Bay Leaf Wine

[pdilley]

Jack is another proponent of Small Batch Brewing (doing lots of brewing at once in 5 litre or 1 carboy/demijohns). Smaller batches is lots of variety and less cost per brew. Perfect for the mad brewer in all of us who just wants to try lots of things at once.

But first, a brief discussion and warning. More bay leaves or a stronger infusion is not better, as either will leave an long-lasting and disagreeable aftertaste. Indeed, when you make the must for this wine it is essential that you taste it before pitching the yeast. Allow the must to wash your tongue and mouth and then swallow. Do not cleanse the palate or drink anything for a few minutes, but note how long the aftertaste persists. If longer than a minute, dilute the must with water and perhaps a little white grape concentrate, then adjust the sweetness to 1.090 specific gravity. Taste again and repeat until the aftertaste does not remain longer than a minute. Even my original infusion was too strong after fermentation and so Ive had to adjust the recipe accordingly.

The aftertaste is primarily caused by cineole, also known as wormseed oil or eucalyptol (C 10H18O), which exhibits an odor of camphor and a resinous taste. Like vanilla extract, in small amounts it is very pleasant but when a threshold is exceeded it is quite disagreeable. Get it right before you pitch the yeast.

Finally, I am absolutely certain there is a huge difference in the potency of various bay leaves. The most preliminary of internet searches reveals numerous varieties with inherently different potencies, but even potency of a particular species varies depending on the age of the tree, when the leaves were picked, how they were dried, and other factors. The recipe below worked fine for the bay leaves I used. Your mileage will almost certainly differ, but if you follow the advice above you will be able to cope with and work around any variance.

Bay Leaf Wine

36 Laurus nobilis bay leaves, whole
1 lb. 12 oz. dark brown sugar
water to one gallon
zest and juice of 2 bitter oranges or clementines
1 11.5-oz. can of Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
1 tsp yeast nutrient
White wine yeast

Place the leaves in a 1-quart pot with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer under a lid for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, use a grater to remove the zest of the oranges and then juice them. Add the juice to a primary and the zest to the simmering bay leaves. Add the brown sugar, grape concentrate, 5 pints of cold water, and yeast nutrient to the primary. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. When time, strain off the bay leaves and orange zest and add only the infused water to the primary. Stir and allow to cool until under 90 degrees F. Add activated yeast and cover primary. After 3 days, transfer to secondary, top up and attach airlock. After 30 days, rack, stir in one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach airlock. Repeat every 30 days (only add Campden tablet every other racking) until clear and no new sediments form. If you want to sweeten, stabilize with potassium sorbate and finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, sweeten to taste with simple syrup, reattach airlock, and set aside 30 days. Bottle and allow at least 3 months before tasting. Will probably improve with additional aging.

 

[Bizier]

Ha, you are going off tonight Pete!

Re: potency of leaves, I am cooking a shepherds pie at the moment. My girlfriend added (as per her recipe) 2 store bayleaves. I remembered that I had some that I had picked a week or so ago when at my dad's and added a couple of these as well... the aroma was instantly that resinous laurel smell.

I would suggest using a lower qty of recently dried leaves if you can get them as the taste and aroma is superior. Probably an idea to go for average sized leaves too if you are picking them yourself.

 

[pdilley]

Ha, you are going off tonight Pete!

Re: potency of leaves, I am cooking a shepherds pie at the moment. My girlfriend added (as per her recipe) 2 store bayleaves. I remembered that I had some that I had picked a week or so ago when at my dad's and added a couple of these as well... the aroma was instantly that resinous laurel smell.

I would suggest using a lower qty of recently dried leaves if you can get them as the taste and aroma is superior. Probably an idea to go for average sized leaves too if you are picking them yourself.

Yes, leaves can be highly variable in potency so thats why you need to test your current batch potency and check the strength and aftertaste quality and change the quantity in the recipe. The original recipe is just a guide and based on the potency of the dried batch at that time. Let your tastebuds do the guiding on all things wine making and leave most verbatim recipe following to beers. Especially with fruits when making wine -- Supermarket fruit in general will make horrible fruit taste in your wine. You need old varietals bred to make swett full flavour fruit on the tree not the new stuff with fly eyeball DNA and other GM designd to look good as priority #1, have long shelf life as priority #2 and the last and forgotten priority is taste somewhat like the original fruit did.

 

[Bizier]

Supermarket fruit in general will make horrible fruit taste in your wine.

I grew up on a commercial orchard, most trees were puched out when I was young, but we had a small personal orchard as well. I always had access to tree ripened fruit as a matter of course. I was utterly shocked when I moved out of home and people expected me to pay top dollar for items that have been picked totally green and "ripened" with ethylene. Now I can understand why people got so excited when we gave them a full box of properly ripe peaches etc.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

I grew up on a commercial orchard, most trees were puched out when I was young, but we had a small personal orchard as well. I always had access to tree ripened fruit as a matter of course. I was utterly shocked when I moved out of home and people expected me to pay top dollar for items that have been picked totally green and "ripened" with ethylene. Now I can understand why people got so excited when we gave them a full box of properly ripe peaches etc.

:icon_offtopic:
No wonder you have such a fascination with fruit beers - it's in your blood !

Bay leaf wine ................nah ! Sounds :icon_vomit:

 

[Bizier]

Bay leaf wine ................nah ! Sounds :icon_vomit:

No, I think it would put the wine into the ballpark of a more sophisticated retsina or something, I like the idea.

 

[Airgead]

Now that does sound interesting. I'm thinking a few bay leaves infused into a mead would make a rather tasty brew. I might give that a go.

The one thing that strikes me about the recipe is the number of racking. I would usually rack twice or at most three times if I'm adding fruit to the secondary. Most often I'll only rack once. I suspect he gets away with it by adding the campden each time (antioxidant) As I can't use campden (SWMBO is allergic to the residual sulphur) that would end up oxidising the wine to to point of undrinkability.

Cheers
Dave