Winemaking: Plum, Apple, Mango, Jalapeño, Rosemary, & Fennel Natural Panela Mead

Our winemaking endeavors stem from a desire to be self-sufficient and control exactly what enters our body. By making your own wine, you can ensure that no sulfites or other harsh chemicals were used in the process and you can also make varieties that cannot be found in local boozer. We try to use all household items for our equipment, local and/or organic fruit, and natural substitutes for all chemical additives. Until now, the only special item we needed to make wine was wine or champagne yeast.



Wine making is basically a specific type of fermentation. What actually takes places is as follows. In the presence of sugar, whether it is sugar from fruits/vegetables or from cane or honey (or a mix of the two), the yeast eats the sugar and converts it into alcohol and carbon dioxide (in gas form). Once the alcohol concentration reaches a certain point, the yeast dies, as it cannot survive in environments beyond a certain alcohol content, depending on the species of yeast.

Yeast is everywhere and there are tons of naturally occurring varieties. Wine and champagne yeast has been bred to withstand high alcohol concentrations, as high as 21% alcohol by volume. To make table wines, one needs to use this type of yeast, but when making mead, herbal wines, or other less alcoholic beverages, one can simply rely on the natural yeasts that live all around us in the air that we breath.

This is the first natural mead that we made. The ingredients are:
• 5 lbs Apples, rinsed
• 3 lbs Plums, rinsed
• 1 Mango
• 2 Jalapeno Peppers, rinsed
• 4 sprigs of Rosemary
• 4 sprigs of Fennel
• 5 lbs Dehydrated (Sugar) Cane Juice, called Panela
• ½ liter Honey



The process is as follows. First, get the largest soup pot you have, fill it ¾ of the way and begin heating the water. Dissolve the Panela into the heating water. Note that it is easier to soak the panela in water overnight, as it will dissolve faster. Otherwise, you have to cut the panela into small pieces before putting it into the heating water to dissolve.



Into a 5-Gallon food-safe plastic bucket (known in wine-lingo as the Primary Fermenter), crush all of the plums with your hands. Then core the apples and blend the flesh. We separate the cores before blending because you do not want to crush the seeds, as they give off a very bitter taste. That being said, we do add the cores with the seeds to bucket, as they do contain sugars that will ferment.
Also into the bucket, add the peeled mango as well as the pit. Take out the seeds of the jalapeno and add just the flesh to the bucket as well. When the sugar water is getting hot, add the sprigs of herbs and cover while finishing off the heating and dissolving process.



Once the sugar has dissolved, add the sugar water and herbs to the bucket and top up to almost full with water. Cover the bucket with a cloth and tie a string around it, so that it is pulled taught across the top.
For the next week, we will stir the wine mixture daily. After a week, we will take out the fruit and siphon the wine into a water cooler jug, also known as the secondary fermenter. This process will be explained in greater detail when we actually perform it.

Also, I have yet to make a post on the basics of wine making and recipes for basic table wines. They are almost identical to the steps described above, but using cultured yeast to inoculate the crushed fruit and sugar water (also known as Must) in the Primary Fermenter. Will link to this post when it goes up.