Is there anything else OS I can be doing?

The_Thrilla

PennyGSD wrote: »

I’m also extremely proud of our frugal energy usage. Being at home all day through this last freezing winter could have resulted in a huge energy bill, but I’m pleased to say it ended up being a lot, lot less than previous years – low energy bulbs, stat set to a very low level and warming up by moving around regularly and eating large bowls of home made soup made it really quite comfortable – neither of us agree in suffering for the sake of it! I also have a 6.5 litre slow cooker...

Jolly good.

Trinny

Hi There

We have similar animal welfare standards, and both work full time so sometimes the convenience element works best for us too.

Try to be frugal as far as possible, and do many of the OS habits mentioned here.

The big one that stands out for me is your home made wine.

We do that too:) but we make the most of hedgerow wines.

If you are able to gather hedgerow supplies, you can make -

Elderberry wine
Dandelion wine
Nettle wine
Honeysuckle wine
Elderflower champagne and wine
Blackberry wine
Damson wine

etc

It is cheaper than buying cartons, and it tastes great - HM elderflower wine will rival any decent white wine.

Its a bit more labour intensive, but maybe a good excuse to get the family outdoors in the fresh air.

It sounds like you have most of the kit - if not, it can be got cheaply from Charity shops or Freecycle. We ask for used wine bottles on Freecycle at new year - managed to get 50 bottles this year which can be sterilised and reused.

HTH

Trin

PennyGSD

EstherH wrote: »

Do you know if blackberries are high pectin?

Consensus appears to be that blackberries are quite similar in pectin levels to raspberries, so you should be OK without any extra, but having never made it myself I can't speak from experience. I would however suggest that you ensure the fruit isn't over-ripe. Apparently this increases the percentage of water to pectin, so a mixture of just ripe and slightly underripe is probably best.

Let me know how it goes as I fill my freezer each year with blackberries and tend to just eat them in crumbles and pies. Making jam with them doesn't appeal as there would be too many pips, but syrup sounds intriguing.

PennyGSD

Trinny wrote: »

If you are able to gather hedgerow supplies, you can make -

Elderberry wine
Dandelion wine
Nettle wine
Honeysuckle wine
Elderflower champagne and wine
Blackberry wine
Damson wine

etc

It is cheaper than buying cartons, and it tastes great - HM elderflower wine will rival any decent white wine.

Thanks Trin

I'm very jealous. I've never managed to make a country wine that tastes really good. I used to make some with tinned peaches that was reasonably drinkable, but we also used to save it for the second bottle of the evening (IYKWIM) so I'm not sure it was THAT good.:rotfl:

I have made large batches of elderberry (never again - how many hours to remove thousands of tiny little berries from the stalks?), blackberry and as I have a cooking apple tree, I used to regularly make batches of apple wine, but unfortunately the apple used to regularly taste like sherry, the blackberry lacked flavour (I know, I should probably use more fruit, but this means it takes even longer to mature), and the elderberry is still quite harsh and strong despite aging for a couple of years already, so I probably need to leave it to mature even further. I just know that when I taste it again in 2012 it'll be the best thing I've ever done and I'll be cursing the fact that I haven't been making batches every year as it takes 4 years to mature!

I have to say though, with all this encouragement I may just try again with fruit/fruit juice wines for minimal outlay. I'll probably keep the Beaverdale kits going in the background for a regular, reliable supply, but experiment again with the odd DJ. I have wine-making kit coming out of my ears, so I can spare a few for experiements.

Can I ask you what yeasts you all use for your successful wines? It can have a huge impact on the finished product, so I'd like to start with the best chance of success.

Zazen999

Have you tried fruit t-bag wine; ready to drink really quickly......and tastes absolutely lovely.

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/juicy-gossip/fruit-t-bag-wine_18686.html

PennyGSD

Zazen999 wrote: »

Have you tried fruit t-bag wine; ready to drink really quickly......and tastes absolutely lovely.

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/juicy-gossip/fruit-t-bag-wine_18686.html

Don't they all sound lovely when you look at the ingredients?

That's it. You've all definately done it now. I'm going to dust off all my winemaking chemicals and make a shopping list to top it up. I might just have to get a gallon of something on the go right now too!

Zazen999

PennyGSD wrote: »

Don't they all sound lovely when you look at the ingredients?

That's it. You've all definately done it now. I'm going to dust off all my winemaking chemicals and make a shopping list to top it up. I might just have to get a gallon of something on the go right now too!

My I recommend using Rosehip tea bags and Red Grape Juice. It really is lush. If ever there's a demigod empty in our house, I make a gallon of this.

nopot2pin

PennyGSD wrote: »

The best grape juice kits have been Beaverdale. I started off making the single gallon and soon progressed onto the 5 gallon kits. 1 gallon demijohns can normally be found on freecycle (or if you're lucky, on Ebay) and although wine-making experts swear by glass 5-gallon carboys (sp?) these would be far too heavy for me to move around so I invested in a couple of 5-gallon plastic Better Bottles - a couple of places on the internet sell these and they've done me proud for the last 3 years. At £12 each, I reckon I recouped my initial investment with the first 30 bottle kit. 1 gallon (6 bottle) kits are about £11. I don't know what style of wine you like, but we've tried quite a few of the Beaverdale kits and haven't found a bad 'un yet and best of all they're drinkable in just 4-6 weeks, although do improve with age.

kinkyjinks wrote: »

I've just started making wine and have used this recipe. I made 2 demijohns of it to begin with and 1 demijohn of this recipe. They were really simple to make and taste unbelievably nice, especially when you know they only have 2 cartons of juice in them. The 2 recipes are going to be well practised while I wait for my country wines to mature:beer:

I cant get theses links to work

The Beaverdale kits are good. I also use these from time to time.
But like Missychrissy says, a decent wine can be made from cartons of fruit juice, which works out way cheaper than kits.
I find that if I make a kit, it gets a chance to age, if there is juice wine ready for drinking
Teabag wine is also another good option, but I find this is something that needs a little aging.

I love it, when the elderberries, and blackberries are out
As they do make a decent virtually free red wine... again, I find this needs aging.... but WOWWEEEEE, when it has aged.
I fortified some a couple of years ago.... to make port.
:think: Come to think of it, I havent tasted this yet, I put it in a cupboard and forgot about it

I know what you mean, when you say country wines have a harsh homebrew taste... but I find that is when it is very young.... 9-12 months, and it is a different bottle of wine completely
Good Luck

kinkyjinks

nopot2pin wrote: »

I cant get theses links to work

I can't either and I can't even access the website anymore either:eek:. The links took you to a page that has a recipe pretty similar to the other link for wine made with cartons of juice. I hope it's just a temporary glitch with the site because I never wrote the recipes down

ETA this should take you to one of the recipes, if you google Wurzels orange wine hopefully you'll find a working link to the other recipe

nopot2pin

kinkyjinks wrote: »

I can't either and I can't even access the website anymore either:eek:. The links took you to a page that has a recipe pretty similar to the other link for wine made with cartons of juice. I hope it's just a temporary glitch with the site because I never wrote the recipes down

ETA this should take you to one of the recipes, if you google Wurzels orange wine hopefully you'll find a working link to the other recipe

:T:T:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Small world.... thats the very recipe, and site I used when I first started to make wine, a couple of years ago.
I still use that recipe.