Jan 11, 2008

Homemade Wine 101 (Citrus- Kumquat wine)

What do you do when your father-in-law has a bumper crop of sweet, juicy kumquats?

Yep.... you eat as many as you can. But then you still have TONS left over... whatcha gonna do?Make Kumquat wine!! (remember homemade prison wine 101?) <---click to read about it.

1.) Gather your wine makin stuff.

enough fruit to have 6 cups prepared fruit.
6 cups sugar.
1 gallon distilled water.
a big container to let it brew/age in.
(I use a 2 gallon glass jug thingie with a lid.)

Prepare your fruit.

For citrus or in this case kumquats this means.. wash em... then cut them in half.

Make sure your container is clean & disinfected. I do this by washing it in hot water or the dishwasher.. then adding 2 tablespoons of bleach in it then filling it with water and dumping it out.

2.) dump 6 cups of sugar into your clean container.

3.) add your gallon of distilled water.

4.) stir well


Keep stirring until all of the sugar is dissolved.

5.) dump in your 6 cups of prepared fruit.

6.) give it another stir.

Let your little helper clean the spoon.

Wrap your container with plastic wrap. You want to be able to swirl or stir your mixture once a day for 30 days... During this time it will fizz, you want the air to be able to escape but you also want to keep fruit flies and such out. Those pesky fruit flies can send your batch of wine south fast!



Set your container in a cool dark place (or be like me and just leave it on your kitchen counter) and let it brew for 30 days. You want to stir it at least once a day (or just swirl it so the fruit mixes around a little bit)
After 30 days...
scoop out the fruit and toss it out to your pigs (drunk pigs are a riot!!) or just throw em away of you dont have any pigs.
Strain your wine through a couple of layers of cheese cloth.
Then bottle it.
I let mine age for at least 6 months... the longer the better.
Enjoy!!
Go forth and make wine!!!!
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9 comments:

  1. Very cool! Never thought about citrus wine. I bet it's good. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I sure hope so ;)
    I'll keep ya posted on how it turns out.
    thanks for the comment!

    I get all giddy when I get a comment!

    ReplyDelete
  3. lol I do too but I rarely post on my blog anymore. I just don't have the energy to keep up with it. Hence, no more comments.

    We have lots of citrus here in FL. Let me know if it turns out. I may need to give it a try. :)

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  4. Okay...well, at first I wasn't sure what exactly a kumquat was..but now that I've seem pictures I'm assuming they're like baby oranges...but anyway I've read about your wine making and have decided that when I come across a container large enough I shall attempt to make some. What do you use for bottles? Can you buy the bottles online or should I just seal it up in quart mason jars???

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  5. The first bottles I used I got from Ebay ;) pretty cobalt blue ones. Now I just have all my friends save their bottles for me. In a pinch I have been known to use mason jars.. they worked fine too!

    happy wine making!!
    BTW.. so far the strawberry & blueberry have been our faves! will let ya know how the kumquat turns out.

    Thanks for the comments....
    I get all giddy when I get a comment!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Do you think this is possible with loquats instead of kumquats?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't know why not.
    I have used many different fruits with great results. I have 4 loquat trees that I'm waiting to fruit and I plan to make some.

    Try it!!
    let me know how it turns out!!

    Thanks for the comment!! I get all giddy when I get comments!

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  8. That is what we were thinking. We actually thought that we had kumquats until we saw the picture you had of the kumquats cut in half and realized that the seeds did not look the same :)
    I am starting it today, and will let you know how it turns out in a few months!

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