Home brew wine? fill me up....Hic, I mean fill me in :-)

So guys

As the harvest season arrives, I thought I may have a go a foraging and making my own wine. Anyone got any good recipes or advice? I have zero equipment so advice in that respect would be gratefully received

 

Well where do I start...... I've made home wine out of anything and everything.... beetroot is a beautiful full bodied wine with a beautiful bouquet, elder flower, elder berry, pear.. but must go into a champagne type bottle... apple, apple flower... pure carton orange juice... the list is endless. Carrot wine is good to! You can make wine out of most fruit and veg.. I agree the set up can be expensive if you want it to be.... but just start small and build on it.

To be honest I have had some disasters... one... was to dry and another was... to sweet so I mixed them and wow what a wine. Don't be frightened in trying anything

You don't need to spend loads of money on fancy glass demijohns, I asked the local shop to save their plastic sweetie jars for me... made a hole in the top, put in a bung and air lock and hey presto. The local pub and friends saved their wine bottles for a free bottle of wine. Just buy a book that you like or down load to kindle which can be free and just give it a go... but in all instances just enjoy having a go

 

@**Yvonne**
I have often seen home brewing kit offered on sites like Freegle and Freecycle, may be worth a look.
I inherited most of my kit from my father. Over the years I've tried a variety of things, beetroot was not a success for me nice colour went brown though and had a rather earthy taste.
Greengage, gooseberry, raspberry (lovely that one) Elderberry and Parsnip. The parsnip turned out rather well. Currently got some Pea Pod in a demijohn settling down this one may need patience after bottling.
I tend to make smallish quantities. I have two books one a rather old one everything in gallons and stones and largish quantities, the other from the seventies I refer to both and then mix and match. The internet has been a good source of information and recipes and recycling screw cap wine bottles works well for me.

 

5 litre spring water bottle from the supermarket does the job for me. Drill a hole in the lid to put an airlock in

 

@**Yvonne** I'd suggest starting with something like Blackberry Wine, the fruit is free from the hedgerows, it's easy to make, reliable, and only costs about 35p/bottle.

I've already picked approaching 200lbs of blackberries, but not yet used any for winemaking because I steam juice extract from them, and pasteurise the juice for use at other times, avoiding filling up my freezers with berries for months on end plus eliminating the need for having buckets full of fermenting whole fruit all over the house, just pour the juice onto sugar syrup in a fermenter, add water and yeast, and it's as easy as kit wines out of a tin.

My electric kit which can also be used for pasteurising the resulting juice cost about £300, but a stove top one can be purchased for about £36 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jago-DMES01...&qid=1402927965&sr=8-1&keywords=juice+steamer As it's a 'juice wine' it'll be faster maturing than if 'pulp' fermenting whole fruit, the biggest advantage will be seen when juicing elderberries which have notoriously long maturation times, but are OK within 12 months when steam juice extracted.

 

You can get a lot of the start up kit from Wilkos - demijohn, bottles, corks, corker, airlock etc. etc.

 

Another option is to buy a wine starter kit, that way you get most of the stuff you will need including all the ingredients to make your first lot of wine. You can get these on Amazon, Ebay, Boots (i think) and the home brew shops. This is how i started and then progressed from there. Its good fun. There are also lots of videos on line showing you how you how to make wine.

 

I once made ginger wine and forgot all about it. I came across the demijons over a year later and the contents looked very dark. It was like syrup. Nice tho lol

 

Our wilkos Fruit & crispy has turned out ok good buy
Weve bottled the gooseberry wine but that will be next yr till i get a taste

 

I've just bottled my quick and easy Worzels Orange wine with plenty left for a cheeky glass or 3!

It's about sharp but will mellow after a few months in the bottle. If it makes it that long [emoji38]