Seasonal Wine, May - Gorse

[LordEoin]

ingredients:
4L water
2L gorse flower
2 lemons
250g raisins or sultanas(oil free)
1 teabag
1kg table sugar
wine yeast

It's a beautiful sunday spring morning, and what better way to spend it than picking flowers to make into wine.
The Gorse is in bloom for most of the year, but spring is the best time to pick and brew the flowers.
The flowers smell like vanilla and coconut
The recipe is pretty similar to the danelion wine.

First, find yourself a few bright yellow gorse bushes like this one:

Then start picking.

Don't worry about the spikes, just grab the flowers in bunches and pull them off.
You'll see pollen drop out of them, try to keep as much of it as possible.
I found that an empty 2liter milk bottle attached to my bag did a great job and allowed me to use both hands.

You want to fill and stuff the 2 liter bottle and you should end up with about 250g of petals after about 15 minutes.

Back home, bring 4Liters of water to the boil and also put a teabag into a cup of boiling water.
Roughly chop/squash 250g of raisins or sultanas (check the ingredients. You want to avoid ones with added oil)
Add raisins, flowers, 1kg sugar, rinds and juice of 2 lemons (no pith or flesh), and simmer for about 10 minutes (smells great)


Cool the whole lot down in a sink of cold water, add your cup of tea, and once it's at about 20C add your yeast and move to primary.
My wine primary is generally a 5L water bottle, a 10 ml wood drill bit allows an airlock to fit. I should have left a bit more headroom for foaming...

OG 1.088

Leave it to ferment for about a week or two, until it calms down a bit, then strain into a demijohn leaving the raisins and flowers, but bringing the yeast.
Top up the demijohn with pre boiled and cooled water.
When the fermentation is completely finished, you're cool to bottle now or rack to another demijohn for clearing.

[Ciderhead]

Nice post, Wicklow is full of the stuff at the moment and apart from the benefits my bees are getting I knew the was something else I I could do with this years crop which seems to be mad!
Do they bring bitterness or floral to the table ?

[LordEoin]

Floral, coconutty!
The vanilla scent doesn't last though.

you can also make sorbet out of them : video here

[Chris]

Lordeoin that's great I've just finished picking my dandelions. Will have to go out and pick Gorse now. Was thinking ill do one batch of dandelion, one batch of Gorse and one batch with both in.

[Chris]

Could someone tell me why the raisins need to be oil free. I just checked and I have 2 kilos of raisins in the press 1 kilo says 5% palm oil and the other says 5% veg oil. Can I use these?

[johnrm]

Would steeping these in hot water drive of the oil?

[Will_D]

The raisins are there to add "vinosity"!

Vinosity is a makey upperer of a word:

This is a country wine term from way back, It was used to replace "yeast nutrients and tannin" which country fruit and veg wines didn't have!

[Col]

Not wishing to contradict Milord or anything , but I always use sultanas rather than raisins for light brews such as gorse. Also, the oil is an issue on these dried fruits - some of them are even coated with paraffin! I always steep them in boiling water for a few minutes (you will actually see a slick on the top of the water), and then strain and chop them. Looking forward to your elderflower edition, LE - they're just starting to bud now.

[LordEoin]

@col: no contradiction at all. the joy of country wine is that you can pretty much use whatever you want 
And yes, elderflower next, but i prefer to let them turn into elderberries as they make a gazillion times better wine later on.

Sultanas, raisins... potato, potato... i was actually thinking of putting in apricot instead, but chickened out.
I use oil free raisins (edited into the post now) like these or these

The oil probably wouldn't be too bad for the wine but might make a mess of your demijohn.
5% of 250g = 12.5grams of oil into your gallon of wine, and as Col says, there may be wax and parafin on them too.
Steeping or boiling will probably waste most of the goodness, but might be worth a try.
I'm pretty sure I've done a few in the past with normal raisins.

The raisins can also just be left out completely if you want.

Thanks for reminding me Will_D, the raisins are for flavor and nutrient, but for tannin I added a cup of tea (no milk!)
Edited into original post now

I was also thinking about the loss of the vanilla 'bouquet'.. maybe a bit of vanilla pod would be a nice addition. Might make a second batch with vanilla.

@chris: dendelion and gorse would probably be quite tasty

[Garry]

Great post LordEoin. I probably won't make this wine or the dandoline wine, but I love reading them anyway 

I assumed that raisins were added to these wines to increase the OG, it's the first I heard of them being used for a yeast nutrient. Could you use something like this instead? I'm just thinking of ways to reduce the ABV of a lidl cider to make it a bit more sessionable!

[Chris]

The raisin thing was annoying me so this is what I went with,

1litre dandelion petals
1litre gorse flowers
2 oranges
2 lemons
2litres grape juice (Lidl 79c per litre)
2 kg sugar
8 litres H2O
Cup of Barry's tea
Champagne yeast

Steeping at the moment will update with OG tomorrow.

[Ciderhead]

The raisins are there to add "vinosity"!

Vinosity is a makey upperer of a word:

This is a country wine term from way back, It was used to replace "yeast nutrients and tannin" which country fruit and veg wines didn't have!

Will my old man has vodkosity, he soaks raisins in vodka and pops a few a day for arthritis he claims, I think its just because he wants a stiffener before breakfast!

[LordEoin]

vodkosity is something completely different for me... it does not agree with me.

I'm not sure where I got the notion that raisins act as nutrient, but after a quick google it appears I'm not the only one that thinks this LINK
You could use dried yeast nutrient, but that won't give the added flavor and body. They're dried grapes afterall

I don't think they add much to the OG.

[Col]

Actually, they can be up to 69% sugar...

[LordEoin]

yup, but I dunno how much of that you'd get out...
testing time