Grow Your Own Magazine

Myself and my boyfriend decided it would be nice to make a couple of bottles of Mead and Wine a few weeks ago... experimentation was the key we decided and as such we have currently got on-the go:

Meads:
Banana
Vanilla
Almond
Ginger & Orange

Wines:
Peach & Mango
Peach
Strawberry, Mango & Banana
Mango & Orange
Cantaloupe & Grape

Cider:
Spiced Cider

... we already made one of those Red Wine Kit jobs which was Black Cherry and we've had some... it's rather potent but absolutely fantastic.

Can't wait to see what some of our inventions are going to taste like

Incidentally the Mango & Orange one started off with a gravity which was off the scale, brewed out to 1040 and we tasted it... flipping heck it was strong (14% and the yeast had given out) so we split it into two demijohns and added more liquid (Mango & Orange juice made from concentrate) and more yeast to make 2 x 7% wines although it hasn't finished bubbling yet and it's going to get to around 14 - 18% again

Odd thing is... I don't drink much at all we just got carried away

I've often looked at the price of tinned peaches, sometimes as little as 7p per tin, and thought "I'm sure I could make a decent wine from these" Also shops often sell off the over-ripe bananas very cheaply which I would imagine would be excellent for wine? I once made a blackkcurrant wine from Ribena concentrate and it turned out great!
Maybe it's time to dust off the old demijohns and give the OH the airing cupboard back? Temporarily of course!

__________________
My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Truly,you can wine from anything.My dad reckoned he knew someone who used to pick the flowers off the wallpaper to make wine from!!!

Mmmm Ribena!!! Did you put Grape Juice in it? I'd love to try that!

Yep, we made our Strawberry, Banana and Mango one with canned strawberries.

We're lucky to have a very wonderful greengrocers just up the road from us who sells kilos of fruit for £1. Occasionally when the fruit is slightly past it's best but still edible you can buy things like about 6 Mangos for £1 (which is why we have peach and mango in lots of things lol)

We racked off and tried some of the Ginger and Orange Mead last night... it was... uhm... different LOL I think it's going to have to be laid down for a while to see if it improves.

We also racked off the Almond one, we made that a little stronger than the rest... OMG it's stroooonnngg but still very sweet as the yeast gave out (which means it's probably about 18%) unfortunately it is still very sweet so we may put it in two halves, add more yeast and let it brew out again. That's also a bizarre one lol

However, the Peach wine was absolutely amazing and we were hard pressed to put it back into the demijohn... medium sweet and drinkable right now... going to be lovely next summer in the garden at my Mother-in-Laws