Yesterday a lady at work dropped off a "large bag" of garden peas at my desk. When I got home and shelled and blanched them for the freezer, I sat looking at that pile of pods, thinking....
I remember there is a recipe for pea pod wine!
So I dug out my CJJ Berry "First Steps in Winemaking" book and there it was on pages 181-182.
The recipe I used went like this:
Took the pea pods and covered them in a large pot with 4 qts (1 gallon) water, and boiled until tender, then drained off the liquid and added 4 cups sugar, stirring well to dissolved. I have no good idea of what the weight of pods was, but it was enough pods that I needed the extra large stock pot and the gallon of water did not fully 'cover' them. I'd guess it was in the neighborhood of 3 pounds or so but maybe not quite the 4 pounds called for in the book recipe.
These are the pods after they were 'juiced' -
Added 1 Tablespoon of Acid Blend (the book calls for Citric acid, I just had the blend so used that) to the 'juice' I had drained off those pods.
Then added the 1/2 tsp tannin called for - powdered - and it did give a bit of a sickly look to the resulting 'juice' but, that has cleared up a bit now.
Poured it all into a 4 liter jug to cool down and wait before pitching yeast.
Here's what I had then:
After a couple hours, there was a bit of sediment in the bottom of that jug and could be the tannin powder settled out even, but there was also bits of peas and greeny gunk, so I racked the 'juice' off that deposit into another 4 liter jug which then gave some headroom for the ferment, and let it finish cooling down a bit more. Shook it up a few times to make sure the sugar was mixing in well also just to be on the safe side.
When it was cooled to what might be referred to as "blood warm" I added 1/2 tsp Yeast Energizer and 1 tsp of Yeast Nutrient, shook that up, and then took out my yeast to see what I had to choose from.
I had EC-1118, RC-212 and the 71B-1122. That was an easy choice - the EC-1118.
So opened that packet and sprinkled about 1/3rd of it into the jug, taped up the packet and popped it back in the fridge, put a washcloth over the top of the jug and secured it with a hair tie (it's good to have a use for having all those hair ties my teenage daughters leave littered all over the house) and sat down to watch the yeast 'do something' - alternating with the lavalamp show of the chokecherry batch that had been racked to the Better Bottle earlier.
Today there is sign of good activity with the yeast and Ta Da ! Pea Pod Wine in the making....
The color is still - the color of a white-wine must under fermentation - but it's at least not a puky sickly browny green anymore.
If it doesn't turn out, it's the cost of the sugar and the yeast and if it does turn out it's a conversation piece for sure!
I remember there is a recipe for pea pod wine!
So I dug out my CJJ Berry "First Steps in Winemaking" book and there it was on pages 181-182.
The recipe I used went like this:
Took the pea pods and covered them in a large pot with 4 qts (1 gallon) water, and boiled until tender, then drained off the liquid and added 4 cups sugar, stirring well to dissolved. I have no good idea of what the weight of pods was, but it was enough pods that I needed the extra large stock pot and the gallon of water did not fully 'cover' them. I'd guess it was in the neighborhood of 3 pounds or so but maybe not quite the 4 pounds called for in the book recipe.
These are the pods after they were 'juiced' -
Added 1 Tablespoon of Acid Blend (the book calls for Citric acid, I just had the blend so used that) to the 'juice' I had drained off those pods.
Then added the 1/2 tsp tannin called for - powdered - and it did give a bit of a sickly look to the resulting 'juice' but, that has cleared up a bit now.
Poured it all into a 4 liter jug to cool down and wait before pitching yeast.
Here's what I had then:
After a couple hours, there was a bit of sediment in the bottom of that jug and could be the tannin powder settled out even, but there was also bits of peas and greeny gunk, so I racked the 'juice' off that deposit into another 4 liter jug which then gave some headroom for the ferment, and let it finish cooling down a bit more. Shook it up a few times to make sure the sugar was mixing in well also just to be on the safe side.
When it was cooled to what might be referred to as "blood warm" I added 1/2 tsp Yeast Energizer and 1 tsp of Yeast Nutrient, shook that up, and then took out my yeast to see what I had to choose from.
I had EC-1118, RC-212 and the 71B-1122. That was an easy choice - the EC-1118.
So opened that packet and sprinkled about 1/3rd of it into the jug, taped up the packet and popped it back in the fridge, put a washcloth over the top of the jug and secured it with a hair tie (it's good to have a use for having all those hair ties my teenage daughters leave littered all over the house) and sat down to watch the yeast 'do something' - alternating with the lavalamp show of the chokecherry batch that had been racked to the Better Bottle earlier.
Today there is sign of good activity with the yeast and Ta Da ! Pea Pod Wine in the making....
The color is still - the color of a white-wine must under fermentation - but it's at least not a puky sickly browny green anymore.
If it doesn't turn out, it's the cost of the sugar and the yeast and if it does turn out it's a conversation piece for sure!
