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I have 2 demi johns, a couple of bungs and airlocks, a hydrometer a syphon and even some tubing somehwere...
but nothing growing to make wine from at the moment and nearly no cash to buy ingredients (or booze )

Does any one have any recipies that might fit the bill of keeping this wino hydrated?
Beer or wine i would be interested in, but nothing involving shoe polish, i am not that desperate!

Cheers

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Simon Of Kells

I have posted a recipe for a very nice light red wine (serve cold as it drinks like a rose) made with t bags. I also make a rhubarb wine from tinned rhubarb. You can also make wine from bramble tips, pea pods, coffee, tea, nettles - just about anything really. You will need to buy a proper wine yeast (less than a quid from Wilkinsons) and a few other bits and bobs to get a decent brew. You can't go wrong with the Youngs brew buddy kits - 20 quid gets you a kit to brew 6 bottles, or fork out around 30 quid for all the kit and ingredients to make 30 bottles. A lot of kit can be picked up on your local freecycle too.

Oh, and it is elderflower time so you can pick those and make a nice low alcohol 'champagne' or a nice wine. Again you will need yeast for the wine. Just make sure if you are picking elderflowers that they don't smell of cat wee (apparently there are different kinds and the smelly ones don't brew well).

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Tea wine is lovely! Also coffee wine.You can make wine from almost anything as long as it isn't poisonous.
Nettle wine.(Pamela Michaels-All Good Things Around Us)

4 pints young nettle tops(regrowth)
! gallon water
2 lemons
bit of root ginger(or you can use ground) three and a half pounds sugar.

Rinse nettles,put in a large pan with half the water the thinly pared lemon rind and the ginger.bruised with a rolling pin.
Simmer for 45 mins. Strain onto sugar,add rest of water and lemon juice. Add yeast when cool and away you go.

I also have some recipes for fruit juices that make wine that is ready in months rather than years and you can use Tesco Value juice!
I will look them out for you.

Boots (The Chemist) used to do a lovely 3 week wine kit, was lovely and so cheap,, not sure if they still do it though

The Young's kit is ready in a week. Well, I put 5 gallons of Chardonnay to brew last Friday and started drinking it last night

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Hic Hic, fair play to you LOL

LOL, supposed to take 7 days but I have found a few times that if the weather is warm when it is brewing it finished a bit quicker. A jolly pleasant tipple for around 85p per bottle.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Where do you get the Youngs one from shirl ??, going to have to give it a go now

Wilkinsons or ebay sell it. I can recommed the Chardonnay - I don't drink red so haven't tried the only other one they stock in our Wilkinsons

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Great, will be popping in there tommorow then,, I wont be online next friday - sunday then

I'd go for the elderflower. You don't need many, but you will need some yeast nutrient (there are 'home made' versions but I can't remember the details).
The other option, not tried it myself but someone I worked with long ago swore by it, is 1litre box of 'fruitjuice' (whatever flavour you like, but apple, orange or pineapple were what he used) a handful of raisins chopped, 1 kilo sugar, yeast, water to fill demijohn. Nothing fancy in the method. Leave the raisins in until first racking. He reckoned to make a gallon per week of this one, as well as 'specials', and that way his family had a bottle of wine every day.......

I used to make wine out of Basic Fruit Juice (c.88p) - the recipe was from a library book. I'm sure if you explore your library's stock or Google you will come across a recipe.

It wasn't that drinkable, but fine when made into a Party Punch. Here's one to get you started: Homebrew wine and country wine including recipes

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Hello - this all sounds brilliant
Is it easy to make your own wine ? - what do I need ?
I prefer red but truthfully will drink anything lol
how do you get started ?

Find your local brew store or visit Wilkinsons. You can't go wrong with one of the Youngs Brew kits - twenty pounds buys you a starter kit which has everything (except sugar and bottles) for you to brew your first 6 bottles of wine. That gives you base to start from. Invest in a copy of CJJ Berry's 'First Steps in Winemaking'. This was a fairly old book and it is a good reference but uses very high levels of sugar. More modern winemaking methods would suggest you aim for a starting SG of 1.080 ish and ferment to .996 or thereabouts to get a nice dry wine - if your wine finishes a bit dry you can sweeten it to taste but if it finishes sweet, you are stuck with it. I started with the kit and now make all sorts of wines. The teabag wine recipe I posted earlier is inexpensive for a first try too but you will need to purchase basic equipment to make it. Again, all the things you need will be available in Wilkinsons, your local brewstore or on Freecycle.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

For all the above you will also need a good supply of paracetamol and bog roll!!!!

If you can find an elder flower tree that you can blag some flowers off you could make elderflower wine. It is apparently very simple and you only need to have 12 heads for a gallon of wine. It contains its own yeast so the only other things you need are 2 table spoons of white wine / cider vinegar, 1 1/2 lb sugar and the juice and rind of a lemon. Oh and a gallon of cold but boiled water. Add all of the ingredients and stir then leave for 3 to 14 days. strain and you should have elderflower champagne.

Firstly, Shirl the girl ta for the advice will get myself down Wilkinsons at the weekend - eee how exciting and thank you to Shakepeare - just need to find an elderflower tree ( missed out on one on freecycle earlier this year boo )
also Polly you just made me laugh my head off ;-)
x cheers will keep you posted when i've made my first batch

Polly, i'd love a fruit juice recipie,
quite like the idea of apple cidre/wine, or wine strenght cider if i'm honest... made it once before from windfalls, lethal. but if i could make it from cartons...
Shirl, i think if the pay cheque clears then it's off to wilkinsons tomorrow for some red. As wine by next week, while not as good as wine now... is pretty bloody good!

Does anyone have any experience of beetroot brewing? as it germinated and grew so easily, i planted more... and more... so i could have a surplus sometime soon.
Would it work to make a funny coloured root beer?

There are two elderberry trees near me just about in flower/bud so thats an option too...
from not knowing what to do i appear to be spoilt for choice... oh decisions decisions.
mmmm... my own wine by next weekend... yep sounds good.
will let you all know how it goes.

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Simon Of Kells

Yust found an intriguing recipie,
sounds like scumble from pratchets disk-world to me... so might have to give it a go, but can i wait three months...
what is the point of racking? i understand that wine needs to be taken off the lees, so you don't get a bad yeasty taste... but why again and again as in some recipies?


Recipe -- Apple Cider / Apple Jack

Also found all these recipies... still no beetroot though.

Roxanne's Fruit Wine Recipes

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Simon Of Kells

Recipes depending on 'natural' yeast are risky. Often they work well, but when they go wrong the results can be horrible. Safer to spend a modest sum on proper wine yeast, and follow a more controlled recipe.

The yeast doesn't all settle out at once, so you might need to rack 2 or 3 times to get rid of all of it.
It is actually illegal to 'distill' alcohol by freezing as well as the more obvious way (but less likely to be discovered).
I wouldn't recommend beetroot for winemaking. Some plants of that family contain toxins, and I can never remember which ones need clever processing to make them safe.....
(I also don't get on with beetroot anyway, it makes my stomach protest powerfully)

When you say it doesn't settle, does that mean , it's finished its fermenting job, but is just held in suspension. Sort of waiting to settle? and the racking it encourages it?
(Think i'm buying fruit juice tomorrow.)

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Simon Of Kells