Grow Your Own Magazine

Just been reading through a new wine recipe book and had a surprise. If you make wine with root veg you can pour off the liquid and brew with it. But what I had not considered is you can still eat the potatoes,carrots, parsnips or whatever. You can even brew with rice water then eat the rice.

This was a bit of a revalation to me as it means you can get even more from your produce. In the past I had always poured the solids onto the garden ???

Even if you did not want to eat them straight away they can be stored as prepared and cooked veg, then use from the fridge or freezer.

So juice the veggies then use the remains to eat?

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Just chop them as you would for dinner but in a bigger pan, then pour off the liquor when they are cooked and save for brewing and serve the veg, with a knob of parsley butter. MMMMM

Interesting. I have a steam-juicer so would have to sort of 'half-juice' them if that makes sense.

__________________
Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

It is a bit of a trade off as with a steamer you are trying to keep as much flavour and vitamins etc, in the veg. Whereas if you boil them in a large pot you are expecting some of the flavour to be leached out to make your wine.

So perhaps the veg would not taste quite as good but if you had dinner with a few glasses of wine, who cares.

I juiced a lot of apples with it and with the later batches, I found that if I juiced until the apples were soft (almost like mashed spud) then I got apple sauce and apple juice - RESULT. Expect I could do the same with veggies - only one way to find out!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

My Pa-in-law used to make a mean carrot wine - but then you had to eat carrots, carrot Korma etc for days afterwards. Doubles your value though!

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

Do the veggies taste alcoholic???

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

No! At this stage the roots are just boiled to extract the flavour (and sugars in many cases). The yeast is added when the liquor is cooled. THEN you get the alcohol!

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

Hmmmph, not so sure its such an interesting idea now

More seriously, I take it you make root veg wine just the same as fruit or berry based wine?

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

Yes - but less often now! I still maintain that the best (i.e. most like shop) wine is made from fruit. Propper wine yeasts are bred to ferment grapes so I always add a pound or so of minced raisins to a must too. Getting picky in me old age. I've supped some rubbish stuff in me time!

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

I have a big sign in my kitchen, just under the shelf with all the wine, saying 'Life's too short to drink bad wine' .... for that very reason I havent tried making my own - but theres always a first time ....

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

I opened a bottle of grape and pear wine last week and it was far better than many of the cheaper grape wines I have tasted. Plus the main buzz is that :-
I planted the vine
Trimmed it for five years
picked the grapes
Then made wine with them.
Root veg always needs some fruit with it to provide body to the wine. But it is well worth doing if you have a warm corner somewhere. I brewed five demijohns of wine in the gap behind the sofa, worked really well.

Got a row of demijohns in the hall, behind the kitchen door! 2 galls of sloe are looking good and the damson is just starting to drop its cloud. I love the fruit wines best.

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

Oh boy! Would you do that with the parsnip wine wot I will be starting this weekend??

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sun 30/03/2008...parsnips a-plenty...

I'd add sultanas (same difference but paler) to a white wine Hazel. Mince them up and add to the must. You can then reduce the sugar. I tend to do 1lb (or 500g for the younger generation!) minced vine fruits and 1.5 lb sugar, but I like my wines dry.

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

I noticed both in my local A**A superstore in the baking section with budget labels and budget prices. I would use these if I did not have some home grown or picked fruit to add.

I am especialy fond of blackberrys or elder berrys to provide the fruit body to a wine, but you have to keep it all clean and balanced. I have to admit that I tasted some really disgusting home made wines in the 70's.

Now we have the technology and the web sites so that we can help each other. I think we can make 'root and fruit' (copywrite) wines as good or better than shop bought vine wines.

I think many of the 70s wines were really top heavy on the main ingredient. For example, Elderberry wines with 4 - 5 lb elderberries to the gallon. And virtually nowt else but the sugar. They were rarely 'nice'.
From experience I would now use no more than 2lb of elderberris, my usual 1lb minced raisins and occasionally some (being a variable amount depending what's left in the freezer!) sloes or brambles. The result is a much better balanced wine. I don't like a dominant flavour in a wine - especially if it's a vegetable!

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Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. Mrs C W Earle

vegheaven.blogspot.com updated May 18th 2008

The 70's was a revival period for home made wines. Your grandparents had made it but your parents thought it was naff. They would rather buy pub drinks, well mine did.
The information was also localised so in the UK root veg wines were often suggested along with hedgerow fruit. You remember 'food for free' by richard maybe.
Now the approach is more scientific making very palitable brews for the cost of sugar plus time. This really is a win win situation and it is rewarding.