680g fresh sloes 500g sultanas one thinly sliced lemon 4.5l boiling water 1.1Kg white sugar ¾tsp tannin ½tsp citric acid

DAY 1: 13-10-03
The sloes were rinsed and added to the bucket along with the raisins, lemon and acid. The water, sugar and tannin were brought to the boil them poured over the fruit. The bucket was covered and allowed to cool overnight.

DAY 2: 14-10-03
1½tsp of pectolase was stirred into the tepid liquid, and the softened fruit given a light mashing. The bucket was tightly covered again.

DAY 3: 15-10-03
Stirred.

DAY 4: 16-10-03
Stirred.

DAY 5: 17-10-03
Stirred. A starter bottle was prepared.

DAY 6: 18-10-03
The brew was strained first through a fine nylon bag, then through muslin to remove all traces of fruit pulp. The activated yeast mixture (prepared the day before) was added to the rich purple plum smelling liquid. The bucket was loosely covered and left for fermentation to get underway.

DAY 7: 19-10-03
Fermenting away nicely!

DAY 10: 22-10-03
The wine appeared to have settled down, and was transferred to a clean demijohn. The brew was around 300ml short of filling the bottle, the difference was made up with a little topping up solution. It would appear that I was a little hasty here, as soon after fitting the airlock it became filled with pale pink foam from the furiously frothing wine beneath!

WEEK 7: 06-12-03
All activity stopped, though still very murky! Gravity checked at 990, so probably finished, and possibly quite potent!

WEEK 24: 02-04-04
Even after many more weeks the murkiness hadn't improved much. The wine was racked into a clean demi-john and treated with Ritchie Kwik Clear finings.

WEEK 34: 07-06-04
Although markedly clearer the wine still looked quite murky. It was racked again and treated with Bentonite (1tsp made up in 100ml water with 1 campden tablet prepared the day before). The brew was returned to the cupboard to resume clearing.

WEEK 39: 15-07-04
The brew was racked again, losing even more precious wine in the thick clay sediment! A crushed campden tablet and 1g of potassium sorbate were added. The wine was passed through the VinBrite filter (with some difficulty) and the result was quite clear, though a long way from award winning. It was returned to the demi john and sealed with a safety bung to await bottling. A considerable amount of water has been added during the course of this fermentation to make up for losses incurred during racking -hopefully it will still be sufficiently alcoholic to not go stale prematurely.

WEEK 47: 06-09-04
At long last the wine was bottled!