Wild Chug and Rowan Wine

This post was originally going to be the first part of my acorn coffee adventure which I started yesterday, but needs must and the wild hop brew needed to be bottled today. Well yesterday actually but who's counting? This will be a short and sweet little post so I can keep track of what's starting when. And if you get some enjoyment out of it, even better.
There are loads of ways to sterilise bottles, but I tend to fill a brewing bucket with Milton Sterilising Fluid (other sterilising fluids are available) and submerge the bottles. 15 minutes later I have sterile bottles and a barrel full of sterile liquid. Rather than waste it, I siphoned it out into 3 demijohns so I could rack the scrumpy I started a few weeks back, and was left with a sterilised barrel which I decided to start my Rowan wine in. I don't make things easy for myself!

So the wild chug is bottled; I'll provide some fantastic pictures of what will amount to, um, bottles, when I finish the pumpkin beer tomorrow. I don't want people too excited at too many posts with pictures of bottles.

The 15litres of my first ever attempt at scrumpy cider is now sat in 3 demijohns to ferment out.

And the Rowan wine must is sat, smelling slightly dodgy which I've read is normal, in a barrel doing it's thing. I had these Rowan berries in my freezer waiting to be used, but there may be enough time still to pick some if you fancy giving it a go.

It doesn't matter what angles you try, a barrel with a kg of Rowan berries and some water in it just doesn't look exciting. See:

Rowan Wine

• 1kg Rowan berries
• 2 oranges
• 2 litres boiling water
• 1.5kg sugar
• 2 teaspoons dried yeast

• Pick the berries when ripe, remove stalks, wash and place in brewing bucket
• Cover wtih the boiling water and leave for 4 days, stirring daily
• Strain in to demijohn
• Make up sugar syrup with sugar and 750ml water
• Pour into demijohn with rind and juice from the oranges
• Start the yeast and add to the wine
• Leave for 4 months
• Rack and leave for another 6 months, then bottle

Apparently this wine clears quickly but needs a long time before it becomes drinkable. Lets see if it was worth it in a year!