Turning Work to Wine

[patientheron]

Coffee wine!

I'm a coffee roaster so when I came across a coffee wine recipe in C.J.J. Berry's First Steps I had to give it a go. I actually ended up using Jack Keller's recipe for freshly ground:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request110.asp

Since I didn't have any tannin and simply refuse to combine coffee and tea (flavour conflict!), I added 100g of whole almonds, crushed a little with a rolling pin. I read that almond skin contains tannin so I was hoping to extract some of that while boiling the mixture in the pot. Nibbling on the coffee/almond mixture afterwards was a sure fire way to remove sleep from the agenda.

Anyway, that was last night. This morning I awoke to Mount Vesuvius! Maybe yeast get the same kick out of caffeine we do. So, coffee and almond wine has begun. Updates to follow.

Anyone tried it?

 

[oldbloke]

Not with almonds, no. The oils from the nuts may be a problem, or maybe not.
I used cheap instant as I half expected to be dumping it, but it came out rather well, though not something you'd want a lot of in one go.

 

[patientheron]

I did worry about that actually, and the oils from the coffee. But I came across an almond wine recipe too so I figured it should be alright. Experiment underway!

 

[MadrikXIV]

I have 6 bottles labelled 'Rocket Fuel'.

Made with cheap Sainsbury perculator coffee, muscavado sugar, and vanilla essence.

Most violent ferment I had seen, was cleaning the airlock daily for at least the first week.

It's been bottled for about 2 months I reckon, I started it back in February, I just haven't worked up the nerve to try it, yet...

 

[Rolfster]

Sounds very exciting. :thumb:
Look forward to hearing how you get on.

 

[Crastney]

There was a recent thread about nut wines, and a link to another wine blog, where basically the guy said that most nuts are rubish for making wine as the oil goes rancid before the wine is finished, but he added that almonds and walnuts are the two that are ok to do.

I think he had to chill the wine once fermentation finished to make the oil solidify to remove it, but other than that it seemed ok.

 

[patientheron]

Crastney, I read the same thing recently. I think the blog was from the same guy I took the recipe from. Sounds like I might have to chill this one and maybe try paper filtering afterwards. Starting to feel this could be an experiment with a lot of lessons!

 

[patientheron]

MadrikXIV,

By the looks of today's foam party I'll be following the daily cleaning routine you mentioned. I think there's just so much fine coffee particles in there that it's creating a head that looks like Guinness.

 

[MadrikXIV]

Luckily, I did keep it sat in an old washing bowl, it was hyperactive like 10 cans of red bull hyper.

I did boil it in a pan for about 10-20 minutes, then syphoned it through muslin, funnel, perculator combo then when topping up the demi poured the cold water other the coffee grounds, it is proper pitch black, I will find a reason to try it eventually

 

[chrig]

I made a coffee wine but over did it on the lemon juice. As they were on the little side I think I added 3 to a single DJ. I also kept adding sugar until the yeast gave up. So its a bit sickly sweet and lemony. An Odd combination.

Its one I plan to re-visit with more care. Until then I have a few little bottles of this hidden away to try in a few years.