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I AM no expert but love the garden,in which i have 100s of Roses and this year i am determined to make Rose petal wine,any tips from you Wine makers out there?

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Yesterday we celebrated my birthday and went for a meal at the Brinsley Lodge. Food OK but the place itself needs  a serving of petrol and a match. For the first in many years I wasn't driving an

Getting back into home brewing beer after 26 years away from it. Miss a good glass of real beer. Next year I'll be collecting berries from our two Mulberry trees and making some wine from them. Also

I used to buy 50lb pails of pure barley malt when I lived in Oz, problem was it was made to suit the big breweries, then they started getting barley & wheat malt, just didn't taste the same.... I

  • 1 year later...

Getting back into home brewing beer after 26 years away from it. Miss a good glass of real beer.

Next year I'll be collecting berries from our two Mulberry trees and making some wine from them.

Also found out I can still alcohol, as long as it is not sold, limit is 100 gallons a year for one person households and 200 gallons a year for two person households.

Could get to be an "alcy" real easy LOL I somehow think 200 gallons a year of home made hooch is a bit over the top....

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Yesterday I picked some ripe plums and used 6 each per litre of home produced Calvados with a bit of castor sugar. Should be ready by Xmas. Last years calvados was from 120 litres of cidre made 2 years ago. Our peach tree is loaded so some will flavor another 2 litres when they ripen in a few days time. The pear flavoring batch will be in about a months time.

Unfortunately I let last years cider spoil, but having a big cidre making session or two this Autumn. So could be a good supply of Calva next year.

I spell Cyder (old English) as Cidre when in France and Cider when in UK. It all tastes the same though :cheers:

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I used to buy 50lb pails of pure barley malt when I lived in Oz, problem was it was made to suit the big breweries, then they started getting barley & wheat malt, just didn't taste the same....

I only ever tried making one sort of wine down under, blackberry. Turned out fizzy, but was pretty good.

My two peach trees died due to very heavy late frosts last year, also killed my plum tree. So the only fruits I have growing here are Mulberries, they finished a month ago. So will have to wait until next year.

Need a male Kiwi to get fruit off the Kiwi vines, I'll bet they make a good wine! Blackberries are finished now.

I do have some water melons and rock melons growing, so any surplus fruits will turn into wine...

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Now this is my joy. I adore making beer, possibly more than actually drinking it. I love the challenge of producing a distinct taste of a beer I have drunk. I also love to perfect a beer exactly to my taste. I know Compo makes his own.

Slowly, as I have gained experience and kit, I have moved to full mash brewing, but unlike Compo I dont have much space to have a set up with a liquor tank above a mash tun and a boiler below.

It also drives the mrs mad. It takes me two days to make a brew (one day for cleaning, one day for brewing) and she goes ballistic when I come home with a big bag of grain and a test tube of yeast.

A friend of mine actually makes beer for sale commercially (40 litres per week) and he makes enough to keep going. I have taken some of mine to a very good real ale pub and the very knowledgable guys there found my Belgian Tripel rather palatable. I estimated the ABV at about 8.5.

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I've made marrow rum but out of a giant courgette returned from holiday and found this giant. Someone suggested marrow rum. It was good but never again. We couldn't keep up with the wasps. My dad was a big wine maker but he never ever drank it! The only thing I make is Limoncello and cream Limoncello.

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Made very successful wine and beer back in the sixties. Used to buy malt and hops from Boots if I remember rightly. Gave it up eventually as I was getting too much of a good thing. LOL. The hangovers were no fun.

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I drank my last bottle of 2014 Cider as I pitched the yeast into this year's batch. It has mostly fermented out now and should make 7% ABV.

My hop harvest was average this year but still plenty to work with.

I recently had a lot of trouble with beer going off during the ferment but hopefully, I have that problem sorted out with a deep sterilization using the same stuff they use for HIV virus clean-up. Certainly, the latest batch of "Platform End Bitter" is maturing ok. Fingers crossed.

I have never had any luck with those tinned or packeted brews, such as the Tom Caxton's, Geordie or other similar packs.

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Wild grapes growing all over the place down here, fruit is about as large as a small pea, black, but little juice in them, they would probably make good rootstock for domesticated grape vines though.

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Picked a load of elderberries yesterday in an attempt to make elderberry wine. I have no experience of home wine making so we shall have to see how it turns out.  Trouble is that, according to the book,  it takes two years to mature :wacko:

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My dad never drank but he use to make loads of different wines including elderberry. Good luck with it. I remember a friend of dads coming round to taste some wine. He only had a small glass full but he was afraid of driving home it was so strong, so be careful.

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I remember my father making his own beer when I was a child. After the fermenting process was over, he'd spread the hops on the garden and then dig them in.  One autumn, he made some marrow wine. I remember the marrow hanging up in the kitchen. Obviously, I didn't sample the results but dad was ill after a couple of glasses...it was so potent! He never made any more.

 

The wine makers in our family were Emily and George Ward at number 4 Garden Street. Both originating from farming families, they scoured the hedgerows for wine making materials. Their elderberry was excellent, apart from the year they had a batch of faulty corks and the whole lot exploded at 2 am one morning!

 

Emily also made raspberry vinegar for me. I was forced to drink it, hot, every winter as soon as I started coughing! Hated the stuff!

 

It's a vivid childhood memory, the large kitchen at Garden Street with earthenware vats on the scrubbed pine table. A slice of toast floated on the surface of each vat of wine. Never forget the smell. Happy days!

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Exploding bottles Jill. I had and still have wine racks in the kitchen. In the winter our kitchen gets very warm so we gradually took the wines to a more suitable place. ( we started drinking a bit more......not really but you know what I mean) We only left the moscato to move later, too late they all exploded all 6 of them. All over the adjacent wall into drawers and the cupboard underneath. The house never mind just the kitchen smelt like a wine cantina. The racks are still there but filled with empty bottles.

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We had innocent looking dear old lady in the village who used to make a variety of homemade wines. She  used to request our used wine bottles with punted bottoms. One year she threw an outdoor cheese and wine party. I have never seen so many people totally rat a***d in such a short time. Parsnip was a particular favourite. Whatever happened to cheese and wine evenings? They were a rather pleasant social institution. 

My father once supplied the wine for the local Conservative association’s ‘do’ many years ago. He had a wine merchant friend in Bakewell who let him have a cheap deal. The tickets were five bob (a long time ago) and there was no stipulation as to the amount of wine you could drink for your money. There we at least two, hitherto respectable ladies, who had to be carried out of the village hall on that occasion! :biggrin:

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I always think that cheese and wine go well together. Both products of a fermentation process. I suppose cheese and wine evenings have gone out of fashion...temporarily. Like most things, they'll be back when someone thinks they've discovered something new!

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Driving back home I passed an hedgerow just down the road from me that was full of wild hops, they were hanging out into the road, any good?

 

Rog

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