C.J.J. Berry's Ribena Wine (ish)

[Old Speckled Ben]

Ahoy hoy,

I thought I'd have a crack at something from my CJJ Berry book, so I bought some Ribena to try out the recipe

I altered it slightly to cut down on the sugar I needed to add

600ml Blackcurrent Ribena
1.125kg granulated sugar (what was left in the bag)
Water to fill up to sholder of demijohn
1tsp Young's 'high alcohol' yeast
1tsp Young's yeast nutrient

Disolved sugar in some of the water, added the Ribena, boiled for ten minutes to remove preservatives and left to cool down
Made a starter with tumbler full of Ribena/sugar/water and pitched yest and nutrient at 25oC

Added to Demijohn and diluted to SG of 1.110 (it was 1.140, so I thought I'd better dilute it lol)

It started bubbling through airlock after about 5 hours, so it should be going strong by now

Gonna wait for it to settle a bit, then top up to neck of DJ

I'm going to try and stop it at about 1.010, so it's about 13.5% abv. with a "Medium" sweetness

I'll let you all know how I get on

[Geezah]

I do a Vimto wine which always ends up sweet even when fermented down to 996 due to the artificial sweetners in the cordial, so you might want to taste it before killing the yeast

My recpie:
1l of Vimto cordial
1l of red grape juice (lidl)
300-400g white sugar
1/2 tsp tannin
1 tsp of pectin
water to 4.5 litres
generally ends up at 12% when fermented to 1.000 - 996

[speedtripledan]

I did this one many moons ago it was ok but bl**dy strong if you follow his recipe to the letter.. i let it ferment out to 995 it was ok but not out of this world.

[Old Speckled Ben]

I might let it go well past 1.010, then lol

I'll taste it when it gets to that, and, if it's still like drinking sugar, I'll just leave it to dryness lol

[Old Speckled Ben]

Update:

I've checked an SG temperature correction thingy and the starting gravity was actually 1.111 (20oC)

I've checked it, this morning, and it's already down to 1.056 (20oC)

I make that 7.4% abv. after just under a week lol

Tasted it, and it's very, very sugary, still, but hasn't shown any signs of stopping, so I might still be on track for something around the 15% abv. mark

[Old Speckled Ben]

Update:

Well, it's about 12% abv, now

SWMBO tried the bit out of the sample jar and said "I'd drink it at that"

I'm going to try a bit, tonight and, if it's OK, I'm going to fill four 1ltr PET bottles with it and put three of them down the cellar in the cold to stop the fermentation

The fourth one, I'm going to keep in the warm for a couple of days and try to get it to carbonate

With the way it's been fermenting, I should be able to get it to champagne fizzy-ness lol