Winemaking calendar?

Norman_Bean

I got demijohns and stuff from Wilkinsons - for bottles just ask friends / family to keep them for you or hang about the recycling bin on a saturday afternoon and grab the bottles before they're thrown in for recycling x

keighley_ste

Thanks Norman, I will try wilkinsons at the weekend. I have seen some plastic demijohns on the internet, they seem to be much cheaper in price then the glass one's. Are they any good or would you say to just stick with the glass demijohns??

ThriftyFelicity

Steriliser - I use a chlorine-based one for fermentation bin, demijohn and wine bottles, which is rinsed thoroughly after sterilisation
Hydrometer & hydrometer tube - use for determining the resulting strength (alcoholic content) of your wine. I use one but only for homemade cider, not wine.
Fermentation bin - for initial fermentation of fruit
Brewing spoon (very long handled plastic spoon) - for stirring/mashing fruit in fermentation bin
Hop bags - to hold fruit when in fermentation bin... therefore mixture needs very little straining when moving to demijohns
1/2-litre glass measuring jug - aids in moving mixture to demijohn
Plastic funnel - ditto
Nylon strainer - for trapping those pesky escaped bits of fruit pulp when moving mixture to demijohn
Demijohns - for secondary fermentation. At least two, so that mixture can be siphoned from one to the other after a week or so.
Bung/airlock - for fitting to demijohn during secondary fermentation
Siphon tube & tap - to aid in decanting wine from demijohn
Wine bottles - for storage of delectable homebrew

Wilkos is a good place to get a lot of the above, though I'm not sure they carry the hop bags. Any homebrew shop should have all of the above. We never buy wine bottles, or corks for that matter, as we reuse our stash of screw-top wine bottles. Ours were intially from our own store-bought wine, and from family members. Our postman, another homebrew enthusiast, gets his bottles from a local pub.

Oh yes, of course you'll also need:
Fruit - most we either grow ourselves or forage. Last year we picked a fellow allotmenteer's blackcurrants that were going to waste, in return for giving him a couple bottles of the finished brew. Ditto with my BIL's abundance of Victoria plums. Freecycle is another possible avenue for free fruit
Wine yeast - my favourite is Gervin... you can buy different types for different wines.
Sugar - we buy 1 kg bags of Billington's organic sugar from Sainsburys for £1.29. One bag does a gallon.

I also use:
Grape juice - adds to the flavour of the wine. We buy white and red 100% juice in cartons, usually from Aldi or Lidl. One litre per gallon.

I do not use Campden tablets, yeast nutrient, pectolase, tannin, etc.

ThriftyFelicity

keighley_ste wrote: »

Thanks Norman, I will try wilkinsons at the weekend. I have seen some plastic demijohns on the internet, they seem to be much cheaper in price then the glass one's. Are they any good or would you say to just stick with the glass demijohns??

I personally would not use plastic demijohns due to concerns about the plastic leaching chemicals into the wine, and also absorbing odours and stains from previous batches of wine. (I am not happy about using a plastic fermentation bin either, but that's all that seems to be available.)

Also, plastic has a limited life, whereas glass will outlast you (provided you are not too clumsy )

Sunnyday

Ooh lovely long list there Thrifty, i`ll refer back to that to see what else i can add to my collection later.

I got my demijohns from 3 different places, some from freecyle and one from wilkinsons, the others i got from work. I put a notice on the noticeboard and asked a few people who mentioned it to others and i ended up with seven altogether.

To sterilise i use the trust baby stiralising liquid from Morrisons, its like milton only cheaper and a bottle lasts ages.

I bought some packets of the plastic reuseable corks from wilkinsons 2 years ago and i`m still using the same ones, when i give wine away i always ask people to save me the bottle and the plastic cork

I`ve just been past Wilkinsons and i knew that i meant to call in for something but couldn`t for the life of me remember what could do with one of those long handled spoons so that i can put it with the wine making bits as i collect them, i keep using the kitchen utensils and can never find where i`ve put them afterwards when i need them for cooking :rotfl:

I think that i`ll start some of the fruit juice wine off tomorrow as we`re running a bit low, theres only about 8 bottles left if i don`t count the elderberry that i`m trying to save.

SD

mochyn_cwta

Hi everyone - which brand of apple juice does anyone recommend for the apple and white grape juice wine - i.e. cloudy or clear, 100% fruit or less? I have recently made apple wine using 1 litre coppella apple juice (it was half price in Tesco recently!) and 1 litre Tesco's pressed white grape juice but it doesn't seem to be clearing. I haven't actually used any finings yet as I was waiting to see if it would clear itself. Do fruit juices with preservatives work? Any help would be greatly appreciated for a novice wine maker!

Aril

We [ha! I say we when OH does all the donkey work and I just taste it regularly and give my opinion:D] started making wine last year. Most of the equipment has come from car boot sales, jumble sales or freecycle as we didn't want to spend out loads and then find we didn't like the results. We started off with a kit first time but now we're growing in confidence OH has now bottled a strawberry one, a blackberry one and has started off a parsnip one this week.
We've currently got a rowanberry one that will need to be racked soon which we did in September [berries off my parents' tree] and we've also tried one with red grapejuice.
I've read up about making wines from oak and birch- perhaps they would be ones for the spring? I've got some country recipes but am not fancying potato and onion wine much :eek: I've found Mrs L's blog [google unbought delicacies] to be invaluable for recipes and tips as she's a very experience wine maker and other posters on her creative living forum have also been very helpful when we've come unstuck in the past few months!
Aril
PS If you live in West Sussex we've found the brewing shop in Worthing to be a good source of equipment and information.

pumpkinlife

It appears to be working...only a year to go, sigh.

As for equipment, there are quite a few homebrew shops with online ordering, if you google. You could probably email them and ask them to advise you on the best basic kit. We went into a shop in Fareham (Hampshire) and the chap was very helpful, didn't try and sell us a load of stuff that we didn't need at first. Its quite a specialised subject, so I think they know that you will return to them for all your supllies if you get fair service.

I got most our demijohns from Freecycle; the people who gave them too us had bought a Vineyard and had been left with hundreds of them, along with a whole outhouse full of carafes! Paradise...

Sunnyday

Norman_Bean wrote: »

Yay! Well done Sunnyday x I hope you like it
It is a nice book - I like reading the little excerpts about 'the old days'! and the recipes are the old fashioned ways.
Let me know what you think when you get it
E x

It`s here :j:j:j and i love it :D

The parsnip wine has been started off earlier and will be having the yeast added shortly, need to check that its cool enough first.

SD

Norman_Bean

Sunnyday wrote: »

It`s here :j:j:j and i love it :D

The parsnip wine has been started off earlier and will be having the yeast added shortly, need to check that its cool enough first.

SD

Phew! So relieved you like it
I should do some parsnip as you lot are all doing it ... not enough demi-johns at the moment though - let us know how you get on x

Oh and we went for a walk on Sunday and discovered several gorse bushes so will be doing gorse wine come september to ward off the dropsy :rotfl: