Blackcurrant jam "sherry"
Ingredients/equipment
4 * 450g jars of Co-op blackcurrant jam = £4
1 * teaspoon of Youngs desert yeast = 20p (a guess)
1 * teaspoon of yeast nutrient = 20p (a guess)
1 * campden tablet to sterilize the initial brew prior to fermentation = 5p (a guess)
A few splashes of cheap, thin, unscented bleach to sterilize all equipment = cost negligible
No sugar required because the amount of sugar in the jam is enough to bring potential ABV to about 14% in a 4.5 litre dilution with water
2 * teaspoons of pectolase to deal with pectin = 20p (a guess)
2 * empty two litre PET bottles = paid for long ago and they were pennies when I got them from Aldi
1 * demijohn, 1 * airlock bung, 1 * solid bung, 1 * airlock, 1 * funnel, some denier tights and 1 * 4 litre measuring jug bought long ago
method
Empty the jars of jam into a large pan. Add a couple of litres of water and bring to a low boil and leave at a low boil for twenty minutes to drive of any preservatives. Then leave to cool
Once cool, add enough water to bring it up to 4.5 litres. Check the potential ABV at this point. In the case of the Co-op blackcurrant jam, this comes to 14%.
Pour into the clean demijohn, add a crushed campden tablet and leave for 24 hours stopped up with the solid bung.
After 24 hours elapsed, add the yeast nutrient, pectolase and yeast and stop up with the airlock bung and airlock and leave to ferment out to fully dry. This should take about a couple of weeks.
Once fermented out, stretch the tights over the funnel and place it in the top of a PET bottle. Siphon contents of the demijohn through this into the both PET bottles. There is no need to worry too much about yeast and sediment in the bottom of the demijohn as the tights will filter this out for the most part. Leave an inch or two at the top of the bottles for freeze expansion (see below for further details). Any wine left over in the demijohn can be put aside in another container and left in the fride to be consumed as ordinary strength wine or for cooking.
Screw the tops on the PET bottles and place them in the freezer for around 3 days until they have gone solid.
After 3 days, take the bottles out, turn them upside down in some containers, such as large pans, and allow 50% of their contents to melt out. Discard the ice left in the bottles.
Bottle up the 2 litres of fortified wine. Which will now be somewhere around 22% to 26% ABV.
Because this has no other ingredients apart from blackcurrants, it does not need to age and can be consumed more or less immediately. But, because of the high ABV, it is extremely stable for long term storage.
Mine never seems to last that long.
Works out at around £2.50 a litre at approximately 25% ABV and tastes grand.
For more of a "wine"/"sherry" flavour, do the following:
Boil a litre of water, pour it over 300g of raisins you have macerated in a blender, throw in 3 teabags and leave overnight. In the morning, squeeze the liquid through a pillow case into a clean bucket and discard the contents of the pillow case. Then add the liquid to the original jam and water mixture to bring it up to 4.5 litres including the addition of further water if required. Then put it in the demijohn and proceed as previously described. This will need to be aged for a bit though for the flavours to combine and taste its best. The final ABV will probs be in the later 20s though because of the sugar in the raisins. Or, you could allow more to melt out at the freeze fractionation stage in order to bring the ABV out lower. You will need to experiment.
![IMG_20200828_102416_693[1].jpg](https://cdn2.imagearchive.com/thehomebrewforum/data/attach/29/29804-IMG-20200828-102416-693-1-.jpg "IMG_20200828_102416_693[1].jpg")
