Homemade wine

Ceirdwyn

My hubby does quite a lot of homebrew, both wine and beer. The fruit juice wines are great, easily as good as the stuff you'd get on the 3 for £10 from a supermarket.
We got most of our equipment either from freecycle or very cheaply on ebay. It tends to be glass and heavy so collection only, which means it goes fairly cheap if no-one in your area wants it. The kits from Wilkinsons are okay as a starting point, but we quickly outgrew them.
There is a very helpful forum I joined that has hundreds of recipes and advice, but I cant post links yet. I might be able to PM though?
We have an apple wine and a ginger wine maturing in DJ's, and several different fruit juice wines waiting to be bottled. I asked friends and family to save empty wine bottles for us, we must have about 50 now!

FarmersWife_2

Thank you :-)

Sunnyday

Ceirdwyn wrote: »

My hubby does quite a lot of homebrew, both wine and beer. The fruit juice wines are great, easily as good as the stuff you'd get on the 3 for £10 from a supermarket.
We got most of our equipment either from freecycle or very cheaply on ebay. It tends to be glass and heavy so collection only, which means it goes fairly cheap if no-one in your area wants it. The kits from Wilkinsons are okay as a starting point, but we quickly outgrew them.
There is a very helpful forum I joined that has hundreds of recipes and advice, but I cant post links yet. I might be able to PM though?
We have an apple wine and a ginger wine maturing in DJ's, and several different fruit juice wines waiting to be bottled. I asked friends and family to save empty wine bottles for us, we must have about 50 now!

I`d lurve the ginger wine recipe if you could post it please

SD

mavisangelica

Sunnyday wrote: »

I`d lurve the ginger wine recipe if you could post it please

SD

Me too :T

Just started back winemaking and have 2 demijohns on the go - one orange juice (which has stopped bubbling) and one grape juice. Desperate for them to finish so that I can have a taste.

I asked on my 2 Freegle/Freecycle groups for demijohns but no luck so got a couple from Wilkinsons and some of the stuff. Got the rest from Tesco as our larger locals once have quite a range of equipment and additives.

Got the JJ Berry book which was recommended by a few people from Ebay.

Sunnyday

:A Thanks very much for this, as soon as i have an empty DJ i will be giving it a go. I have all the ingredients in apart from fresh ginger but i do have some frozen that i will use instead

I have one empty DJ that i will be using soon to rack the other wine into and as soon as thats all sorted then i`ll be starting it.

I can`t wait

SD

taxsaver

Do you all feel that it's worth paying extra for the glass DJ's or are the cheaper plastic ones just as good?

I really want to start doing this but am a bit nervous of it all, even the yeast seems complicated as there appears to be many different types!! :think:

mavisangelica

taxsaver wrote: »

Do you all feel that it's worth paying extra for the glass DJ's or are the cheaper plastic ones just as good?

I really want to start doing this but am a bit nervous of it all, even the yeast seems complicated as there appears to be many different types!! :think:

I know what you mean. I have read too much and have got so confused and now have a cupboard of various additives and haven't used half of them and don't know when to.

You just need one pain, straight forward recipe to start with. The fruit juice ones are probably the best as you don't need to do any of the preparing the fruit and starting it off in the fermentation bin first before putting it into the demijohn.

I can't tell you if this is any good as I haven't finished it but I just used the following -
1ltr value orange juice
1 bag sugar
1tsp pectolase
1tsp yeast

Dissolve the sugar in some warm water then put everything into the demijohn and top up with water to the shoulder of the jar (to allow for any bubbling.
Put airlock in and leave until it stops bubbling (my 'recipe' says leave for 2 months). Then bottle.

A handy tip - I have started writing the recipes in a book as I come across them and then leave space so that when I do them I write in any changes and the dates it starts and finishes and the SG readings.
(I am not normally so efficient with things like this!)

Sunnyday

This is my basic recipe if it helps Taxsaver

Into each demijohn put

1 litre of clear apple juice - Try to use one without preservatives
Half a litre of white grape juice - again as above

dissolve 2lb sugar in a pan of hot water and leave to cool, pour it into the DJ and top up to halfway up the curved shoulder with cold water. When its room temp add 1 teaspoon of pectolase, 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and one teaspoon of citric acid. Cover the DJ ( i bung an airlock in) and the next day when its all dissolved add one heaped teaspoon of wine yeast. All the last 3 ingredients are available cheaply in Wilkinsons.

Pop the bung and airlock back in and wait for it to begin fermenting, it won`t lake long. In a couple of weeks maybe three it will have stopped bubbling. I take a clean DJ and grind a campden tablet between two teaspoons and put it into the bottom of the DJ pop a funnel in and then a coffee filter and stand it on the kitchen floor, put the full DJ on the worktop and pop the syphon tube in. (from Wilko again) and syphon the wine into the clean DJ and then pop the bung back in. Leave it for a week or so and then add a teaspoon of stabilising powder and give it a shake. Soon after it will be clear and ready to bottle or drink from the DJ:D

Takes about 5 weeks give or take, the stabilising powder and the campden tabs are also from Wilko. To sterilise everything i use trust sterilising liquid from the baby section in Morrisons - its 80p and lasts ages. I rinse the DJ`s three times after sterilising before i add the juice. As long as everything is sterilised you should have no trouble at all.

SD

Ceirdwyn

There is a fantastic guide to making basic fruit juice wine, the guy who wrote it took a photo of every step and explains everything really well.
This is the thread, Oh yay, I can post links now
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=10179
I hope it's okay to put there as the guy finishes with

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zippychick

our homemade wine thread should be helpful

ill merge this later

Zip