Carrot Wine Remix

From:

CARROT WHISKEY

It took a bit of research, but evenually I tracked down the recipe as having first been published in a column by Noel Whitcomb in the London Daily Mirror in the 1940's. He called it "whiskey" not because of a whiskey taste, although wheat wines can taste like whiskey, but because of its richness in taste and color. One thing is stressed very strongly, however, and that is that the wine must age for a year before uncorking. Having said that, here's the recipe.

Carrot Whiskey

6 lbs carrots 4 lbs finely granulated sugar 1 lb wheat 1 tblsp chopped raisins 2 oranges 2 lemons 7 pts water wine yeast Scrub but do not peel the carrots. place them in 7 pints of water and bring to boil, simmering gently until tender (about 25-30 minutes). Meanwhile, put half the sugar in primary. Slice the oranges and lemons into thin slices and arrange on top of sugar. When carrots are done, strain them, pouring the water over the sugar and citrus. Stir to dissolve sugar and allow to cool to lukewarm. Add chopped raisins and wheat and sprinkle wine yeast over top. Cover with sterile cloth and set aside, stirring daily. After 6 days add remainder of sugar and stir well to dissolve. Ferment additional 8 days, stirring daily. Strain liquid into secondary and fit airlock. Rack after 30 days and again 30 days later. Bottle and taste after 1 year. [Adapted from recipe by Noel Whitcomb, London Daily Mirror]

My thanks to Adison Martin for the request.

HTH, Guy

Thanks, Guy. This looks interesting, I'm filing this in my "to try" pile. Interesting to add 1/2 the sugar after 6 days, must be high SG at first. Guess I'll use EC-1118 yeast.

And, thanks, Alex for asking, I learned something again. DAve

guy wrote:

I have a couple of oldish books (1960's) by HE Bravery. He gives the carrot whisky in one, but the other has a carrot wine.

Carrot Wine A pale gold wine which, when kept for a year or two developes into a top-class product.

3 lb carrots, 1/2lb raisins, juice of 2 lemons and 2 oranges, 3 lb sugar, all-purpos wine yeast, nutrient. teas as in method and approx 1 gallon of water (This is an English book so presumably an imperial gallon)

Method Scrub carrots and remove blemishes. Grate and boil gently for 15 minutes in 3 quarts of water. Put half the sugar with raisins in fermenting vessel and strain onto them the boiling carrot water. Allow to drain for a few minutes then discard carrots. Allow to cool, and add lemon and orange juice. Add yeast and nutrient and cover to ferment in a warm place for 10 days. Strain out raisins and squeeze well. Return strained wine to fermenting vessel and add 1/4 pint of freshly made tea. Boil remaining sugar in one pint of water for two minutes and when cool add to the rest. Cover again at once. Ferment, covered in warm place for 6 days and then transfer carefully to a gallon jar, leaving as much deposit as possible behind. If necessary top with some cool boiled water. Fit fermentation lock, and leave in a warm place until fermentation ceases. Leave to clear, then put half in a half-gallon jar, bottle the remainder and try to keep both for at least a year.

I see you are planning to juice your carrots rather than the traditional prep....I wondered, have you found or thought up any technique or equation for converting the quantity of carrots into the qualtity of juice?

Has any of us?

I had given up on carrot, which, though delicious, is massively labor intensive. If the juicing method works I am back on board! I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I do wonder.....how many pounds of bioled carrots is equivalent to how many pounds of carrots to juice?

Thanks for all the interest!

I completed the said experiment. This is what I ended up doing:

5 cans of white weches concentrate appx 15 lbs of carrots 4 lbs sugar

I juiced... and juiced... and juiced and ended up with about 2/3 gallon of juice from the 15 lbs of carrots. I wish I would have measured better, but I was only looking for final SG. I checked the SG and it was about 1.04. There was a good deal of pulp in the juice that made it in the fermentor, probably due to the cheap juicer I was using. Your mileage may vary.

In the end, I ended up wiht a 3-gallon carboy at a SG of 1.11. It is now fermenting away in my sink. I probably should have used a bucket instead of a carboy. This may get messy until it calms down.

I plan on adjusting TA once it gets a little further along and some solids drop out. I will probably use some lemon juice to give a bit of a citrus taste when I adjust it. Some lemon zest would give some good taste without all the acid.

The taste was pretty good. It had a very earthy aftertaste, but overall tasted like sweet carrot juice. This should be interesting.

Alex.

Out of curiosity--why?

:)

My wife accuses me at looking at things and wondering if I can ferment them, but carrots have really never crossed my mine. (OK, she's right).

But seriously, what leads you to want carrots?

hawk

No one else has replied so I will give some suggestions though I have not made this wine. I believe carrot wine has been discussed positively on this site if you could do an archive search. then maybe you could ask directly of those who have made it. Jack Keller does have one recipe on his site. I was surprised onlyone. Also you will fine some in C.J.J. Berry's books.

Ray