Recipe for 1 gallon of either a dry or medium Beetroot Wine. Use the lower amount of sugar for dry and the higher for medium. Beetroot is easy to grow and this beetroot wine recipe is a great way to use up a glut at the end of the growing season
Beetroot is quite easy to grow, you may find the page How to Grow Beetroot on the Allotment Garden web site helpful.
Beetroot Wine Recipe
Ingredients for Beetroot Wine Recipe:
- 4 lb red beetroot
- ½ lb sultanas or raisins
- Juice of 2 large lemons
- ½ pint strong tea
- 1¾ lb to 2¼ lb sugar
- Wine yeast
- Nutrient
- Water
Method for Beetroot Wine Recipe:
- Scrub the beetroots (but do not peel) and chop into small chunks
- Boil in 6 pints of water for about 15 minutes for young beets, longer for older beets which are tough.
- Strain, discard the beets, and put the juice into a fermenting bin. Chop the sultanas or raisins and add to the bin along with half of the sugar.
- Allow to cool and then add the lemon juice, wine yeast, nutrient and tea.
- Cover and allow to ferment for a week, stirring daily.
- Strain and press and return to a clean fermenting bin.
- Boil the remaining sugar in 2 pints of water for 2 or 3 minutes and add to the bin.
- Cover again and leave for 3 or 4 days.
- Pour carefully into a gallon jar, leaving as much deposit behind as possible.
- Fill up the jar with cooled, boiled water to where the neck begins.
- Fit a fermentation lock and leave until fermentation has finished.
- Rack, as necessary, and syphon into bottles.
Makes around 1 gallon of wine. Generally this is a fairly fast wine and the flavours have developed after six months to a year.
You can get away with using a little more beetroot but too much throws the balance off and spoils the taste.
It’s a shame to waste the beetroot and it can be eaten or broken into freezable portions. Those living outside the UK (where it is not allowed under regulations) can also use the cooked beetroot in chicken mash or pig feed.
Why discard the beetroots after cooking them? I preserve mine and use for salads, etc. Thoroughly wash the vegetables. Do not remove the tops and bottoms as the beetroots will bleed out then put them into cold water and cook them whole. When cooked, remove them from the water and allow to slightly cool. The skins will slip off then the beetroots can be sliced, diced, or left whole if small, and preserved ready for using in salads, etc. They contain a lot of iron.
‘nuf sed.
I’m preserving my beetroot also .I mean i’m making 5 gallons of wine that’s too much Beetroot to waste. Could also make beetroot chutney.
Beetroot also helps lower blood sugar among many other health benfits. So if i drink too much of the wine it’s healthy anyway haha.
I’ve never made wine but fancy a go with the beetroot wine this year, please can you tell me, what is “the nutrient” and why do you add water up to the neck as instructed in item 10?
Yeast nutrient makes the yeast ferment better to change the sugar to alcohol.
The reason for boiled water top up is to make up the difference from leaving the deposit behind.to do this some liquid will have to be left behind also.look up the term ‘racking’ in wine making