Sloes

[Queens59]

Spent the afternoon picking sloes near the River Otter and am ready for Sloe Gin and Slider - any other options??

 

[SER]

I've got a good bit of gin working away but still have loads of sloes left so would welcome any suggestions.

It's been a good year for fruit, we have had copious amounts of brambles, elderberries, crab apples and sloes.

Si.

 

[Queens59]

Tried slider? Once the sloes have been used for gin - strain them off and leave in a good cider for 3+ months, truly beautiful

 

[SER]

Tried slider? Once the sloes have been used for gin - strain them off and leave in a good cider for 3+ months, truly beautiful

I'll give that a try, thanks.

 

[barratt_sab]

We make booseberry jam - use the sloes for gin and then make jam with them (and some blackberries).

 

[barratt_sab]

It's been a good year for fruit, we have had copious amounts of brambles, elderberries, crab apples and sloes.

Have you tried crab-apple cider? One year, before we had the proper kit, we cut them and simmered them to get them soft (like for jelly) and then added sugar and water and made fermented the mixture. It certainly wasn't cider, but wasn't at all bad. It was very soporific - we slept one extra hour for each pint consumed.

Made with the kit it's the best scrumpy we've ever made.

 

[Hombre]

High pectin content . . . part pished, part poisoned?

 

[Ouarda]

They make really good wine and jam, sloes are best picked after the first frosts

 

[Queens59]

If you wait for the frosts here, you get wrinckly,dried up sloes - so we always pick around Sept. 13th...ish...on a good year

 

[Richard Bache]

They make really good wine and jam, sloes are best picked after the first frosts

I've heard that as well, but I have always picked them early (initially as early as late August). This was initially out of necessity (being away from all things green once the academic year started), but now more out of habit.

I think it tastes better when made with honey in place of sugar, and also it certainly improves with age.

 

[barratt_sab]

High pectin content . . . part pished, part poisoned?

Certainly a possibility - making the cider with them in the press (without boiling) resulted in a gel in the brewing barrel that looked like brains. If the books are to be believed, this was a reaction of pectic acid and calcium in the juice. The pectic acid is apparently formed from the pectin by the natural enzymes in the juice.

We siphoned the juice off and washed the brains down the drains.

This might explain why the early attempt at brewing crab apple jelly resulted in a more lethal concoction than later attempts using the press.

 

[isc26]

If yor not a gin fan you could always try sloe vodka

 

[lazybee]

Another use for sloes is to catapult them at your neighbours cat as he tries to leave a 'message' in borders.

 

[oliver90owner]

We picked a couple of kilos of sloes at the weekend and they are already 'pricked' and submerged in gin.

Jacquie uses them further (after a year's dunking in gin) for sloe brandy.

I like the idea of then using them for wine.

J was talking to a friend in Galicia and apparently they add sloes to Anisette which I understand, is the same as Pernod. Any one any experience of this? I think we will try some shortly.

They (sloes) do sound much more useful than just for sloe gin and brandy, which I am partial to, I must say. We will experiment further.

Home made is incomparably better than the shop-bought varieties, but they too are tasteful, if the real home-made brew is not available.

Regards, RAB

 

[Queens59]

Is sloe brandy made in the same way as sloe gin RAB?

 

[Hombre]

It sounds like soaking them in a succession of your favourite tipples. Don't forget the frequent testing and topping up until each variant is ready . . . Merry Christmas by the sound of it. It should last until it's time to start looking after the bees in the spring, but don't forget a period of sobriety for the OA at the end of the year. That would be the time to changethe steeping from gin to the brandy?

Heard a lot about it but, alas, never tried it. Seen a lot of sloes this year though . . .

 

[oliver90owner]

Queens,

Don't know the fine details but I gather brandy replaces the gin and away it goes for another 12 months. Any extra sugar or anything else is her secret.

I must have a go at mead - or talk her into it.

Regards, RAB

 

[Queens59]

Mmmm...sobriety...what's that exactly?? RAB - I'll have a go at sloe brandy and let you know. I thought I'd have a go at mead, but at the local recyling centre the other day I let on I keep bees and the chap offered to swop some of next years honey for this years mead...hic..so...I think I win?!