Carrot Wine & Banana Wine

I just whipped up a couple batches o' wine, so I feel good about the weekend so far. Unfortunately, I won't be able to drink the wine for at least six months or so, and I should probably wait closer to a year for it to be truly right. But man, six months to a year from now is going to taste delicious.

Here are the recipes, and a few pictures of the process.

The recipes, by the way, are adapted from various recipes I found around the internet.



Banana Wine

Ingredients:

4 lbs chopped bananas (chopped in the peel)
1/2 lb. chopped raisins
3 lbs white sugar
1 lemon (the juice of)
1 clementine (the juice of, which wasn't much)
1/2 cup of mango lemonade (because there wasn't much juice in the clementine)
1 gallon water
1 packet Lalvin D47 yeast
Yeast nutrient
1 gallon water






1. Boil bananas in a grain bag in the gallon of water. Once the water begins to boil, drop the temperature down and simmer it for a half hour.

2. Pour the "liquor" (that's what they call it, it seems) over the sugar and the juice in your primary fermenter (this can be a food grade bucket or something similar, nothing metal or non-food grade).

3. Squeeze the grain bag to get all the juices out of it.

4. When the liquid reaches 70 degrees (you can just wait until the next morning if you like), add the yeast and nutrient.

5. Leave fermenter covered for 7-10 days, stirring every day or so.

6. Transfer to another vessel, such as a glass apple juice jar. Put an airlock on it (you can find these at a brewing store, you'll need the cork that comes with it too) and leave it for a while, like four months or so.

7. Rack the wine (this means you siphon it into another container and leave behind sediment)

8. Allow to clear, another two months or so.

9. Bottle, let age until you can't stand it anymore.


Carrot Wine Recipe:

4 lbs. carrots, shredded and boiled with 1 gallon of water.



Boil, then simmer for 35 minutes.



Add to the primary fermenter, pouring over top of:

2.5 lbs. white sugar
1.5 lbs. light brown sugar

Stir, then add :

Handful of chopped raisins
1 lemon, peeled and chopped
3 clementines, peeled and chopped
Approx 1 to 1.5 pounds of barley
1 crushed campden tablet

Stir. Cover with a towel. When the liquid reaches 70 degrees (or the next morning), add Lalvin D47 yeast and yeast nutrient.

Cover with a towel and leave for 7-10 days, stirring every day, then strain and move to another container (like a glass apple juice container, for instance) with an airlock. Like above, leave for four months or so, then rack and leave a couple months to clear, then bottle and leave another six months or so.

Enjoy!