rosehip wine

[percival]

Requested by Barrington

This is more or less straight from Berry's book ; first steps in winemaking.
He describes it as being medium, so you may find it sweet.

Per gallon

1 kg fresh rosehips
1 teaspoon citric acid
1.5 kg sugar
yeast, nutrient and pectic enzyme

washed and zapped the rosehips in a blender type machine which is like an uber powerful coffee grinder. Took a few seconds only for each batch. You may want to be more gentle with them and just crush them or chop them in half. i made 3 gallons and didnt have the patience ;-)

boil up your water and sugar with citric acid
when all dissolved pour over the rosehips in your fermenting bin.

when its cool enough add the yeast, nutrient and enzyme.
cover and stir daily for 2 weeks, did mine for 12 days
Then rack through a sieve (i siphoned it, took a while cos the seeds kept clogging the line).

At this stage i split the wine into 3 demijohns. In one i added a single star anise flower. to another a half cinammon quill and in another a single mace flower. At the next racking, about 2 weeks later, the flavour of each of those apart from the cinnamon, was noticeable but not overpowering. nice. The cinnamon flavour didn't come through tho. I took the spices out and added campden.

It's still in demijohns now. Got a slight haze, probably from the rough treatment i gave the rosehips. Should be ready to drink in a couple of months whether it clears or not. i may try something to clear it, perhaps finings, but i'm not too fussed about a haze thb, it'll look clear in a bottle Will be better with a bit more time.

 

[percival]

Racked today

The real result so far is the one with star anise in it. Really compliments the other flavours in there and the anise flavour itself is great stuff - definately one to repeat in the autumn/winter. Mace version is pleasant enough for a repeat, cinnamon version hasn't taken on any spice flavour that i can taste, if i do this again then i'll at least double up on the cinnamon.

Would pass as clear, but next to the sake stylee brew and the tanglefoot you can see a very slight haziness. All round its medium, a bit fruity and has body but i can't find the words to describe it so you'll have to tune in again when we crack open the first bottle, could be anytime soonish (1-2 months).

 

[falafael]

where did u get fresh rosehips from in january?, and am keeping an eye on this one, as it appears to be an easy one to make as well!!

Let us know what the final taste is like!!
:

 

[percival]

Got the rosehips late oct/early nov, but didn't post a brewday at the time. Sometime in January a new member requested the recipe after seeing it in my signature, don't think he ever came back tho!

Rosehip wine is a nice one, partly for the wander about as we head into winter, partly cos its one of those that's not far off being a freebie wine, and also because it tastes good and has a nice base for adding layers of flavour. There's plenty of vitamin C in rosehips too, not sure how much (or little!) of it is still present when it comes to drinking time tho.

It is an easy one to make, my experience doing this batch is that you can use a food processor instead of crushing or chopping by hand, which makes it very much easier. BUT i was careful not to blend the rosehips to a pulp.

 

[pahodgson]

Went and picked my rosehips, crushed (carefully) and followed Berry's recipe - it only fermented for about 4 days and now seems stuck!! I took an OG and it was only 1005 - that's not correct is it!!? Anyway, in an attempt to get it going again, I made up another yeast started and added sugar until I got a reading of 1070, but its still not going!! what am I doing wrong?? I'm no expert wine maker, although my WOW is lovely even though I say so myself, experimented with lots of different juices, welch's white grape, pear and apple is my favourite so far, anyway, I digress, any suggestions (other than pouring it away) would be gratefully received!

 

[Moley]

Briefly, CJJB's recipe is 2 lbs rosehips, 3 lbs sugar, 1 tsp citric and 1 gallon of water, fermented in the bucket for 2 weeks then strained to DJ.

This would give you more than enough to fill a DJ, so you keep the excess in a side bottle to use for topping up after racking.

So if you followed that recipe you would have 3 lbs of sugar in 9.5 pints of must. I make that 1360g in 5.43 litres or 250g in the litre which would give you an OG of 1.090

It fermented for 4 days and you measured an SG of 1.005 - an 85 point drop in 5 days is quite possible, meaning you had already got 11.5% alcohol. It hadn't stuck, it had slowed down because fermentation had nearly finished.

You then increased that to 1.070 (up 65 points) and without bothering with the complex maths let us say that gives you a net OG of 1.155

If the new yeasties can stand the shock and take an interest you're gong to end up with something very strong and probably still very sweet.

Leave it alone for another 10 days then strain as instructed.