Recipe Idea

[Arkansan07]

Hey guys Im thinking im going to try an orange wine. I have looked at several recipes and have kinda took a little bit from all. I think ill use the California Mandarin oranges with some white raisins plus a few cloves. Also thinking about tossing in a couple bananas. Anyone with some experience with a combination like this? Would substituting some cane sugar with honey be benificial?


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[Arne]

Careful how many cloves you use. They can overpower the wine pretty easily. I would juice the oranges and use pure juice, maybe add The zest from the oranges. (The outside skin without the white pith.) You can substitute honey for sugar any time you like. It does give a different flavor. The honey wines (meads) do take longer to age though. Seems like the honey wines are rather sharp til they get a year or more age on them. This is just my experience with them. Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[BernardSmith]

I've made orange wine and found the wine to be more acidic (taste wise) than I anticipated. I blended this with some chocolate wine I had made with cocoa nibs and the chocolate took the edge off the acid. You may want to add cocoa or pure chocolate powder or nibs to the secondary if not the primary. Cocoa powder produces a great deal of froth in a primary and a large volume of lees. A large volume. And it takes a long time to clear. The nibs result in a more subtle taste (I may not have roasted them long enough) but they are far easier to work with, in my experience.

Mandarins may be less acidic than regular OJ.

 

[Arkansan07]

ok thanks for the advice, i was thinking just like 10-15 cloves and in using the cutie california mandarines. Will bananas help soften the acid?


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[Winorick]

Is that ten - fifteen cloves per 5 gallons or 1? I made a clove wine 25 years ago, and I used 4 cloves per gallon and that was a bit too much. Kinda depends on what you want it to taste like oranges, bananas, or cloves. Avoid ALL of the white pith from the oranges - I would not bother with the bananas and only use 1 or 2 cloves per gallon. You could always add clove flavor at the end.

 

[Stressbaby]

With cities your problem won't be too much acid. It will be too little. Trust me.

 

[Stressbaby]

Ack. CUTIES, not cities.

 

[Arkansan07]

Ack. CUTIES, not cities.

I have litmus strips and it showed to be around 3.5 last night. I havnt pitched my yeast yet so should I add some acid blend or maybe some lemon juice? Or should I pitch and retest later?

 

[Stressbaby]

If it were me I would add citric or acid blend to try to get down around 3.2-3.3.