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how I make sumac wine

Have you ever had sumac tea?? I make my wine exactly how I like my tea. First, as this is a flower (really a berry except that is nearly impossible to seperate flowers from berries) wine, it takes the longest to make of anything I have ever done. You will need 10lbs of sugar for 5 gals. one teabag (for tannen) and 5 tsp of lemon juice (for cit. acid) . I take a 5 gal bucket of sumac horns and add all of the sugar. steep with 2 1/2 gallons of boiling water which dissolves the surger nicely. Add 2 1/2 gals of cold. Add half a cup of tea (mad out of a whole bag) and your 5 tsp of lemon juice(you can even add more as this does not affect the flavor radically[do not add less however]). Make sure that the mixture is the temp. you want (luke warm) then add your yeast, yeast nutrent, and peptice ensyme. You don't have to use peptic ensyme, but your wine will take years to clear up, rather then a year. I personally don't like having my carboys tied up that long (my friend [who gave me this mixture] does his in 5 gal buckets (no metal). Do your primary fermentation then in a week or two add to your carboy (barrel or bucket) and let sit. I usually rack in 4 or 5 months however you can probably go longer (if you go too long though, you affect the taste with all of that sediment sitting in your wine [I would say anything over six month is not good to do with this]). Basically, you just let it cook out and clear from that point on (be sure that your air lock has water in it and check on it once a month or so). Remember also that when you squeeze the sumac to move to carboys, you will have to add water as the sumac absorbs some of the water. I have a 20 gal batch on right now that I put on in Oct., and it is just now starting to clear up some and this is the end of July. If anybody does this, good luck, and keep me posted on how it is going. I think this is probably the hardest wine to make for me because of the time in carboys. In an hour. you can pick enough sumac to make a 55 gal batch, and you just cant do that with any berry or grape.

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