Ribena (Blackcurrant) Wine

I added some Ribena to some steam-extracted red juice to help add some body and such.

I've also used blackcurrant concentrate with raisins and dried currants, and it's made an excellent wine. My notes are at home, but I made 11.5 litres of it... started with 13.5 PA, ajusted the acid up to about 6.5 or 7 g/l. I also found canned black currants, and used tohse as well.

Perhaps a recipe is out there for raisin and ribena wine?

G'day Jason,

I haven't done one, but I did look into this at one point because I wanted to use some of those marvelous Croation fruit syrups in melomels.

From what I've read, there is a recipe for Ribena Wine in CJJ Berry's book. If you search on the web, you might find it transcribed, or you could try to find the book.

Here's a couple of threads in Google Groups that talk about it:

I did end up making a sour cherry melomel using two jars of sour cherries, a bottle of Croation sour cherry syrup and 6kg of clover honey, made to 23L. It worked out well, still in the carboy at present (racked once or twice, I forget), but at last sampling it was bloody nice. Because the syrup had some preservatives in it, I left it out at first so that the yeast could establish (i.e. 22L starter :) then added the syrup a day later. Yeast was Lalvin K1V-1116.

cheers, Ross.

-- Ross McKay, WebAware Pty Ltd "The lawn could stand another mowing; funny, I don't even care"

- Elvis Costello

I've done this wine, using the C.J.J. Berry recipe; my local store has a Bosnian section, where they sell a product just like Ribena (without the name and the price). It stayed fairly sweet, even after a good ferment (which is fine as far as I'm concerned; I like it sweeter). It's been very popular with my friends.

Karen

Jas>Hello -

jason, from c.j.j. berry's book (reworded): for 1 gallon

12 oz. bottle ribena 3 lbs. sugar dissolved in warm water, add ribena, bring to boil, simmer 10 minutes, cool, into 1 gallon jug filling to shoulder, wine yeast 1/3 tsp. citric acid p>

thanks Jim - I wasnt able to find it myself --- I'm going to make it sometime next week.

A little off topic - when i first moved to Ireland I was really thirsty one day and took a big gulp of Ribena like it was a sports drink... I was in for a shock and soon realized it was concentrate..its no wonder they've had problems with it rotting kids teeth...Im giving it a second chance with the wine though...lol

Cheers Jason

I think that's what the boil is intended to "fix".

What I did, with the Croatian sour cherry syrup, was to start the fermentation in 22L with the cherries and honey, then add the syrup a day later when the yeast was going ballistic (i.e. 22L starter :)

cheers, Ross.

-- Ross McKay, WebAware Pty Ltd "The lawn could stand another mowing; funny, I don't even care"

- Elvis Costello

Is it hard to ferment? I mean doesnt it have preservatives in it that would hinder the yeast?

supermarkets

Makes sense. I may give that a try.. I buy a lot of that kind of syrup...good in tap or soda water..

john