Triple cherry smoked fruit beer / My cherry trees

The grain bill (see recipe below).

I have a bit of malt left over from my first major brewing project, and I've been playing around with an online calculator to decide what to do with it.

I've also been enjoying a great blog on the subject of brewing unusual beers (and other food subjects), which inspired me to be a bit more adventurous - although there is something to be said about starting with simple recipes and working your way up, I tend to make what sounds interesting, even if that steepens the learning curve.

I have a thing for smoked beers - at least in theory. I have only tried one, on one occasion (the classic Schlenkerla Rauchbier, at my favourite Mancunian bar, Font). It sure was smoky, which isn't something you'd want in every drink, but it was interesting and not unpleasant. The way smoked beers are made is by smoking some of the malt, often over beech - although any wood you use for smoking food could work. You can buy ready-smoked malt, but since this recipe is made from leftovers, I'm going to smoke my own, using some of the many wood chips I bought last year for barbecues and smoking homemade bacon and suchlike.

I also love fruit beers, especially the two classics, kriek (cherry) and framboise (raspberry). I grow both in my garden - last year I got a single cherry and more than seven kilos of raspberries, but I wasn't brewing, so I used them in other things. I veer towards kriek partly because cherries seem much more luxurious, and partly because those I've had tend to be a little more sophisticated than other fruit beers. It happens that I have a bag of cherry wood chips, so I thought - why not combine the two? I came up with:

Triple cherry smoked fruit beer
for 4.5 litres (one demijohn)
grains and sugars
690g Maris Otter
280g English crystal
150g Amber, smoked over cherry wood chips
100g unrefined cane sugar
70g rolled oats
hops
2g Warrior (18.2% AA)
yeast
Hefeweizen (an unfiltered German beer, I poured some into a jug, added water and sugar, and let the yeast grow)/Wyeast Ringwood*
extras
toasted cherry wood chips
cherries

method
I'll mash the grains in the same way as for my first beer - namely by putting them into a big pan with water (I set my variable kettle to 80ºC, which comes down to the right range, 60-65ºC when mixed with the cold malt), then put that in the oven at a little under 70ºC for an hour. I'll boil with the hops for just half an hour - to extract the level of bitterness I've calculated, which should be pretty low, as what I've read suggests high hop levels and fruit don't combine well. I'll ferment in a glass demijohn with an airlock, and when it's done, I'll transfer to another demijohn, and add the wood chips. When the cherries are ripe, around midsummer, I'll transfer again, adding the fruit and probably removing the wood, depending on how woody it's become. The beer will sit on the fruit until autumn sometime, then I'll bottle it. The total time will be at least 9 months.

I really hope that I can use homegrown cherries in this - my schedule is based roughly around when they're ready. I can't count on having enough, or even any - as I'll explain below. In any case, that gives it five months or so on the wood chips - although I'll check to make sure it doesn't become unpleasant-tasting. Otherwise, I'll buy some fresh cherries around midsummer, and add those. As for quantities, I have no idea - but probably 20-30g of wood chips, and 0.5-1kg fruit.

What it ends up tasting like is unknown - I've never had anything like this, and it's rather experimental. But I'm using stuff I already have, so it's not costing me anything. If it's good, I'll have created something really exciting. If not - I now know you can blend beers, so maybe it won't have to be poured away.

*The Hefeweizen showed no signs of activity after a few days, so I added a little of my previous batch of beer, which is fermenting with Ringwood. Hopefully it'll take off soon. Update 25/1 - it's taken off now, bubbling contentedly (but not violently).

Update: 3rd February 2012
Fermentation has finished after ten days. The beer has been transferred to a fresh sterilised demijohn, and 35g toasted cherry wood chips will be added. Gravity measured at 1.015, giving a current abv of over 6% (the accuracy of a hydrometer is not really good enough to give fractions of a percent). Almost no sediment was transferred - a clean racking. Tasting of 80ml used for measuring the gravity: thick body, very little carbonation left. Copper-orange, good taste - I've had many worse beers in the pub. But there's no detectable smoke taste.

My cherry trees
I love fruit trees. They are amongst the most ornamental plants, with gorgeous (often scented) blossom announcing spring, summer verdancy and swelling fruits, edible baubles at harvest time, then bright autumn foliage. They don't need to take up much space - either get a dwarfing variety, or prune them into step-overs, cordons, fans, etc.

Even in my tiny garden, I've squeezed two cherry trees (and a quince). The cherries were from Tesco of all places, and bought on a whim - but I've always hankered after an orchard, so it wasn't unprecedented (I also bought a plum, but it didn't survive). I put one against the fence at the back of the garden - a position in full sun year-round, which gets very warm in spring and summer; the other went in on the other side of the terrace, about twenty feet away, and was left freestanding. I pruned the fence tree into a fan shape, which was held in place with canes. Perhaps because it has been constrained, the branches have grown much longer than the other tree - or perhaps it's the position, or variety.

Freshly-planted in spring 2009, the future fan-trained cherry had just three or four flowers - but put on strong growth through the summer.

In the second year, I added a framework of canes to train the branches into a fan shape. Plenty of blossom, but no fruit.

At the start of its third year, the fan shape was well established - it measured around 7 feet tall by 8 feet wide.

There was plenty of blossom in the spring of 2011, but just a single fruit ripened - most dropped, and the rest were probably eaten by birds (this year I'll put up a net).

At the end of last autumn, the leaves showed off some lovely colours - peach, orange, and gold.

2012 is a make-or-break year for these trees - I expect a harvest, even if it's only a couple of cups. If not, I will assume something is wrong, and try to fix it.

Drying fruit

Dried apple slices.

My new oven is great. I've hardly begun to explore its features - in particular, the steam function, which is hard to integrate into existing recipes. But one aspect is already well-tested: low temperature control. It can be held at just under 40ºC, which is ideal for proving bread dough. At 60ºC I can dry fruit and certain meat products (on which more in a future article), and that's what I've been doing. I started with tomatoes, but the most successful thing so far has been apples.

I had a couple of bags of apples that weren't doing anything. I tend to buy fruit when it is reduced in the local shops, or at the greengrocer if there is a good offer on (and this is apple season, so many English varieties are quite cheap). In fact, unless I'm buying for a recipe, almost all the fruit I get is less than full price. The advantage of this is, you can get a lot of fruit for very little money - often half or a third of the retail price. The disadvantage (if you see it that way) is, you end up with a lot of the same thing, and have to find a way of using it. I must admit, sometimes I end up composting some of it (a couple of dozen passion fruit I got for pennies earlier in the year still lie heavy on my conscience). Drying could be the answer.

A punnet of red-skinned plums, sliced, stoned, and spread on a tray, ready for drying...

...and here they are, done - they rather unsettlingly resemble mushrooms, but taste fantastic.

Of course, you could make jam. But that requires a ready supply of sugar, possibly pectin, and jars, and can be quite a messy process. Plus, I don't eat much jam. Drying, however, is almost foolproof, and aside from the initial preparation, is a process that needs no supervision. Admittedly, you do need jars or similar for storage, but they don't need to be heatproof, nor do you need to worry about sterilising them. Otherwise, you can freeze the dried fruit in bags, but it's so delicious to snack on, long-term preservation shouldn't be a worry.

For most fruit, the process is the same. You'll need a knife, one or more trays (I bought some new ones with holes in, which will hopefully increase air circulation), an oven capable of being set to a temperature less than 100ºC (the lower the better), with a fan if possible. For fruit that can go brown, you will also need a bowl and some lemon or lime juice (or citric acid).

These apples have been drying for a few hours; they are nearly ready.

The method is simple. Wash and preferably dry your fruit. You can peel it if you like, but I don't. Remove the core of apples, pears, and the like; remove the stone from plums, apricots, nectarines (by slicing in half, and pulling or prising out the stone). For apples, slice evenly - a mandoline is a useful tool, but a sharp knife will do. Incidentally, an apple corer might be helpful if you have a lot of fruit to do (I intend to get one soon). With fruit that can turn brown in air, put it into a bowl with water and lemon juice (or whatever acid you're using). I would simply halve stone fruit. Thicker slices and larger fruit will take longer to dry, of course, but has a more satisfyingly leathery texture at the end. Spread the fruit slices out (grapes, figs, and cherry tomatoes can be left whole, but prick them with a skewer or cocktail stick to allow moisture to escape) on trays, put the trays into the oven. Fan setting, 50-70ºC is perfect. Leave for several hours, or overnight; check once they look shrivelled. Thinner and smaller pieces will dry faster; you may need to remove these first. The longer you leave them, the better they may keep, but the crisper they will be - eventually they will be totally dessicated.

Washed, blanched grapes on a tray...

Storage is easy: pack them loosely into clean jars or resealable plastic storage boxes. Tie a little uncooked rice in a piece of muslin, to make a pouch, put this in the jar. The rice acts as a desiccant, absorbing any excess moisture, and keeping the fruit fresh longer (like silica gel). They should keep weeks or even months, in a cool, dry place, out of sunlight. Check them - discard any that have gone mouldy.

...here they are halfway through - starting to brown and shrivel...

Eat them as a snack, or sprinkle into cereal, or maybe use them in baking (I'm not sure what recipes you could use dried apples in, but they're so delicious, I'm unlikely to find out!).

...and these have nearly finished their transformation into sultanas.

Making liqueurs

Preamble

A few years ago I got hooked on cocktails. It began when I ordered a box of assorted premium spirits from an online retailer. I still have the email, so I can say it contained 3 bottles of premium plain vodka, and one bottle each of berry- and lime-flavoured vodka. Throughout my sixth form and university years, my tastes for alcohol changed, as you would expect. When I was a teenager, I drank tequila, alcopops (which were still quite new then), and whatever else was cheapest. Then vodka and orange (again the cheapest I could find) took centre stage, before I gave up drinking almost entirely for over a year. When I resumed, I started taking advantage of the good wine shops in the city, and tried numerous whites and rosés (red was still rather too challenging on a daily basis).

In France, where I spent a lot of time in my third year (I studied French, see), I drank more wine (I have fond memories of the chain Nicolas's budget rosé range, where you could get a very decent bottle for €2.50, which in those days was a pittance), and kir, which was invariably the cheapest drink in bars (white wine, traditionally Bourgogne aligoté, with crème de cassis - blackcurrant liqueur). Returning to the UK afterwards, I started enjoying the odd Long Island iced tea, and vodka. So by this point - not long before I finished - my tastes were broad, and I was eager to learn more.

I also liked absinthe, but that's another story.

When I finished my degree, I had a lot of spare time, and I started reading books on cocktails. You might be surprised - but a food-lover is likely to enjoy reading recipe books, and cocktail formulae are merely simple recipes. What I started to do was make lists of drinks I wanted to try, and the ingredients I needed to buy in order to make them. By the end of this period, two or three years later, I had a personal collection of well over 100 spirits, liqueurs, bitters, and many more syrups and mixers. I've since drunk, given away, or disposed of them all - my house no longer regularly contains alcohol at all, as it's too much of a temptation. However, I do enjoy making my own, and recently I've begun making liqueurs again, from seasonal fruit - sometimes home-grown.

The issue at hand

The beauty of this is, they are useful as straight drinks - Amalfi limoncello is beautiful over ice - but particularly good in simple, delicious cocktails. The fruit syrup is great too, of course, but its keeping qualities are much poorer. The alcohol in a liqueur should keep it fresh for many months, especially if unopened.

You can flavour liqueurs with almost anything. And I should say, before I continue, that by 'liqueur' (not to be confused with liquor), I mean a syrupy, sweetened alcoholic drink made from fruit, herbs, spices, nuts, and the like, combined with sugar and spirit alcohol, usually 15-25% alcohol by volume (though some commercial ones are stronger). I'll leave out cream liqueurs here, which include the addition of dairy products, and sometimes eggs, because they are rather different in production and keeping qualities.

This week I've made two, with a third in production - quince, plum, and pear. These fruits are ripe now, so are perfect for transforming into things that can be enjoyed later, but almost anything can be used - though some are easier than others.

Basic liqueur recipe
ingredients
Fresh, ripe, seasonal fruit
Sugar
Spirit (vodka, brandy, and rum are best, but whisky and gin are possible)
Optionally: citric acid, lemons or limes, water
basic method

• First the flavour of the fruit must be extracted. There are three main ways of doing this. First, you may juice them directly. This works well with firm, watery fruits, like apples and watermelon. Use a domestic juicer. The second method, which is suitable for all types of fruit, is to gently heat the fruit in a pan, with a small amount of water. The third is to steep the fruit, whole or chopped, in the spirit, but I'll say more on that below.
• Take the juice, or the heated pulp, and strain. The best way to do this is using a sieve lined with muslin. If there is a lot of pulp, skin, etc, you may be best sieving it without the muslin first, to remove most of the solids. Gently press the mass wrapped in muslin if you like - but the result may be a slightly cloudy liqueur.
• Then, put the clarified juice in a pan, and add sugar, lemon, and citric acid to taste. I only started using citric acid recently, but find it excellent for correcting the acid/sugar balance. It's a white powder, used in many types of cooking, and sold in some supermarkets, ethnic food shops, and home brew suppliers. A little goes a long way, but it really perks up the juice, and can help bring out the flavour of less than perfect fruit. It's also great if you add too much sugar, as it brings the mixture back into balance.
• Once it tastes right, add the alcohol. The strength is up to you - I'd say no more than 50/50. Then readjust the sweetness and acidity - remember, the alcohol will have a certain kick, or burn, and the final sugar and acid levels will be higher than in a non-alcoholic syrup in order to carry this - unless you use very smooth, expensive alcohol, which is a bit of a waste anyway.
• Once it is to your taste, pour into clean, sterilised bottles. Store in a dark, cool place. The flavours are often said to "mature" over several months - possibly due to slow chemical reactions between the alcohol, sugar, and acid - but I am not sure if there's any real difference (unlike, say, in a wine, where there's a much more complex interplay with dead yeast enzymes, etc).

The colours can be beautiful - I don't understand why most commercial examples are still coloured artificially, since fruit and herbs have so much of their own. Of course, if you use golden sugar, or brown spirit (like brandy), or honey (a little of which makes a lovely addition to some), then it will be darker.

The third way is more traditional. Take a large jar, and place alternating layers of sugar and fruit into it. Add the spirit of your choosing to cover. Ideally, you would fill it, otherwise the fruit will often float to the top - but you can weigh it down (this is how a "Rumtopf" or rum pot is made - but in that case, mixed fruit is usually used). Leave for two weeks up to several months, until the liquid is fruity and coloured. Strain. The problem I have with this method is there is no easy way of adjusting the sweetness until the end. It is, however, easier, and you end up with alcohol-soaked fruit, which can be useful as a dessert in itself (although it's not really my cup of tea). This method tends to produce a stronger finished liqueur than those above.

Ways to serve

A good liqueur is excellent served straight, in a small glass especially for that purpose, or a sherry schooner, small wine glass, or even a brandy snifter. Over ice can work well, and sparkling water can be added for a long drink. A simple cocktail can be made by shaking a measure or two of spirit over ice with at least as much liqueur, and possibly a little lemon or lime juice, or the juice of whatever fruit is in the liqueur, or a complementary one, and possibly sugar syrup. It's all to taste, so I can't specify - I prefer much more sour cocktails than most people. Experiment!

It goes almost without saying that this is an excellent way of dealing with a glut of fruit, and makes a lovely handmade gift for those who like a tipple. At the very least, the bright, jewel-like colours are likely to gladden the heart, especially deep in winter.

The picture above shows, in the bottles left to right, plum (also in the glass), banana, pear, and quince liqueurs, all made this month.

Strawberry season

Washed, hulled, and ready to use.

The strawberries were early this year. As I mentioned previously, I picked my first on the last day of May, but for me (based on average conditions round here), June is the time for these fruits. That's when they are in full swing, producing handfuls a day from my patch of a couple of dozen plants. I grow four or five kinds, although the labels I carefully placed next to each plant when they went in three years ago have long since disappeared, and they've multiplied so much (sending out runners despite my best efforts at control) I now just treat them all the same. For the record, there are 'Honeoye', 'Cambridge Favourite', 'Hapil' (I think labelled as 'Happil' when I bought it), and 'Rhapsody' (but I'm not 100% sure of that last one). I wanted a range, partly to mitigate against disease, partly to give a longer season. In fact, the sizes, shapes, shades of red, and flavours are all very distinct - a strawberry is not a strawberry is not a strawberry.

The plants are meant to be replaced every three years, which gives me an opportunity to move the bed - it's currently on a terrace of the slope in the back garden, south-facing, on enriched clay soil. They thrive here, but I need the space for something else. I will ditch the gooseberry planted with them, which has never done well. I'll probably put them in raised beds I'm planning on building by the side of the house, which is a tough spot, being quite shady and cool. Maybe not so ideal for ripening, but I'll keep some in pots, too, to hedge my bets. I need the current fruit bed for vegetables, which I care more about now, and which will really benefit from the aspect of that location. I probably won't buy any more plants, because there are enough self-spread across the garden to provide for my needs - I'll just dig them up later in the year and relocate them.

Anyway, this year is providing the largest harvest ever, so the bed is certainly mature. As for earliness, I have a photo from last year of my strawberries from the 20th of June - and although it may not be of the first fruits, it's clear that they are indeed (as I may have said before) around two weeks early. There are many more fruits still on the plants, although blooming finished over a week ago, so I expect to be picking some for the next fortnight or so - perhaps till the end of the month. Thankfully, a bumper crop of raspberries will take over - the first fruits have started turning red, which is early again (I think of raspberries as more of a July crop), but around two weeks after the first strawberries, which is about right.

But what to do with this bounty? Well, first of all, enjoy it! The process of searching through the fruit patch, looking under leaves for bright red (or in my case, blush pink*) fruits is exciting, and very pleasant in warm summer sunshine (today, in the cold driving rain, it was not so fun). Eating them, perfectly ripe, unadulterated, is a simple, but satisfying pleasure. You could do the cream-and-sugar thing (I've never been a fan), or use them in a smoothie or cocktail (I find they work well, puréed, with bourbon). Or make a basic custard, blitz strawberries, pass through a sieve and/or muslin, combine, and freeze in an ice cream machine (or however you prefer to make it), maybe adding chopped strawberries, or a coulis, to really enhance the flavour.

With less-than-perfect, or slightly unripe fruits, try this: chop them quite finely, dust with fine sugar, drizzle with the best balsamic vinegar you can find, and if you like, some fresh, coarsely-ground black pepper, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Serve over vanilla ice cream, or with mascarpone. The strawberry flavour is much enhanced. I never used to like the idea of this, but it really works.

A pound of strawberries, waiting to be turned into syrup...

...and the finished product.

*I have to pick my strawberries a little before they are perfectly ripe, otherwise they get eaten by culprits unknown (probably slugs and snails). They turn deep red indoors in a day or two.

Fruit

I think it's worth mentioning another love of mine, both in gardening and cooking: fruit. Specifically, soft fruit - though which is my favourite, I couldn't say; it's a close contest between raspberries and redcurrants.

I grow both, as well as gooseberries (theoretically a red dessert variety, but it always gets attacked by sawfly before it can ripen properly), white- and blackcurrants, and strawberries. As you can see in the picture above, the raspberry canes that grew last summer, and overwintered as drab, brown whips, are bursting into leaf now, and it won't be long before tiny flower buds start appearing.

In fact, these are a supreme example of serendipity. Most of my back garden was overrun by brambles a few years ago - it's a south-facing slope, that was crowned by a large Holm oak tree until it collapsed in a gale. With sunlight free to bathe the soil, and nobody around to stop them (I lived away at university, then in London), blackberries took over - reaching six feet high. When I moved back here nearly three years ago, I began carving out a space amongst them - now they are all but gone. However, the most surprising discovery of the summer of 2008 was something else growing in the bramble patch - similarly arching, prickly, with leaves that a casual observer might not distinguish. But the fruit was different - maturing earlier, to red, not black. Raspberries! They must have come from a seed - maybe in bird droppings. They not only held their own against the blackberries, but were actually winning. The following year, I pruned selectively - leaving the raspberry canes alone. I ate so much fruit - handfuls in the sunshine.

I dug some out, and left them in a bucket, meaning to replant them when the ground was cleared. I didn't, and thought they were all dead. But I was wrong - the canes in the bucket rooted through into the ground beneath, and the slope produced more canes the following summer - tiny sections of root must have remained. Last year I was more conscientious, and tied them into a framework of bamboo canes. I cut down the old ones once they were spent, and tied in the new ones (being summer raspberries, they fruit on last year's wood).

I gathered so many last year, I couldn't keep up - I gave some away to friends. This year I expect even more, as they will be fertilised and kept free of weeds. I thought I'd share a 'recipe' I hope to use them in - I doubt there will be enough for jam (which I make, but never use), or even sorbet - but cocktails are another matter (though most will be eaten fresh). Here's a drink I've made for years, which has proved popular with friends - a great, unexpected combination.

Mrs Robinson
adapted from Diffordsguide

ingredients

• raspberries
• bourbon
• lemon or lime juice
• sugar syrup
• soda water

method

1. Muddle (squish) a handful of raspberries in a cocktail shaker.
2. Add a double shot (50ml) of bourbon, one measure (25ml) each of juice and syrup, and fill the shaker with ice cubes.
3. Shake; strain into a glass with crushed ice.
4. Top up with soda water.

notes and substitutions
I suppose other whiskeys and whiskies would be fine, but bourbon has a great flavour profile, which works really well with the fruit. Simon Difford, who originated this recipe, adds crème de frambois (raspberry liqueur), which is good, if you can get it (major supermarkets should stock it) - add a shot. Mint could be added with the raspberries, for more aroma and complexity. To be honest, it might be easier, if you intend to make a lot of these, to purée the raspberries in bulk, and add the sugar syrup and citrus juice to them to make a pre-mixed juice/syrup. Don't use a juicer - too messy. Just soften the raspberries in a pan with a drop of water over a gentle heat for a few minutes, then pass through a sieve. The balance between sugar and acidity depends on your taste, and on the fruit itself - keep tasting until it's right.

Mulled cider (and juice)

While I remember, the cider I made from my friend's apples turned out to be utterly delicious - with a little help.

I didn't add anything to the juice - no sugar, honey, stabilisers - except, of course, yeast (I didn't trust "wild yeasts" to do the job). This meant the resulting cider was as pure an expression of the apples as I could make it, but it was tooth-meltingly sour once the fermentation was done. Not a pleasant drink at all - until I mulled it (I'd expected to have to do this anyway, in case the cider wasn't very nice; it *was* clean and clear, but unsweetened). Simply adding sugar to the cider returned the balance that had been in the juice - and the wonderful taste those apples had had revealed it was still there in the finished product. It occurred to me, too, that I'd need not worry about bottles exploding from unwanted secondary fermentation if there was no residual sugar.

Anyway, December being much colder than normal, mulling the cider was the perfect way to re-sweeten it in a seasonal way. I'd been mulling fresh apple juice for a few weeks in order to satisfy my craving for something warm without getting drunk every night (and using up my surfeit of homemade apple juice). I was experimenting with unusual spices, too.

So, here's a template for mulling dry cider (don't make the mistake I did once, and waste your money on sparkling stuff - it will obviously lose its bubbles when heated), apple juice, wine, grape juice and whatever else you can think of. It's very loose, because the tartness of the base ingredient, and the availability of spices will vary so much.

Ingredients
Liquid (e.g. cider)
Sweetener (I don't mean artificial sweeteners; white sugar is the least interesting option - try unrefined, brown, or honey)
Whole spices, roughly crushed (cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, cassia, green cardamom - these are great, if standard; try black pepper, nutmeg (freshly grated), black cardamom, grains of paradise, or anything similar).
Fruit (optional; orange slices are good in mulled wine, apple slices and sultanas are excellent in cider; finely-pared lemon peel can be interesting)

Method

• Fill a pan 1/2-2/3 full with the liquid. Place over the lowest heat on your hob.

• Add enough sweetener to balance the flavour - and remember, when it's hot, it may taste stronger, so you may want to marginally over-sweeten it. Ideally, start out with too little sugar, and keep adding and tasting until you reach the perfect level.

• The best way to add the spices is in a muslin bag, tied up, or a mesh infuser - I have one especially designed for spices, but you can use metal "tea bags", the sort to allow brewing of loose tea without any mess. This just stops people having to pick bits of spice out of their mouths as they drink.

• Add any fruit, if using.

• Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.

• Heat until just hot - do not boil, as this drives off the alcohol (although not as quickly as you may think). If it cools down between servings, reheat - but never boil.
• Serve in heat-proof glasses or cups.
  

My favourite part is eating the swollen, apple-infused sultanas at the bottom of the glass.

The (Latest) Device

It occurred to me tonight that I haven't mentioned my latest kitchen gadget. Actually, "gadget" implies something gimmicky, which is unfair - this is something found in many homes and businesses: a juicer.

I had a juicer years ago - a combined centrifugal machine/blender. It was okay, and I learned the basics with it (like, I love carrot and apple juice). It was what you'd expect for a few tens of pounds - pretty basic, but reasonably reliable, if a bit messy. It died a while ago, and although I've not yet disposed of it, I think it can't be resurrected.

Back in 2005, I was into (apologies in advance) Gillian McK*ith (asterisk to prevent her coming up in searches - she's hopelessly litigious). I enjoyed her early shows, which seemed to preach the virtues of fruit and veg, fish and lean proteins, as opposed to processed sugars, starches, and excess fat. And her diet programmes seemed to work - the people (admittedly obese) lost a lot of weight. Someone in my family (I suspect my mother) bought the accompanying book, and I took it to university after the Easter holiday.

It was dire. The first day was a "detox", which involved such delights as hot water with lemon juice, hot water with flax seeds, and the most amazing of all - various root vegetables (turnip, mostly) boiled; you didn't eat them, you drank the water they'd been cooked in: wasteful.

Anyhow, the only thing I took away from that, ahem, experience, was that there are two kinds of juicer (in fact there are at least three), and the best is something called a "masticating juicer" (again, not strictly true). I knew that if I ever got another machine, that would be the one for me.

I came into some money recently - a combination of inheritance and tax rebate. It coincided with my first home cider making, thanks to a tree in my friend's garden. The house her partner inherited from his grandmother has the remnants of a small orchard, with plums, apples, pears and blackcurrants. This year only the apples produced much (or at least, we missed the blackcurrants), but there was a large tree laden with fruit. No idea what variety, or even if it was a cooker or an eater (her boyfriend thought the former). We picked, at my behest, as she would otherwise have left them for lack of inspiration. I said I'd make cider, and give her some when it was done.

Anyway, trying to juice 13.5kg of apples with a blender and a sheet of muslin is not fun by any means. After the first few kilos, I decided to put some of my spare cash to good use and get a juicer to speed up the process. I read into the subject for over a week, weighed up all the options, and plumped for the best masticating/augur machine I could get for the budget (I paid just over £200).

Since then I have juiced a good 40+ kinds of fruit and vegetable, and almost all of them have been great. Soft things don't go through any juicer so well, so figs, pears, and overripe guavas won't be tried again. Conversely, the hardest stuff juices best - think carrots, hard apples, beetroot. Some surprising combinations, especially apple with cabbage, and apple with yellow pepper, as well as many mixed beetroot and fruit juices, work very well. I'm yet to be convinced on sweet potato - the juice it yields is strangely creamy.

Anyway, I am currently experimenting with the next level of juicing - namely, clarified juices. I ran across perhaps the best food blog I've ever read (on which more soon), which introduced me to two techniques: agar clarification, and enzyme clarification. As I happened to have both dry agar and pectolase in my kitchen (the former from curiosity, the latter for the cidermaking project), I have tried both - and the results are very exciting. A few days ago I transformed apples into a cinnamon and apple syrup that was sensational with premium bourbon. Lime juice clarified with agar was even better, and has a bright future in my kitchen (please excuse the pun).

Much more on clarification in the near future, I hope...

Fruit Wine Update

Yesterday I began siphoning my fruit wines into clean demijohns. I have two batches on the go at the moment - this is my first year of home winemaking, and I started small.

I have three demijohns, and I have been meaning to start a new batch of wine, beer, or maybe mead for some time. I realised, the most logical course of action would be to siphon batch one into the empty demijohn, batch two into the newly-empty (and cleaned) demijohn that contained the first batch, and start my new batch in the one that held batch two. So, yesterday I started the process, which isn't terribly complicated, but needs a little care.

I cleaned the empty demijohn by scrubbing with hot water and washing up liquid inside and out (I have a bottle brush for the interior), then filling with warm water into which are crumbled a few Campden tablets, which disinfect the glass. Then, this is siphoned off, and the wine is siphoned in.

Today, I did the second batch. The motivation, other than a feeling of achievement, is that you get to taste the wines as you siphon them into their new home.

Both batches are of blackberry wine. My back garden has gradually been overgrown with brambles over the past few years, despite periodic attempts at clearing. The upside is that a huge quantity of free fruit is produced each year. Last year I made a fruit liqueur with some of the blackberries, boiling the fruit with sugar, straining, and mixing with Armagnac (you could use any spirit). Unfortunately, due to excessive pectin, it took on the appearance of clotted blood - lumpy crimson goo. It was, however, delicious, and remained pleasurable to drink for almost a year.

This summer, my grandparents leant me a couple of home winemaking books. My grandad has made his own wines and liqueurs for decades, although he doesn't any more. I saw the blackberry wine recipe, and decided it would be an excellent way to use up a few kilos of bramble fruit.

He leant me his two demijohns, and I bought the rest (another demijohn, a siphon, Campden tablets and wine yeast, the bottle brush, and a hygrometer) from Wilkinson, which sells a wonderful range of home brewing equipment. I picked enough fruit, followed the recipe (which involves steeping the fruit with boiling water and sugar, sieving, and fermenting with yeast for several months).

The first batch was made from fruit harvested in early August. Some of it was a little under-ripe, so it is lighter in colour and lower in natural sugars. The second batch, harvested a week or two later, contained much riper fruit, indeed some which was probably already fermenting on the plant. It's darker, and in theory, richer.

The first batch tasted yesterday as it did a few weeks ago - balanced, quite rich, still quite sweet, effervescent, and yeasty. Surprisingly, the second batch, a glass of which I have in front of me, is much drier. The colour is a wonderful bright ruby, and the smell and taste are much more redolent of the fruit it is made from. I suppose it is a little jammy, it's certainly less yeasty (still slightly fizzy, though - it's still fermenting quite vigorously), but has a tannic edge that might put some people off. I'm actually glad they are different - I decided not to blend the two batches, but rather to bottle them separately, not long after I started them off, to see which style I preferred, and to demonstrate that fruit wine can be complex too.

So, the two batches, once siphoned, are topped-up with boiled water that has been allowed to cool (so as not to kill the yeast), and re-sealed with airlocks. I don't know if they will be ready in time for Christmas, which was my hope, but my new project should hopefully fill the gap in the meantime. And that is? Well, not a fruit wine, but a beer - pumpkin beer, to be precise. But more on that in my next entry.