I have just started four gallons of blackberry wine fermenting (I still have the scars from picking them), five gallons of white grape concentrate wine is maturing (prefer to use freely available ingredients but I needed a quick one).
In a month or so I will be picking elderberries for wine.
I also want to try a rice and raisin recipe which is supposed to be good, and make some more mead as well.
In the past I have had success with blackberries, elderberries, oak leaves (nicer than you might think), gooseberries (although one batch was awful for some reason) and honey (mead).
I have made beer from kits and made a great ginger beer when I was about 16 (lost the recipe now), but am thinking about making proper beer, using traditional ingredients (i.e. no hops). The main problem is you have to buy the malt and stuff so it's not as cheap as wine.
Anyway, I have one bottle of blackberry left from two years ago. I didn't make any last year so I'm running out!!
Does anybody else here make wine or beer?
And what success have you had?
I'll share recipies if you want.
EDIT: If this thread is lost due to excessive "cheat" threads, I will bump it, you hear? ðŸ˜
I make wine from fruit. Mostly blackberry & different kinds of plums.
I also grow some Pinot Noir in my garden - 20 vines - and make a small amount of wine from those grapes.
As with my grape wine, with the fruit wines my only real rule of thumb is "add no water". This often leads to difficulties. The fruit can be difficult to fully render down (... plums seem to need to be simmered for 30 minutes, for example). The resulting wines can be very strongly fruit-flavoured.
Because they can also lack real "wine" structure (...tannins & acids?) I will generally "cut" the fruit wines with a percentage of good quality kit or grape wine, just to the degree that the fruit is a little less "strident".
Being in the wine biz, professionally (Check my website: http://www.geocities.com/douglas_sloan/ ...an off-shoot of a weekly column I write in a local newspaper) I tend to make wines myself that are crafted/tweaked to taste both unique & interesting and as elegant as I can make them. They are well-received by wine professionals & win prizes at local shows.
I will take a look at your link, thanks.
I would struggle to grow grapes here in the north of England so I'm surprised you manage in Canada!
I have been making wine on and off for about 12 years, but haven't been consistent enough to get very good results, certainly not for competition. My main problem is that I get a home-made wine taste, not sure whether it's redidual yeast or what.
This current batch I am trying to be much more stringent and racking the jars more often to try and get rid of all the yeast.
I've never had any luck with brewing ale. It has always turned flat, ropey or jus plain sour. I followed the recipe for 'Good hope' barley wine once, and I had to rename it 'No hope'.
As for wine? I've made some corkers!!! My best ever result was a fruity plum and strawberry. The first recipe I never recorded unfortunately, but I'm pretty sure it consisted of 4 Lb of plums and two punnets of Strawberries.
I packed it in a few years ago, due to lack of space and time. And a couple of other dimensions were lacking along the way too. I would like to start again though. There is something about it that takes me back to my childhood at my GrandMother's house. The smell, the constant bubble bubble of the fermentation traps, and best of all, the anticipation of the first taste. If only I had the space. Happy brewing dudes. 🙂
Originally posted by VargNo hops? But why?
I have just started four gallons of blackberry wine fermenting (I still have the scars from picking them), five gallons of white grape concentrate wine is maturing (prefer to use freely available ingredients but I needed a quick one).
In a month or so I will be picking elderberries for wine.
I also want to try a rice and raisin recipe which is supposed to be ...[text shortened]...
EDIT: If this thread is lost due to excessive "cheat" threads, I will bump it, you hear? ðŸ˜
I would struggle to grow grapes here in the north of England so I'm surprised you manage in Canada!
I'm on Vancouver Island, climate like your Cornwall. Grapes (...and berries) grown here are always very high in acidity and usually low in natural sugar. Although I don't add water, I add sugar - about a half-cup at a time - until the wine reaches 10-12% alc/vol.
That ... home-made wine taste, not sure whether it's residual yeast or what.
Many kit wines have a "cardboard" smell and taste that I suspect has something to do with homogenization & acid recitification of the B-grade juice that is used... so that it can be packaged and shipped with a long shelf-life? (The A-grade juice/fruit becomes commercial wine)
This current batch I am trying to be much more stringent and racking the jars more often to try and get rid of all the yeast.
I generally use D47 yeast for the fruit wines. I have red wines still in carboys from 2003. I rack them frequently in the first three months - every couple of weeks - then rack them after that when I taste them and decide they need "tweak"ing. I try to rack without oxygenation, keeping the wine running into the new carboy without splashing and bubbling. I use metabisulphite liberally when cleaning and rinsing containers.
Patience & cleanliness are very important. I am not afraid to add Ribena, other fruits and/or other previous vintages of different fruit wines to adjust the overall taste of the wines I am currently making. Commercial wineries blend their wines as a matter of course, they just don't advertise the fact.