Making of the Autumn Olive Wine

Hi everyone!  Well, better later than never I say.  I should have had this post done up a while ago, but life, it seems, gets in the way most of the time.  But now is the time to get rolling.  Here are a few pics and the process of making our Autumn Olive Wine.  If you are wondering what Autumn Olives are, give a scroll down to the post below and there is some good information there on what these little beauties are.  Let's now get down to business.

Step 1.  Pick the Autumn Olives.  DONE  This year we enlisted the help of Mark's Brother in Law Mike, and picked in the back yard of Mark's Dad Leonard.  There were 3 trees absolutely full of these yummy gems.  Here we are:

A two person berry picking job....I got stuck holding the proverbial bucket !



Leonard, the Chief Overseer of the Autumn Olive Berry Picking Crew  A.K.A. Mark's Dad

 Here are some of the Autumn Olives we picked.   Now, we had to fill this bucket completely up in order to have enough to make the wine!

In the bucket they go!

Step 2:  Smashing the berries:  Now this is a process.  After all of the berries have been "looked", (gone over and had the stems removed and any bad or smashed berries removed from the mix) we then put small portions into our nylon straining bag and "Smash" them with a sterilized potato masher.  This helps to release the juice and allow for proper fermentation.

Some of the berries, in the bag, in the primary fermenter, already "smashed"!

Step 3:  Once the berries have all been smashed....and let me tell you, it is a workout for your arms...the required amount of Sugar and Water are added.  The sugar has to be melted into the water over heat.  For this partiular recipe, it takes almost 13lbs of sugar to 5 gallons of water.  Mark is an expert at heating the water, I do have to say!

Berries, Water, and Sugar, all ready to go!

Step 4:  To add the required other ingredients that help the water, fruit and sugar turn into wine.  We only purchase our products from Midwest Supplies.  They are so great at getting us what we need when we need it.  If you ever want to get into making  your own homemade wine, please take a look at their website, and drop them a line and tell them how you found them!   Below, are the necessary additives that, for this recipe, went into the mix.  These are natural ingredients like Acorbic Acid, grape tannin (comes from grapes), Yeast nutrient (natural food for helping the yeast work at it's best), Pectic Acid, (a form of pectin that helps the sugar and yeast work together).

Additives necessary for proper results of homemade wine.  Midwest Supplies is our supplier.  Visit them sometime!

Now that everything has been added, but the yeast, the "must" as it is called must sit for a full 24 hours before the yeast is added.  After we put the yeast in, we stir daily, as it bubbles and bubbles in the air lock.  When the SG or Specific gravity reaches the required level we "rack off" to the secondary fermenter, where it sits and finishes its fermentation over 2 to 6 months.  The next post will be of the bottling process, which is another workout!

"must" ready to be covered, and a finished bottle of Autumn Olive Wine, started Last year about this same time, now ready to drink!

Step 5:  PATIENCE!  Fine homemade wine takes its own time to become ready!  This wine will be ready to drink about this time next year.....Good thing we have last year's wine!  We also have a batch of Fall Grape wine in the secondary, working it's magic as well.  I plan on putting up a bit of information for you on the type of grapes we used for that wine as well.  A few posts down, you can view one of our latest grape picking adventures!  We even brought along Snooch!

I hope you have enjoyed this little look at our home wine making!   Please stay tuned for more!

Have a great day and A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!