anyone make homemade wine

[dave k]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any strange and unusual receipes for homemade wine they'd like to share?

I've just finished bottling sloe, damson and crab-apple. I had 2 loads of birch-sap on the go last spring, but one went off the other broke all over my carpet

I was going to try oak-leaf but don't have any spare demijohn's at the moment..

 

[bent-stick]

It's about time to start gathering the rose-hips. we had our first frost last week.

I've also done dandelion flower. It's surpising how long it takes to colect 2 galls of them.

 

[gregorach]

I'm probably going to be bottling my first ever batch of elderflower wine this weekend. I'll be racking my first ever batch of elderberry fairly soon too...

I can't really comment on my recipies yet - not until I actually taste the results!

 

[Bushman_Brett]

im partial to a nice apple and blackcurrant wine, one full 25ltr fermentin bucket worths of apples and one 2 ltr bottle of fresh collected blackcurrants, Sugar depending on measure makes a real refeshing wine. At the moment i have 25 ltrs of apple something fermenting ) its not quite cider and its not quite wine but its damn tasty so far

Iv made some real wierd conncoctions and i can reccomend you never try a summer fruits wine (melon, orange, straweberry, bananna and apples) it was just plane nasty, that one went through the still (for fuel experimental purposes of course)

Iv made a melon rum in the age old style of marrow rum, i.e scrape out the seeds fill with dark sugar and hang above a collector in a stocking, didnt come out to bad, but wasnt great.

Birch sap wine is a good traditional wine as is nettle wine

 

[Toddy]

My elderflower wine is lovely this time, the last one was a bit swersh The sloe gin's good and the windfall cider is still viciously sharp and needs longer before it's iced.

British Red seems to have the ultimat home brewery going, maybe ask him?

Cheers,
Toddy

p.s. The mention of melon rum takes me back try weight for weight peeled ripe bananas and sugar. Add the same weight of warm water and keep someplace warm in a covered tub, allow good expansion though since it gets a bit gassy.......it only takes a few weeks, rack off and it's really sweet and lovely. Settle it down and age, and it gets even better.

M

 

[British Red]

British Red seems to have the ultimat home brewery going, maybe ask him?

Cheers,
Toddy

I love the mis-spelling of ultimate...elderflower for breakfast Mary ?

Yeah I have been known to have 100 litres or so on the go of a variety of recipes at one time

Actually I did a wine blog at one point in real time describing and photographing all the processes involved in making "wild wine". Suspect most of what it shows is old news to you guys though

Blackcurrant Blog


Asnswering the question though, I've done everything form home made port to blackberry brandy to tea and rhubarb wine. At the end of the day, its just sugar, water, yeast and flavour. We used to whomp up alcopops too by brewing a flavourless liquid then playing with a soda stream and syrups

Anyway - if you can think or a flavour you want a recipe for, let me know and I'll see what I can do (watermelon is lovely if you ever find a market selling them off by the way...based it on my raspberry recipe and it was a fantastic summer cooler)

Red

 

[Toddy]

I love the mis-spelling of ultimate...elderflower for breakfast Mary ? ................Red

Oooops, and there was me more fussed about how to spell swersh!

Nope, oatcakes and honey, dried apples and Keemun China was my lot!

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Greywolf]

I did pumpkin 'pie' wine once....seriously!

Pumpkin flesh boiled til tender, pour into a brew bucket along with the liquor.
add 2lb sugar per gallon,
add ground cinamon, nutmeg and a few peppercorns to the evil brew and allow to cool.

Add a high alcohol tolerance yeast (sherry type). cover with a cloth and allow to ferment on the must for a few days.

Rack into demi-johns fitted with airlocks and sit back and enjoy the plup-plup-plup sound for the next few weeks.
when fermentation has slowed, rack into fresh demi-jons and add a table spoon of sugar. fit the locks again and wait
and wait
and wait.

clear wine with isinglass (or any other clearing product )

bottle and leave for a few months to mature.

Mine came out a beautiful bright orange, completely clear and tasted like pumpkin pie in a glass... didn't last long that one.

 

[Rebel]

Hi,
I was going to try oak-leaf but don't have any spare demijohn's at the moment..

I see you're in Dorset. When I lived down there charity shops and car boot sales used to have loads of cheap demijohns. I got almost all my wine making kit from car boots.

You've tried sloe, which there are plenty of around here this year. How about rose hip wine? Hedgerows are full of them and they're free. It's really tasty but don't sample it until you've filtered it or you'll get a nasty surprise. I made that mistake once. Never again.

 

[Too Much Kit To Carry]

From Toddy <snip> ultimat home brewery going, maybe ask him?


From BR <snip> Asnswering the question though


Blimey folks - it looks like this home brew is good stuufff <hic>

Phil.

 

[Tadpole]

In the past I have brewed beer (When I was poor and could not afford to buy the drink) and peach schnapps, but my most successful success is/was making a very nice version of Port wine with (then) cheap Greek brandy. I made a couple of gallons a year until my daughter was born; when I ran out of free time and spare cash. Sadly (foolishly) I gave most of it away as Christmas presents. Last year I made sloe gin, and this year I plan to do the same, I might even have a go at making sloe and bullace vodka.

 

[Too Much Kit To Carry]

bullace vodka.

Hi Tadpole,

Bullace - is that the same as the wild damson I find in the hedgerows on Kent??

if so it makes a really nice vodka

Phil.

 

[Tadpole]

Hi Tadpole,

Bullace - is that the same as the wild damson I find in the hedgerows on Kent??

if so it makes a really nice vodka

Phil.

Both Bullace and Damson originate from the same source (P. domestica,) the only difference being that bullace is round and damsons are oval
but thanks it's good to know they make a nice vodka

 

[dave k]

That blackcurrant wine blog was most excellent

I racked my lot yesterday - I have to say the crabapple has turned out superb, it tasted very good..

I was wondering - could you do the blackcurrant put take out the skins? This would make a nice clear wine with the flavor still there - I'm thinking like kirsch as opposed to sloe gin.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Homemade wine???
I get wine-d at home but I gues thats not the same

 

[Greywolf]

Damsons make a fantastic 'plum rum' too

make it like sloe gin but use a dark rum (cheaper the better I find)

makes an almost syrupy liqueur


GW

 

[British Red]

davek,

my blackcurrant is absolutely clear as a bell mate. A combination of finings and filtration make it totally clear. If you get problems with clearing its either suspended particualte matter (which finigs will cause to clump and sink) or pectin (the stuff that sets jam). If its cloudy or a high pectin fruit, use a pectic enzyme (like pectolase) to remove the pectin and it will be beautifully clear

HTH

Red

 

[British Red]

From Toddy <snip> ultimat home brewery going, maybe ask him?


From BR <snip> Asnswering the question though


Blimey folks - it looks like this home brew is good stuufff <hic>

Phil.

Touche

 

[gregorach]

Bottled my elderflower wine yesterday... Of course I ended up with an odd half-bottle that had to get drunk - and I must say it was very nice! I'm very chuffed with myself.