how much priming sugar

As Benfleet says most of us degas our wines to get rid of the CO2 as we don't want it fizzy if you are going to make fizzy wine you are going to have to look at getting bottles that will take pressure and a means of capping them.

 

[user 44889]

You'll need Champagne bottles and you can either use plastic Champagne corks with wire or you can cap... need the bigger size caps plus the larger capping head for your machine. You might be able to use plastic bottles but they must be ok for pressure... you don't want bottle bombs. I used Champagne bottles and plastic corked

I'm doing my first Rose too, how will you carbonate yours? I don't know if it's the same as beer and was wondering what the process might be or how much priming sugar

Do not add Campden tablet or stabilizer to fermented out wine. You'll need to either batch prime or bottle prime with fermentable sugar. Sorry can't remember amounts per bottle or batch. I didn't prime mine with enough and was a total failure... i bottle primed with drops... came out dead flat lol.
Hope this helps a bit and hope all goes well.

 

[user 44889]

Just gone through my notes on that Rose' wine and it fermented out to 14.67% ABV so think that was my problem.... the yeast was Dead lol. ( Gervin G6 )
Added 10g sugar per Champagne bottle,

 

[Robin54]

This time of year is great for picking up discount raspberries from the super markets. I just got a shed load and started off a wine brew
for the first time in over 40 years. Also used a 10 litre water bottle as the brewing vessel - couldn't be simpler.