Tag Archives: blackberry

Hobbit homebrew

Bottling that Blackberry wine

It does feel a very long time sine I posted anything that was plot and allotment related. Well, I am today.  Kind of, at least, as the blackberry wine that was made last year was finally put into bottles. For just over a year, two demi-johns have sat on the side in something of a silent slumber; a very cold, silent slumber.

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This was the largest batch of wine that I had cooked up, so having two demi-johns I had to make sure that I had enough bottles to put it all into. I even had parental supervision doing it; it does help that I am well over the age of being able to drink the stuff-well over! And it didn’t taste so bad, even if I do say so myself.

It is potent; that, for some daft reason, is the reputation that Blackberry wine has. A wine that is heady, potent, flavoursome; it has welly, oomph and all whole range of orchestral movement within it. There as also a second batch; this batch was from this summer and alongside Plum wine, was ready to be racked off into the next phase of demi-johns.

This second batch of blackberry wine, is in it’s current phase, rather sweet and fruity. The plum wine-a new one on me-is not bad either, and does rather carry the sweet and tart, fleshy flavour that the fruits had on harvest. I know that the blackberry wine can be stowed for a while, that it develops over tome. The plum wine might be returned to the stage a lot sooner, it doesn’t come across as a wine that has to be matured for aeons. It does rather taste like the raspberry sauce you might find in a sundae.

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I have actually ran out of small bottles, and there are two further experiments yet to be bottled. There is the summer wine made from strawberries and rhubarb as well as the very experimental Apple wine that are currently loitering with intent. It will most likely be Spring before I consider doing anything with these and wiping the slate clean for any future experiments.

As for plot adventures.

We are now in festive season, Advent has reached its halfway point. The plan is, that at some point during The Twelve Days of Christmas I will sow chilli seeds. I have pellets, will rummage and root in the shed for the heated propogator before trying to decide what seeds to sow. I still haven’t fixed the poly tunnel, so the will need to probably house any plants in Mum’s poly during the summer. It does all feel a rather long, long, way down the line, but we shall.

For the moment, enjoy the rest of your weekend and Slainte!

Hobbit homebrew

Chateau Petal…or Petal Plonk…#gdnbloggers

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Yeah, Petal Plonk doesn’t sound that good, now does it?

There are strawberries in that pic somewhere
We now need to rack and bottle
Blackberry and mixed berry
Blackberry, plum and currant

 

Not every thing on the allotment ends up being cooked. There is after all, more than one way to preserve something that has been sow and grown for the future.

2016 involved Petal and I carrying out a number of home brew experiments. Whilst there was a lighter than expected vegetable yield, there was quite a bit of soft fruit. Quite a few blackberries were harvested, and there was something of a bumper crop of currants. We also had a fair few strawberries; which since I don’t really like that much were going into ice cream, be used to make wine or be given away. I decided to go with the home brew by way of experiment.

Strawberry wine was the first of the home brew endeavours; the batch where I learned and saw what the fuss was all about. Al the subsequent batches were about replication and seeing if the straight forward recipe given to be my the fabulous Sister Sparrow could be replicated and to what effect. Problem is, I had little patience during this year; a great many things were done in a rush and probably not thought through. In relation to the home brew-strawberries in particular-I may have racked and bottled a little early. Though I have heard whispers of it being best drunk and consumed whilst young.

With the racking, especially the early stages, I learned to be firm with the must. Not let it all through, basically. Okay so the the odd blackberry or raspberry might plop through, but to generally let all the liquid pass through. With the bulkiness of the must now removed, that leaves the likelihood of sediment passing through, that’s the super fine stuff that even a muslin will let through. It is repeated racking and uber filtration that will overcome that. However, I am not aiming to supply the world’s someliers or open a vintners; I can deal with the sediment, with the wine being drunk from the top. Just don’t shake it all too much!

Today was about racking and bottling; it was the two batches of blackberry that would be dealt with today, leaving a demi-john of rhubarb and gooseberry waiting in the wings. The one batch, was from August 2016 and contained blackberries, plum and currants. This was to be bottled. You can see it above; it is a little cloud-that sediment-but hopefully should settle down. The strawberry wine did-the one in the glass-and it didn’t taste too bad either. Drinking it, was alot like eating a Sara Lee strawberry cheese cake with biscuit base. I kid you not, it was the biscuit base taste that got me. Any way, the batch is now bottled, will be labelled and stowed for future consumption. To keep the colour, I will probably wrap the bottles in brown paper. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of bottles, actually; I was only expecting six 500-ml bottles to be filled. I must think of an interesting name to put on the bottles in the same vein that all the preserves have names. Answers on a postcard, eh?

The other batch, was very very recent; blackberry wine that is dated December 2016. This has been fermented, left to settle and now been racked off-as it were. Any sediment and must that crept in has been discarded and with the wine in demi-johns, it also needs to be stowed away. This is the biggest batch by far, and I have no idea as to how many 500-ml bottles this might produce when it is eventually put into bottles. The colour is rather cool and it looks very claret-y.

As to whether it all tastes any good. Well, we’ll see!

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Potatoes, peppers and prepping Apples

Potatos and prep were the key words this week. As mentioned previously, we have had an abundance of Pink Fir Apple potatoes. This week we harvested the last batch. These have been by far the most productive potato that I have ever managed to grow. My potato growing adventures have not been without incident. so to have such nice good quality potatoes from the plot is something of a surprise. All of the spuds this year were in raised beds, and either in compost or farmyard manure. This does appear to have paid dividends.

In the poly tunnel, we have a mass of six foot triffids. Would you believe, that whilst I was away, Ma harvested a red tomato. Yes, I was upset too. You can also see her picking glads, some of which were as tall as her.

Grapes are on the turn, and whilst there is not many of them this year, they are rather sweet. The autumn raspberry cane has kicked off with lovely large fruit, whereas the blackberries are still somewhat thin amongst the boughs.

Ma has taken up the cabbages, as she was about to declare war on the critters that were nibbling on them. She has shredded them and frozen for winter saag dishes.

Then came the apples. Having spend ages chopping, coring and peeling. I have found a new gadget! This was tested in the falstaff apples, the worcester pearmain are too small as are the home grown concorde pears. if only I had thought of this two weeks ago! Would have saved me six hours of work!

Hobbit homebrew

Hobbit Homebrew: Decant day 3-Blackberries, brandy and pudding!

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On the fourth of September, I harvested the last of the allotment blackberries and put them into a kilner jar. Added to this was some cheap brandy, and probably some star anaise and some spice along with some sugar. The jar was then sealed, and stashed away for three months. I have pedantically been counting down the weeks. Apparently, after three months the berries start to get a bit woody. So that was ringing my alarm bells. I was going to give the jar another week. Anyway,today I have retrieved the jar from storage. The liquid was all decanted off through a muslin cloth into clean bottles. The fruit, was saved and put into a simple crumble. It is cooking through in the oven as I type. This is the type of pudding that you cannot drive after eating. Ma’s kitchen starting to whiff of warm brandy, Probably should get some custard made. I had also saved the berries that were taken out of the dark rum a few months ago. I had secreted them into the freezer for safe keeping. Still have plums in brandy too, that should be done in the next week or so. This was also, yield another pudding. This close to Christmas, what’s another crumble?

Hobbit homebrew

Decanting Day Part one: Potent pink

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Setting up the stuff
Filtration with muslin cloth. Caution: Vapours inhaled
three bottles proud
and the batch has a name

Remember that first batch of home brew, the one with blackberries in Dark Rum. Well, since I couldn’t wait for three more weeks and I had a couple of bottles to recycle. Today was decant day. I cannot remember exactly what I might have put in there. There was the staple dark rum, sugar and blackberries. Might have put some cinnamon and cassia bark in there.

The bottles were cleaned and washed. The muslin scalded with boiled water, jam funnel thing located.

And then we decanted. The blackberries hadn’t broken down as much as I liked, so armed with a masher I went about breaking them up in the jar. This did make the jar liquid a bit cloudy. Otherwise, the liquid is a  beautiful claret colour. Very rich, very deep. Fairly potent, you cannot escape the potent vapours.

Small amounts were poured into a pint glass and then passed though the funnel. The funnel was lined with a scalded piece of muslin. I got fed up of watching it drip, though that is probably  the best way to get the liquid beautifully clear. So I took it in hand, and squished the muslin to aid the process. The cloudiness from mashing was significantly reduced actually.

You’re all wanting to know what it tasted like?

Pops tried a bit-i couldn’t get it all into the smallest bottle, so a dribble was left. Pulled a face, shrugged a shoulder, waved hand, That means okay, I think. I tried another dribble. It really was a dribble, after the vapours, I wasn’t going to have a cocktail.You get the alcohol, and then you get spiced blackberries. Might need more fruit, the next time I might make it.

Hobbit homebrew

Feeling cordial: blackberry, raspberry and rhubarb

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This recipe required:

1500g blackberries, I had 1kg,
With a few raspberries, plums and 3
Small sticks of rhubarb.
400g of sugar
Enough cold water to cover them, but let say a litre per kilo.
A stick of of cinnoman, I used powder
A teaspoon of lemon juice.

I put fruit and water into a pan, and boiled til burst. I did mash to be fair and probably shouldn’t have. Then with Ma’s fine mesh sieve, filtered the juice. Returning this to the hob, I added cinnamon, sugar and lemon juice. The recipe said to simmer, then boil for 20 minutes. I got as a far as 11 and the sugar had dissolved. Cool and then decant.

The taste test. Well I had double measure in that glass as it wouldn’t fit into the bottle. Not bad! A bit warm, bit nice.

Jammed up

Plumbing new depths: plum and blackberry jam

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I am fortunate enough to have allotment neighbours who don’t mind sharing. In one neighbours case, pleading for things to be used. In this case, a tree laden with beautiful Cadbury purple plums. Ma and I asked permission and picked about five or six pounds. I only needed three.

Then there were blackberries which were also harvested from the edge of my own plot. These were all gathered up. Washed and the plums where stoned as it were. All piled into a pan with sugar and water. stewed down a mashed before lemon juiced was added and set to boil.

And boil. This didn’t get to setting point of 104 degrees; but the bottom of my pan did get very black I tell you. All very disheartening, this gloopy jam, poured into jam jars. One of which has so far set. I guess this can be used as gloopy jam; though ma did spread it onto toast. I also put some onto bananas and watermelons.

Might be saved yet!

In a bit of pickle

Jammin’ a la Aunty Lorraine

There are brambles to the side of Project Othello that have been chopped back a bit. There are not many folks on the site who pick them, but today I jointed another plot person to pick some. The plan was to make Aunty Lorraine’s blackberry jam:

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So we found about a 1lb of blackberries . Braving the brambles and the thorns.

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And the wrestled with the recipe. I don’t have a jam thermometer, so had to the saucer test where it actually set immediately.

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As lovely as it is, some of it has set like concrete. Will have to try again!

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

Planting out

Purchases and Puddles: Hello 2013

Having not paid a visit to the plot for the duration of the festivities, today I ventured down. Not before, though, purchases had been made on the behalf of Santa Clause.

Purchased today from Poundland

3 x Red Beauty Roses

1 x Pink Rosa

1 x Kronenbourg rose

2 x Blueberry

2 x Red Currant

I had been wanting to get the roses, I kicked myself last year having missed them. That, and I have now cottoned onto the bargains that certain pound and ninety nine pence places present. There are opponents and proponents of this approach, there will always be naysayers. I would like to find out and explore. In addition to this, I know of a certain value supermarkets that are renowned for their GYO offers.

If it goes pear shaped, it will go pear shaped.  There was also the eight Raspberry canes that were being planted out. These are a continuity collection, in that these are meant to crop from Summer through to Autumn. I bought sixteen, and shared these with Aunty Tish who is planting these on her plot. She had given me a redcurrant last year. I may well have killed it by not planting it properly and then pulling it out as it looked brown and stick-y.

Brown and sticky, is what everything looks like, to be honest. The roses were covered in a thick layer of green wax. I had read about this, and perhaps need to look into that. It will be interesting to see how these roses, each costing a pound each will fare with the other roses. The other roses, are Hybrid Tea Roses and were purchased as the ten items were in a collection that was marked as being half price. So how will a rose costing a pound, fare against a rose that was meant be four times that (The roses were £2.10 each when I found them).

And the puddles. There are still puddles, and puddles of standing water. Slightly wiffy, standing water, I might add. The plot is best described as wonky, entirely uneven and all over the shop at that.

Onions, shallots and garlic have made some progress. There are certainly more garlic shoots than there are any other allieums. I was pleasantly surprised, but the garlic shoots standing proudly and like sentries. That is a sight, that perhaps I had not anticipated. So very, very nice to see. There are may be two, broad bean shoots. These would be the claudia aquadulce. Not surprised by that, though one was very nibbled looking. There are shallots present, and they are sending up shoots. Again, not many, but it is happening.  I had to return a few onion sets to the ground as they were pulled up; most likely by birdies. A couple of sets were littered around, having been snacked on by them horrible creatures that are squirrels.

Leeks, there were a few. I think Aunty Tish had given me 22 babies. I couldn’t put a figure on the number that I saw. Only that there were a few,standing up right and paying attention, amongst the rather moody and muddy looking strawberry runners.

Bulbs. There are some. Sprouting in a border. It was a blink and you missed it moment; but I assure you. They were there. I must have planted hundred in the early autumn. Not many at all, have started to sprout. That may well be because it is still early, and spring bulbs have some time yet to make themselves known. Or, they too have become a casualty of the deluge. It is difficult to make any absolute comment based on the observation of the plot at the moment.

A moment of bah humbag, the headline news this evening that Blighty is going to suffer further extreme weather.  Honestly, tch.

 

Yours in Anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit