Alcofrolics Anyonymous....

Discussion in 'The GC 'Buttery'' started by Fat Controller, Sep 4, 2016.

  1. Scrungee

    Scrungee Well known for it

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    Bananas add body to wine, if you can get them reduced by 90% [1] their sugar content value alone will exceed their cost. I'll wait for these to go squishy and put them in the steam juice extractor with some Blackberries, Elderberries, etc. for a batch of heavy red.

    bannanas reduced.jpg

    [1] The 'original' price on stickers is after an initial 50% reduction.
     
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    • Fat Controller

      Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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      Anyone got a good Ginger Wine recipe? Trying to make ginger wine started me off on homebrewing, despite the batch failing, and I haven't tried making it since as I reckon the recipe was a duffer.
       
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      • Fat Controller

        Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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        Hmmmmm... ginger wine is out of fashion then...

        What about pineapple wine, or watermelon wine? I am wondering what else I can have a crack at, preferably to make 5 gallons at a time with fruit I can buy without spending a fortune
         
      • Scrungee

        Scrungee Well known for it

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        It's cheaper to buy cartons of pure Pineapple juice, Apple juice, Grape juice, etc. than it costs to buy the whole fruit with the same amount of juice in. Using carton juice will produce a wine that matures quicker than one pulp fermented.

        For 5 galls try 5L White grape juice (Waitrose, NB not all stores still stock it, but if you phone their CS they'll advise you of which locsl stores do), 3L of ' value' Apple juice and 2L of Pineapple juice, 3.5Kg of sugar and water to 5 gallls.


        P.S. I think I've read that Watermelon wine is insipid, but if you find them reduced really cheap you should be able to cut the flesh into chunks, slow freeze for a few days, then defrost in the bag, cutting off a corner with it sitting in seive so the juice pours out into a small bucket/tub underneath (towel over to keep flies out) and this will avoid a messy pulp fermentation, but you'll need to add some other juices to get enough flavour.
         
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          Last edited: Aug 22, 2017
        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          I couldn't get any white grape juice, but I got red - that, apple and pineapple all not from concentrate, whacked into the fermenter with the sugar and lovely Scottish water (buy the 5l container for £1.25 and it comes with free Scottish water, instead of £2.85 for the bare container from a brew shop), yeast and nutrient pitched and air lock is on. If it is as quick for me as it is for you @Scrungee it might well become another stock favourite. :blue thumb:
           
        • Scrungee

          Scrungee Well known for it

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          Daughter's back at uni so I've got the extra space needed to start brewing again.

          Put a 99p EC1118 sachet in 1L of starter juice mix a couple of days ago and I'm now dividing it into 2 and topping back up to 1L with sugar solution, then in another 2 or 3 days I'll divide again, adding blackberry juice to some and apple juice to others, until I have 5 starters for 2 x 6gall whites 2 × 6gall reds and 1 x 5L cider. Cost of yeast only 4p/gall.

          The cider is a special batch for our daughter and will be made from juice pressed from apples from her ex-headmaster's garden, mixed with juice from crab apples growing in the hedge along her old school. The sloe gin we're making for one of her Xmas presents was made using sloes also from her old school hedge.

          Hope you didn't get Waitrose red grape juice as that's very expensive. Lidl red/white mixed grape juice is far cheaper and a better substitute for white grape juice.
           
        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          @Scrungee - I can't afford Waitrose, I got it from Sainsburys.
           
        • Scrungee

          Scrungee Well known for it

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          How did that wine turn out? I would've thought was probably dissapointing, as WGJ is far more suited to quick maturing juice wines than RGJ. I bought another 6 cartons from Waitrose at the weekend as a neiighbour asked me to buy them a newspaper, so got their expensive paper free with my £10.50 purchase to get the money of my own purchases.

          Finished my 2017 apple pressing on Saturday, and got some more cider on. I still haven't turned the heating on so poured a couple of gallons of hot, freshly pasteurised juice in with another 4 galls of previously bottled juice to warm it up before pitching the yeast.

          When that finishes I'll have about 75 galls of wine and 18 galls cider to keep me going for a while, nothing else going on now until the weather warms up, perhaps around late April.

          I also still have all the Blackberry/Elderberry/Apple/Plum juice I'll need for next year, and probably for most of 2019, but once pasteurised it lasts for several years and I believe in always keeping a decent stock of ingredients in hand.
           
          Last edited: Dec 4, 2017
        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          It was fine - nothing spectacular, but perfectly drinkable and fine for a quick batch. I am toying with the idea of starting another batch tomorrow purely as back up material for Christmas/New year - we are all but out of wine now, and the two fermenters worth of Strawberry Jam wine won't be ready for drinking by then. I still have a sachet of that ultra-rapid yeast stuff that claims to do it in 48 hours (might even split it in two)
           

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