Homemade wine

moggins

You do have to use a brewing yeast but you can buy it from Wilkinsons. I picked up everything I needed to start again at a car boot sale last week for £8.

I just have to buy the yeast, nutrient and cambden tablets now.

HOLsale

unfortunately i don't live near a wilkinsons, they don't have any in scotland at all do they? i am sure i could find a brew making shop but they'll be dearer...

i'm in edinburgh so if anyone knows any inexpensive supplies shops please do tell

Austin_Allegro

I've just bottled my latest batch of homemade wine. It's orange and mango (made from 3L of ordinary supermarket fruit juice) and I used Allinson's breadmaking yeast from the supermarket as well. It tastes quite nice, strong but a bit cloudy, despite two doses of finings (clearing agents) and when I originally put the yeast in it foamed all over the place - proper winemaking yeast is better I think.

moggins

HOLsale wrote:

unfortunately i don't live near a wilkinsons, they don't have any in scotland at all do they? i am sure i could find a brew making shop but they'll be dearer...

i'm in edinburgh so if anyone knows any inexpensive supplies shops please do tell

How about ordering online?

http://www.art-of-brewing.co.uk/acatalog/intro.html

Bargain_Rzl

HOLsale wrote:

i don't think i'll ever 'grow' into red wine, but i am very sensitive to the tannins it it and i don't drink it because i start getting the hangover whilst drinking it, it doesn't even have the courtesy of waiting til the morning after :eek:

I know exactly whhat you mean! I can knock back the white most of the evening with few ill-effects, but most reds just make me either want to go to sleep straight away (not great if you're going to a concert!) or just get a terrible hangover the next day, sometimes after only one glass!

I've also had some specific bad experiences with red wine - it's more likely than white to be off, or not quite right. Once I shared a bottle with a friend (half a bottle= 4-ish units of alcohol, not much at all over the course of a day) and I was ill for 48 hours. Having eaten nothing suspicious, I knew it must have been the wine.

And yet some of my friends persist in telling me that grown-ups drink red!

Austin_Allegro

Generally the darker the drink, the more likely it is to give you a hangover. Something to do with congeners in the alcohol, not quite sure of the science.

Also, poor quality white wine is usually drunk very chilled, which disguises the unpleasant taste. (That's also how the British public have been duped into drinking the p*ss known as lager).

If you get a decent bottle of red wine (costing around £10) they usually taste ok.

Bargain_Rzl

Austin_Allegro wrote:

Generally the darker the drink, the more likely it is to give you a hangover. Something to do with congeners in the alcohol, not quite sure of the science.

It's the tannins, I think.

Austin_Allegro wrote:

Also, poor quality white wine is usually drunk very chilled, which disguises the unpleasant taste. (That's also how the British public have been duped into drinking the p*ss known as lager).

Quite. I'm a real ale drinker when not on the white wine!

Austin_Allegro wrote:

If you get a decent bottle of red wine (costing around £10) they usually taste ok.

Not very moneysaving, though you're generally right - and I do find that when I buy my wine by the mixed case from wine clubs (especially Laithwaites, which is more expensive than some) a £6 bottle generally tastes as good as a £10 supermarket bottle.

Having said that, my housemate produced a very drinkable red for Sunday dinner a couple of days ago - a screwtop from Somerfield which had been reduced to under £2 and had only been £2.99 in the first place. It was lovely! One of Waitrose's £2.99 bottles is delicious too - I must remember to find out what it was called from the friend who bought loads of it... :beer:

moggins

I think the best food memory I have was from Germany, big bowl of spaghetti bolognese, loads of crusty bread and a pretty rough bottle of Chianti which cost about 50p.

I still think about that meal now

Austin_Allegro

I'm not a wine snob (you can't be if you make your own!) but there are certainly some drinkable red wines for around £5, ie Ernst and Julio Gallo produce some reasonably good ones.

Morrisons do a decent one for about £2.99 as well, but I can't remember the name.

A good rule to remember is that French wines generally go best with food, but for drinking on their own you're usually better off with commonwealth/new world wines such as the Australian ones.

Trying2Save_3

I can remember many, many years ago, my mum making Marrow wine. I can't remember exactly as I was a little girl, but I think the middle of the marrow, where the seeds are, was scraped out and then filled with sugar. The marrow was then put in a stocking and hung in the airing cupboard (so it was hanging lengthways with cut side at the top). After a time juice started dripping out into a bowl which I suppose was the drink. I'm sure there must have been something else in the recipe anyone else heard of it?