Haskap Wine (& Mead)
Haskap Wine is a rich, homemade fruit wine that's perfect for northern gardeners. Haskaps are hardy fruits that can withstand temperatures much colder than grapes, and the wine tastes surprisingly like a full-bodied red.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs haskap fruit
- 1-¾ pounds cane sugar about 2 cups per pound
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
- ⅛ tsp tannin powder
- Wine Yeast see note
- 1 handful of oak chips
- Optional ~ Campden Tablet and Potassium Sorbate for Stabilizing I do not use these
- Water to fill
Instructions
- Crush the fruit and move to your primary fermentation vessel. Place the fruit in a brew bag, if desired.
- Heat a few quarts of water on the stovetop. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
- Pour the water over your crushed haskap berries. Let cool to room temperature.
- Add the wine tannin, pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient.
- The wine yeast should be added last. Pitch the yeast in a small amount of room temperature water for 10 minutes before adding to the carboy.
- Fill with enough water to leave 2 inches of headspace and seal with a water lock.
- Ferment in primary for about a week.
- Siphon to a clean fermentation vessel, discarding fruit and leaving sediment behind.
- Add the oak chips to your secondary ferment.
- Top with enough water to bring the level up to the neck of the carboy and seal with a water lock.
- Ferment in secondary for at least 4 weeks. For mead, time in secondary will be longer (2 to 6 months).
- Sample the wine at the end of secondary and adjust to taste as needed. See notes for backsweetening.
- Bottle the wine and seal with wine corks.
- Let age for at least a month before drinking, preferably longer.