Went to Lidl today :(

debtworrier

I think Sainsbury's Tesco and the like have made a big mistake.

The 'main line' supermarkets used to compete with the 'budget' chains by offering more variety, with several different brands to choose from. It was always the case that if you went into say, Lidl's, looking for tinned tomatoes, bread flour or whatever they had one brand and you could take it or leave it.

Then some marketing bright spark interpreted 'variety' to mean that we should be able to walk into a *grocer's* and buy clothing, microwave cookers, DVDs gardening stuff etc. That's fine for hypermarkets which are so huge they have border guards instead of security staff, but for medium-sized supermarkets it meant that they had to find the space for all the extraneous junk by reducing their core stock. Presto, the main supermarkets now had the same poverty of choice as the 'budget' supermarkets.

Consequently the mainline supermarkets had no choice but to compete on price, and wherever I go now, it *looks* like a budget supermarket, with the same driving ethos: "Nothing matters except the price."

Chuck out the junk, I say - decide whether you're going to be a clothes store, an electrical showroom or a grocers and do one thing really well rather than half a dozen things badly.

Gillian1912

The great thing I love from Lidl is their ham. I'm not sure what it is actually called but I know it when I see it and buy 3 or 4 vacuum sealed packs at a time. Lovely!

Amarillo

I agree that the stores do vary a fair bit. Our local one is really good, the staff on the check out are friendly and helpful and they open new tills when the queues build up which hasn't happened in other branches I've been in. We have been buying:

Tinned tomatoes
Bixie weetabix substitutes
Branflakes
Museli
bacon
Olive marg
croissants
bagels
half fat cheese
half fat mozarella
white bread flour
low fat cottage cheese
chocolate
natural yoghurt
milk
Olive Oil
Pasta
Tuna
Aubergenes
Organic Bananas
Organic Carrots
White cabbage
Peppers
Coriander, basil & chives

Zeitgeist

scbk wrote: »

...
Also their range of fruit juices is pretty good, they're great quality and the prices are as good as other peoples value ranges.
...
(making up some homebrew cider;) )

Do you just pour it in a large sterile container and leave it somewhere warmish to ferment, then? Is that all there is to it? I have tried home beer brewing in the past, but found the results variable, but cider making looks loads easier!

:beer:

debtworrier

Zeitgeist wrote: »

Do you just pour it in a large sterile container and leave it somewhere warmish to ferment, then? Is that all there is to it? I have tried home beer brewing in the past, but found the results variable, but cider making looks loads easier!

:beer:

Cider making is pretty simple. It's wise to cover the container to keep out airborne yeasts (or ferment under lock), and you need to leave a goodish space for the must (fermenting juice) to foam up - it can get pretty lively in warm weather.

If you're buying apple juice from the supermarket then you'll need to add yeast, but if you're making cider from windfalls in the autumn, you just have to mush the apples up, skins cores and all (I used to use a mincer), leave it all alone in a sterile bucket for a day or so and then squeeze out the juice (through a net curtain, in my case) and leave it to ferment out. Cider yeast is contained naturally in the apple skins.

The main reasons for getting a nasty taste in homebrew of any type are:

1. Contamination from wild yeasts/bacteria. You'll be fine if you just rinse all your brewing equipment - and that's absolutely everything that will touch the brew - in a solution of 1 pint hot water + half teaspoon of sodium metabisulphate. There's a faint whiff of rotten eggs (sulphur dioxide), which is normal. Don't rinse the sodium met solution off though - brewing yeast is bred to be tolerant of it.

2. Using standard sugar to fortify the fermentation brew (called 'must' if you're making wine, and 'wort' if you're making beer.) Ordinary sugar ferments out to leave byproducts with a kind of sour, cidery taste. Cane sugar (Tate & Lyle) isn't as bad as beet sugar, but still leaves an aftertaste. It's better to use glucose (aka "brewer's sugar") if you can afford it. (Or malt extract, if you're making beer.)

3. Leaving the must/wort to stand on the lees too long after fermentation has finished. The dead yeast begins to decay, and taints the brew with a nasty, acrid aftertaste called 'yeast bite.' Once tasted, never forgotten. You'll be fine if you just siphon the brew off promptly once it's stopped bubbling.

The last wine kit I made worked out at £1.70 a bottle*. It's not Wolf Blass, but it's as good as the average supermarket £4 a bottle range.

*not counting the start-up costs, mind you, which will probably be another tenner: 2 plastic demijohns, 1 bubbler, length of plastic tubing, pack of plastic bottle caps, sterilizing tablets/powder. (I assume you have no shortage of empty wine bottles )

KittyKate

Me and the OH tried Aldi, Lidl & Netto when we were students but found it was pricier and nowhere near as nice as our local Morrisons. Not only were the stores (in Bradford) grotty, the meat looked green and off, the veg was more expensive than Morrisons and rotting (ugh!) and things like orange juice, tinned tomatoes, tinned spaghetti etc were actually 10p more expensive than larger supermarket's value brands!

Now we live in Leeds pretty much all we buy is from Mr T's. Tried the local market but it was the same price and we had to carry it, plus the market butchers sell chicken pumped up with so much water that when you cook it it goes 'scaly' and actually tastes like fish!!

cammysmum

just wanted to add my opinion to this thread. I live in Germnay and here Lidl is one of the main supermarkets - most Germans shop at Lidl regularly. When I first arrived here I was pretty sceptical of it, given it's 'cheap' reputation, but as it was a short walk from my house I started using it to just top-up on my weekly shop (which was done at a more expensive supermarket).

anyway, I soon realised that actually Lidl is ideal - their deli products, cheese, cold meats, bread, jams, cereals, meat...all good. Cleaning products like their dishwasher powder, kitchen roll, detergent are fine. Good quality, good value. I live out here within the British military community and nearly everyone I know shops at Lidl at least once a week. Everyone loves how cheap it is!

There are some things that I buy elsewhere - for instance Lidl out here doesn't sell things like cheddar cheese, baked beans or soya milk...but generally I can get most things every week. They also do a good organic fruit and veg range.

I bought my breadmaker from Lidl and I love it! And it was only 30 euros - about 20 quid. Bargain!
:T