I mentioned a little while ago that I was going to try making quince wine from a generous bag of lovely yellow fruit a generous friend had given me! I was going to use an old 1930’s recipe from Ambrose Heath’s little book, Home Made Wines and Liqueurs. I guess the recipe is actually much older than that, Heath gathered country recipes from many different sources.
This is the basic recipe which I followed to a certain extent:
- wipe and grate twenty large, sound, ripe quinces leaving the core
- simmer in a gallon of boiling water for 15-20 minutes
- strain with pressure though a jelly bag
- allowing 2 lbs of white sugar to 1 gallon of warm liquid, and the thinly-pared rind and juice of two lemons, stir together until the sugar is dissolved
- add ¼ oz yeast of a bit of toast and leave closely covered for 24 hours
- remove the toast and rind and pour into cask
- leave open until fermentation has ended, bung and leave as long as possible – it improves with keeping, then bottle
I didn’t have twenty large, sound, ripe quinces – I had small quinces but I worked out that they were about half the quantity Heath suggests. grating quinces is one heck of a lot of very hard work, so I confess, I just cooked them whole, but followed the recipe, ‘straining them with pressure’ until I didn’t think anything more could be extracted. I had no live yeast – which is what he must have used, so I worked out the quantity of dried yeast, didn’t bother with the toast, and just sprinkled it onto the warm quince/sugar liquid. It began to ferment so I have poured it into a container and now am awaiting fermentation cessation… Then I will bung it and eventually bottle it… Who knows whether it will be drinkable… but all it has cost me is a pound of sugar and my own efforts!
Lois Elsden 