Eastern Redbud - I'm going for it!

[BigDaveK]

Never found time to make redbud jelly, darn it, but the wine turned into another shocker.

The flowers were tart. Must be some kind of acid there. Some flavor, not much, so I went to Test #2 and made tea. What a transformation! Very slight floral aroma but the flavor shocked me - no doubt about it, RASPBERRY! Not a pathetic hint of raspberry, no. More like "Ooh, that's good raspberry!" Oh yeah, we're making wine.

This was my first country wine where the ingredients were collected 15 ft from my front door. It grows like a weed and I have dozens on the property.



I used 4 pints (320 gr), 71B, and since it tasted like raspberry I went with citric acid. Before adding sugar it had an SG of 1.020 and a pH of 3.9. With that SG I added sugar to start at 1.100.



Transferred this morning at 1.020. Very slight magenta color and I'm curious how it will clear. Incredibly, it still tastes like raspberry!!
Happy so far! Naturally I now have more vac sealed and frozen.

 

[vinny]

Never found time to make redbud jelly, darn it, but the wine turned into another shocker.

The flowers were tart. Must be some kind of acid there. Some flavor, not much, so I went to Test #2 and made tea. What a transformation! Very slight floral aroma but the flavor shocked me - no doubt about it, RASPBERRY! Not a pathetic hint of raspberry, no. More like "Ooh, that's good raspberry!" Oh yeah, we're making wine.

This was my first country wine where the ingredients were collected 15 ft from my front door. It grows like a weed and I have dozens on the property.

View attachment 100532

I used 4 pints (320 gr), 71B, and since it tasted like raspberry I went with citric acid. Before adding sugar it had an SG of 1.020 and a pH of 3.9. With that SG I added sugar to start at 1.100.

View attachment 100533

Transferred this morning at 1.020. Very slight magenta color and I'm curious how it will clear. Incredibly, it still tastes like raspberry!!
Happy so far! Naturally I now have more vac sealed and frozen.


View attachment 100534

My raspberry is still way off the charts sour. Maybe you have finally found the way to make a tasty raspberry wine!

 

[winemaker81]

My raspberry is still way off the charts sour. Maybe you have finally found the way to make a tasty raspberry wine!

backsweeten to balance the acid.

 

[Jim Welch]

"Eastern Redbud"; "it grows like a weed"; April 20, 2023; hmmmm

 

[BigDaveK]

My raspberry is still way off the charts sour. Maybe you have finally found the way to make a tasty raspberry wine!

We'll see. My day lily tasted like strawberry, lost most of it. Magnolia holding the ginger flavor very well so far. This one, we'll see. About 30 chemicals contribute to the raspberry flavor. As soon as Fedex delivers my gas chromatograph I'll find out what's in the redbud.

Gotta be tough for you - I know you like dry wines and yet many fruit wines need that sugar boost. How do you cope?

 

[vinny]

We'll see. My day lily tasted like strawberry, lost most of it. Magnolia holding the ginger flavor very well so far. This one, we'll see. About 30 chemicals contribute to the raspberry flavor. As soon as Fedex delivers my gas chromatograph I'll find out what's in the redbud.

Gotta be tough for you - I know you like dry wines and yet many fruit wines need that sugar boost. How do you cope?

All my fruit wines are in bulk. I don't know what I'm gonna do.


I like off dry, I would have to make it syrup sweet to get the raspberry to balance. Sooo, I wait!

 

[winemaker81]

All my fruit wines are in bulk. I don't know what I'm gonna do.

I like off dry, I would have to make it syrup sweet to get the raspberry to balance. Sooo, I wait!

My FWK Blackberry and Strawberry are both 5% RS. Both taste off-dry because of the acid. Folks that like sweeter wine have to add more sugar in addition to the 2 conditioner packs for each 23 liters.

Most numbers in winemaking are completely useless except in context with other numbers.

When bottling time approaches, perform bench testing with small volumes. Don't worry about numbers or the amount of sugar you add. Focus on the taste.

 

[Raptor99]

I look forward to hearing how this turns out. I did a little reading online, and the descriptions of the flavor of the flowers are all over the map: beans, edible pod peas, unripe green apple, light citrus flavor, etc. But no one else mentioned raspberry.

 

[BigDaveK]

I look forward to hearing how this turns out. I did a little reading online, and the descriptions of the flavor of the flowers are all over the map: beans, edible pod peas, unripe green apple, light citrus flavor, etc. But no one else mentioned raspberry.

After seeing your post I did a quick search, too. I also found strawberry, grape, snow pea and lettuce descriptors. Crazy! Maybe it's super sensitive to growing conditions?

 

[Newbie Mel]

Oh I wish I had more redbuds in my property, I would love to try this! Redbuds are one of my favorite trees for two reasons, means spring is coming and time to hunt for morels. Maybe I’ll plant more redbuds so I can have a third reason to love, raspberry tasting wine sounds fantastic. To make your teas do you just steep the blossoms for a bit?

 

[BigDaveK]

Oh I wish I had more redbuds in my property, I would love to try this! Redbuds are one of my favorite trees for two reasons, means spring is coming and time to hunt for morels. Maybe I’ll plant more redbuds so I can have a third reason to love, raspberry tasting wine sounds fantastic. To make your teas do you just steep the blossoms for a bit?

I'm surprised you don't have more! Each year I pull a couple dozen that sprout in inconvenient places, leaving others of course.

I taste all my wine ingredients. Sometimes the taste makes up my mind, sometimes I need the tea to nudge me one way or another. Yes, I just make a basic tea - tablespoon or so in a cup, hot water, steep, taste.

Here's an example from today - my yard is covered with wild violets right now. I read they were edible so I tried some. Just a bit of flavor. Made some tea, the water turned a beautiful lavender color but zero flavor. Disappointing. No wine.

 

[winemaker81]

Here's an example from today - my yard is covered with wild violets right now. I read they were edible so I tried some. Just a bit of flavor. Made some tea, the water turned a beautiful lavender color but zero flavor. Disappointing. No wine.

Consider adding violets to a wine that has no color. The violets won't interfere with color flavor while making it more attractive.


EDIT -- fixed my wording, as I had it backwards.

 

[Newbie Mel]

Not to sound weird, @BigDaveK , you are my inspiration! I love hearing about your latest and makes me look around my property for ideas. Unfortunately the weather has been strange this year, warm and wet then cold and dry, rinse repeat. Hoping some wild stuff will grow before dries out.

 

[BigDaveK]

Consider adding violets to a wine that has no color. The violets won't interfere with color while making it more attractive.

Duh, where is my brain?
So many non-berry country wines end up being boring shades of amber and it's always bothered me. Rained this afternoon so I'll be picking tomorrow.
Thanks, Bryan! Disappointed I didn't think of that!

 

[BigDaveK]

Not to sound weird, @BigDaveK , you are my inspiration! I love hearing about your latest and makes me look around my property for ideas. Unfortunately the weather has been strange this year, warm and wet then cold and dry, rinse repeat. Hoping some wild stuff will grow before dries out.

You're very kind, thank you, but I feel like I'm simply sharing the fun that I'm having.

I'm sure you know but please make sure what you forage is edible. I now know that I have an assortment of toxic and deadly plants on the property. There's so many things I want to taste but I haven't been able to identify - it's the old, "It kinda looks like this but it kinda looks like that, too."

In my college days (late 70's) I did a lot of backpacking and camping in Dan'l Boone National Forest. Beautiful country.

 

[Rice_Guy]

After seeing your post I did a quick search, too. I also found strawberry, grape, snow pea and lettuce descriptors. Crazy! Maybe it's super sensitive to growing conditions?

We all start with the language/ prior experience we have.

Descriptors are a problem. A week ago judging a peach at eight inches scoring the color I thought wow an intense peach. The person next to me puts it directly under his nose and notes baby poop. Rechecking under the nose the intense peach was gone, at zero inches more cooked corn~musty. Asking opinions at a different table of judges no one is using peach/ fruity, but had one green pepper.
I have seen the same when reading the consumer complaint line on my project. No one guessed what chemical the supplier was using to stop micro problems, , , , and some folks liked the sanitizer flavor.

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

Best raspberry wine I ever tasted was Hosmer Winery (Cayuga Lake) “Raspberry Rhapsody with Cayuga white grapes and fresh raspberries. It was obviously heavy backsweetened but some day when raspberries go on sale I’ll try to make some since redbuds don’t grow down here. We will be making Roselle Hibiscus wine this fall if the plants keep growing well.

 

[BigDaveK]

We all start with the language/ prior experience we have.

Descriptors are a problem. A week ago judging a peach at eight inches scoring the color I thought wow an intense peach. The person next to me puts it directly under his nose and notes baby poop. Rechecking under the nose the intense peach was gone, at zero inches more musty. Asking opinions at a different table of judges no one is using peach/ fruity, but had one green pepper.
I have seen the same reading the consumer complaint line on my project. No one guessed what the supplier was doing to stop micro problems, , , , and some folks liked the sanitizer flavor.

You're absolutely right. I'm sure we've all thought someone was crazy because they couldn't taste/smell something that was so blatantly obvious to us. And vice versa of course.

As for the redbud, after multiple batches of wine with my garden raspberries I am confident that it tastes like raspberries to my mouth. And about the acidity I detected? I recently learned the flowers have more vitamin C than oranges, probably influencing what I taste.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...nt_of_edible_wild_plants_of_Ohio_and_Kentucky
As a side note, according to legend the flowers were originally white. The redbud is also called the Judas Tree and the flowers turned red after Judas hung himself from one of it's branches.

 

[winemanden]

Just out of curiosity, what are redbuds? I don't think we have them in the UK.

 

[cmason1957]

Just out of curiosity, what are redbuds? I don't think we have them in the UK.

A tree that I'm fairly certain is found in the Americas -

https://shop.arborday.org/eastern-redbud