JoeReal

Here's the basic ingredients to make one gallon of your favorite citrus wine. A big 5 gallon batch is better for me though.

One thing to note is that citrus juices have high citric acid (although some are nearly acidless), so it is important to add malic and tartaric acid (you can buy these at a wine shop or ebay). The recipe is generic for citruses. I would recommend Valencias, mandarins, lemons but not grapefruits and navels as they become bitter quickly.

Main ingredient:
Enough citrus fruits (mandarins, lemons) to make a quart of juice, you can mix and match, for example, you can use 10 big fruits of valencias mixed with 2 lisbon lemons, or perhaps throw in a blood orange in the mix to create a red-colored citrus wine. (I will add blood orange next season since I have enough fruits this time).

Standard ingredients
2 1/4 lbs sugar (for dry wine, add up to total of 3 lbs for strong sweet wine)
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp malic acid
1 tsp tartaric acid
1 crushed campden tablet(optional for me, depends on type of citrus fruit)
1 packet of Lalvin EC1118 yeast or any of your favorite wine yeast.

Joe's zesto (optional):
1/2 cup vodka or rhum
citrus zest

If you want my version of citrus zest, do this first: Select about 1-2 citrus fruits that you are going to use and take out their zest. The zest is the very thin outer layer of citrus peel that contains the color of the citrus skin. You can remove this with a zesting knife or potato peeler. With a potato peeler, be careful not to take out any white of rind as these are very bitter (except for the quat types of citruses). Zesting knife is easier to use as it is a lot easier to avoid taking out the zest. Collect the zest into small jar that contains the half cup of vodka. Vodka must be at least 80 proof. Cover tightly and set aside until needed. This allows time for the alcohol in the vodka to extract the oils from the citrus skin. The final solution after the alcohol extraction process can be used also in cooking and flavoring just like how you use vanilla extract. Avoid using grapefruits and pumellos as sources of zest, but I can't really stop you if you do so. Nice zests come from limes, lemons, oranges and mandarins in that order of my personal preference.

Place 2 quarts of water into a large kettle and put the heat to high. Drop in the sugar and stir until it dissolves, you don't need to have the water reach boiling point, just warm enough to dissolve the sugar. Set aside to cool and start juicing your citruses.

You can extract the juice from your citruses with a juicer or however you do it but avoid crushing the seeds. Pulps would be okay, so no need to filter for pulps, just the seeds. If you are using navels and other citrus juices that gets bitter very quickly, I would strongly advice to add the crushed campden tablet into the receiving container. Whether you use campden or not, you have to add also the malic acid and tartaric acid into the receiving container. Stir the collected juice in the container as you proceed with the extraction. This slows down the oxidation of the juice and help prevent turning it very bitter very quickly. Do not drink the collected juice with the campden tablet dissolved on it especially if you are sensitive to sulfites. Stop when you have enough juice collected, about 1 quart to produce a gallon of citrus wine. Add pectic enzyme to the collected juice and stir, cover, and set aside for at least 5 minutes while waiting for the warm sugar solution you prepared earlier to cool down to 100 deg F or warm to the touch.

When the sugar solution is warm to the touch, pour the citrus juice, the sugar solution into your primary fermenter (could be just a bucket with cover or at least a 2-gallon glass container that you can cover). Add the yeast nutrient, pour out the yeast packet, and stir. Make sure to top off with clean cool water to make a gallon and 1 cup of total final volume. Cover the primary fermenter but not air tight. After 5 to 10 days, rack it off to the secondary fermentor (not necessarily secondary fermentation which is a different kind of fermentation), at this time you can add more sugar if you want to sweeten the wine, you can also add more citrus juice to top off the lost volume due to racking. After the fermentation in the secondary fermentor (could take anywhere from 1 to 3 months, once no more bubbles forming), rack off unto an aging container, add the zest in vodka that you prepare earlier.

Rack off from sediments every 2 months until clear and then age off for longer periods. The wine is very drinkable after 4 months after fermentation has stopped, but within one year, the taste will truly mature.

When you make it a sweet and strong citrus wine, just like what I got for Benny, you can squeeze a slice of lemon or lime per glass of wine before you drink it. This brings about the sensation of full range of citrus flavor that is pleasing to the palate and gives you a nice warming effect coming from the inside, evoking the pleasant memories of your harvested citruses.

Note that I find it actually too hard to work in one gallon batches rather than 5 gallons as there are no sutiable and appropriate volume containers for one-gallon batches. Consult your local wine shop supplies for more tips. Anyway, just scale up the ingredients unto bigger volume batches by simple ratio computations.