The GC 'Buttery'

:confused: Haven't done it with damsons, but yes, so as to get the colour & flavour... Just as you do with sloes...... :D

By eck Dendrobium, I think I'll stick to the local shop, at least for me cider. It seems to be a pretty complex procedure. Many thanks for your reply! Kind regards Roy

Picked sloes today as others had noticed they were early this year, and they were disappearing rapidly. I got enough for a first batch and bought the gin on the way home. I'll put them in the freezer for a short time, instant frost. Everyone is out picking berries, wild apples, plums- must go...

Hi Boots. Not sure what variety mine is but just took cuttings and stuck them in the compost heap a few yrs ago and the crop was unbelievable. Very large blackcurrents nearly thge size of grapes. John

Happy New Year to everyone. I have made 1 gal of rhubarb wine for the first time. Has anyone else tried it or has any advice?:thumb:

No I never tried rhubarb, but seem to remember the recipe called for a dose of ginger to pep it up a bit taste wise, rhubarb being a bit acidic and bland.I used to make a fair amount of blackberry wine in season, due to the free blackberrys growing almost everywhere.I never tried it but I...

Its a first for me, a chum dropped off 56 jars of jam that were past their sell by date so Ive been experimenting. My normal turbo cider (4L cheap apple juice, 1L grape juice & a cup of strong tea) works well but its a bit tasteless. I hope its good - its going to be a real pain to clean those...

Sounds good to me, when shall we all turn up?

I use 4 if i'm feeling flush That is to say I usually buy 4 (buy 2 for £2.50) but end up keeping one to drink as squash.

A reminder that all Wilkos homebrew stuff has about 20 to 30% off at the moment and that may not last forever, plus that if you order online to collect instore you can get 4.2% cashback that can be exchanged for Clubcard Points with a 10% bonus, so for every £1 spent online via TCB can get you...

Yes, I learnt the hard way with pineapple. I ended up having to repaint the ceiling in the wine making room. Twice! So now I make it in very large batches. Much easier to manage and much less mess.

Sorry Derbyshire, missed this one.Mashing and sparging is a bit of a pain, especially for a beginner.Far easier to brew from a tinned malt kit.You can get all sorts, including Guinness type kits, and they're dead easy to brew.You'd need a soft water to make a reasonable Guinness though

Put in a cutting of my late Dad's Muscat of Alexandria vine when we moved over here....it's settled in well and has good crops of small, sweet, pippy grapes. Now I've got a few 'seedless' varieties established for eating, so will have a go this year at making a muscat wine, wasps and hornets...

I'm thinking that burying a shipping container and making the pulpy wines in there might be the answer.

Thanks for the info. Looks like yeast nutrient then. Nigel

I use Milton sterilising tablets. I half fill my brewing bucket and everything I'm going to use goes in there. I have on occasions forgotten and all has been ok!

If Mrs Scrungee can't get jam to set she labels it conserve.

Still bubbling... I've set it on the propagator to gently heat through a bit (multi purpose these propagators!) and hopefully force the remaining yeast to ferment off

OMG. it was YOU! Lol

Still experimenting with flavours and quantities. I'm just starting off a red mixed berry from juice, this time I'm intending to use 3l of juice opposed to the 2l used before (albeit different juices) Juice 3l 880g sugar (based on lookup tables) cooled boiled water yeast, tannin, yeast...