Parsnip Wine

Well it was a long miserable winter: 2013 limped away and ushered in a 2014 without an original thought in its meteorological head. It rained and it rained and it rained:

That's right, it rained cubed.

England flooded from Somerset to Kent, and everyone anywhere else shrugged their collective shoulders, glad that they weren't quite so unlucky, although it was still very very wet.

And windy.

Very windy.

Anyway, at some point in early February, Lidl were doing a special on parsnips (lets face it, they're not especially pricey in the first place, but I do love a bargain) and I thought 'let's make some parsnip wine to cheer us all up'.

Here's how it goes

Top, tail and scrub about 1.5 kg of parsnips, chop up into large-ish (about an inch) chunks and boil in 5 pints of water until just getting soft (too soft will result in a cloudy wine).

Strain the liquid into a sterilised bucket, with 3lb of sugar, a good cupful of sultanas, the juice and pulp of a squeezed orange, a chopped up apple (pips, peels and all), a teaspoon of citric acid (you could add the juice of half a lemon instead) and some pectolase (because I had some... I'm not sure it's nececessary) and half a banana.

Add pints of boiled water to make up to 9 pints (to make a gallon plus a bit extra for topping up) and a mug of strong black tea (no milk, no sugar).

Allow the brew to cool to room temperature (or wait til next day) and add the yeast according to the instructions.

Rack into a sterilised demijohn a few days later (4 or 5) and again when the bubbles have all but stopped (using some of the spare pint in a plastic bottle to top up the demijohn).

At this point you can check the sweetness. The yeast I'm using is quite a voracious little creature and seems to tolerate high alcohol and eats up all the sugar - resulting in a strong and dry wine. Other yeasts might die before all the sugar has been used, resulting in a somewhat weaker and sweeter wine.

If needed, dissolve a little sugar (not much, a few teaspoons will do it unless you have a real sweet-tongue) into some of the top up wine. (you can add a crushed campden tablet to stop the fermentation starting up again on the new sugar or you can risk a slightly fizzy wine and a popped wine cork or two).

Bottle when clear.

The results

The first tasting of this wine was, I must confess, a bit weird. I'm not sure if it was the banana, or maybe the orange or just plain too parsnipy.

However, 2 or 3 months on, it has settled nicely into a rather pleasant glass of wine. Served ice cold on a sultry hot Sunday afternoon in June (yes the weather has finally bucked up, even up here in Glasgow), it is very sippable and rather strong (alcoholically speaking).

I think I'll have another glass.

Note to self:  Make more next time.