This is all very exciting, as I just tapped 15 sweet birches today for my first tree tapping venture ever! Thanks.

I understand your reason now, for the l gal. trials…Have you ever used Gelatine to settle out your wines….? It worked well for my batch. I bottled 26…after 6 months of sitting and transfers. Very clear…and I think better than the TANSI, that they have just started marketing around the world from Barkers Narrows Manitoba Canada….Get a bottle, and try it…It is very similiar to my stuff…..
This was my first go…and next year I will be going after rubbard..we have plenty in the garden…we also have plenty of dandilion in the spring…I am glad you saw past my sense of humour…thks.

I have opened a bottle this last Sat..night. It was the last bottle that I filled from the bottom of the carboy…I racked 4 times….man is this some good wine..

If you go to my hot mail address, I have posted a bottle there..for viewing…kentuckyfriedduckguy@hotmail.com

take care, please ignore the sp. errors.

Jim.

For the tomato wine I started with this recipe from Jack Keller.

I used 4 lbs of fresh tomatoes from my garden, a mix of heirloom varieties, some red ripe, while some still green. I cut the tomatoes into chunks, removed the stems but left the skins and seeds. Since I was not going to do a hard boil of the tomatoes I had to kill any wild yeast or bacteria with crushed Campden tablets. I then simmered for 30 minutes to help extract more juice (not sure if this is necessary), cooled and pitched the yeast. I used Lalvin EC-1118 (Champagne) for its neutral flavor contribution and temperature tolerance.

Even though I did not boil, it still developed a haze, but this precipitated out after adding finings (isinglass).

This was another 1 gallon experimental batch. O.G. was 1.082 and final gravity was 0.992, for predicted ABV=11.8%, which was close to my target of 12%.

In any case, I’m convinced that you can make wine of almost any fruit or vegetable. It just needs to have reasonable sugar content. All the recipies are basically the same, adding enough fruit / table sugar to make a target gravity of 1.085 or so and then fermenting with a flavor-neutral yeast. Depending on how acidic the fruit is you may need to add some acid blend. The only batch that ever totally failed on me was an herbal blend that just would not ferment. It ended up that one of the herbs had a natural antiseptic quality that was holding the yeast back.

An excellent book I think is Terry Garey’s “The Joy of Home Winemaking” which deals almost entirely with fruit and herbal wines.

So how does your birch wine taste so far? Have you made any other kinds? If you are up North, another book to consider is “The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible” by Leon Kania. There is some good coverage there of wines based on local ingredients.

Can I ask how many times you have transfered the 1.5. gal so far. With the birch you boiled down to. Can I ask if you started with 6 gallons of tomatoe juice or stock and boiled down the “liquid”
to 1.5 gals to recover the “sugar” content to make your tomatoe wine?

How did your tomatoe wine turn out.? How many lbs did you use? or did you tap each tomatoe with a spigot and drain into a container? How much tomatoe juice did you recover, or did you use the tomatoe itself, squashed it? or did you use tomatoe right from the can at the market?

Serously, now…how did you do the tomatoe wine? Where did you get the idea to use birch sap as a wine. Where did you get the birch receipt.?
Jim.

I’m aiming for a sweet, desert wine style in the end. So I want the stronger flavor. I haven’t bottled yet, but when I get around to it, I’ll first stabilize with potassium sorbate and sweeten to taste.

I’ve never done a birch wine before, so I’m not sure how this will balance out. But the way you’re doing it sounds reasonable as well. You’ll probably end up with a drier, more subtle wine.

Can I ask why you wouldn’t just add natural sugar, say sugar cane, and salvage the whole 5 gallons for the sap wine.? I did exactly as you have done…except for boiling off 4 gallons of sap…help me understand why you went that direction.
Jim.

I boiled 5 gallons down to 1.5 gallons. This was based on my original refractometer measurements that showed that the raw sap was only 1.5% sugar.

The risk of course is that I’ve boiled off most of the aromatic compounds. We’ll see.

-Rob

As for delayed gratification, that is part of it. The other big part is sanitation. I’m dealing with gallons of what to microbes must looks like ideal breeding grounds: warm sugar water. So keeping everything sterile until I introduce the desired yeast strain, ensuring that I get wine, and not vinegar or worse.

(Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about wine.)

Richard Chapman