Crab Apple Wine Recipe

[adapted from Andy Hamilton's Booze for Free (Eden Project Books, 2011)]

Ingredients

• 5 lbs (2.5kg) crab apples
• 1 lb (500g) raisins
• 3 lbs (1.5kg sugar
• 1 tsp citric acid*
• 7 pts (4 litres) water
• 1 tsp pectolase*
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient*
• 1 Campden tablet (if using)*
• 1 sachet (5g) champagne yeast*

*available from homebrew suppliers

Method

It is difficult to say how a crab apple wine will turn out, as there are so many different varieties of crab apple, all with different flavours and colours. However, most crab apples will create a palatable, fairly dry white wine.

• Wash the crab apples, remove the stalks, then crush the fruit and place in your fermentation bin.
• Top up the bin with 5 pints (3 litres) of cold water and add pectolase, citric acid, and Campden tablet if using. Leave loosely covered for 24 hours.
• Boil 2 pints (1 litre) of water and dissolve the sugar in it. Add this, the raisins, yeast nutrient and yeast to your fermentation bin, and leave for 1 week to ferment.
• Rack at least once (i.e. siphon the wine from one container to another, leaving behind the sediment) and leave the wine to finish its secondary fermentation before bottling (this will take one to two weeks, or possibly longer, depending on the individual wine).
• This wine will benefit from being aged in the bottle for at least six months.