Anyone Made Home-Brew?

Sid is thinking of starting to do it, mainly to make wine I suppose.

Has anyone done it? I would be interested if it actually is nice or not!!

I cannot help but think it will probably taste crap! Anyway, he's got it in his head he wants to try it out, I of course won't mind helping taste it!

My Grandad use to do his own wine and it was great,always use to have a bottle with sunday lunch,he use to do all his home-brewed beer too.
Be careful though it's usually strong....lol
Hubby use to do home-brewed larger,which was lovely,although it was the extra strong stuff which was like rocket fuel.....lol
Sal

Thanks.

I'll make a note of that! Wine is strong anyway, wow, we will have to be careful!!!

I have been brewing beer for over 20 years now, and the occasional demijohn of wine (I've even made my own mead). It's easy, and far cheaper than buying the stuff! Home-brewing has been a tradition in Orkney since the days of the Vilings, and it carried on even in the days when the Government made it illegal! The thing to do is to decide whether you want to brew for quality, or brew for brain-death! Personally, I prefer the decent-quality cheap pint, and I will happily use kits.

Wine is slightly more demanding (and you ain't gonna end up with Chateau Mouton-Rothschild!), but it can be made successfully from kits, too, although I prefer to start with the fruit (but I've never used real grapes, you need tons!). If you use other fruit, it's known technically as "country wine". Hunt around the Net, and I daresay you may find some books which will help you to good results.

My home wines have always been on the sweet side - a light, dry table wine has eluded me so far, not even the grapefruit version came out dry!

But, if you like the idea of a decent after-dinner sup, bananas do well (but need a lot of pectolytic enzyme to come clear) as do tinned ly-chees. If, like Snorri Mansions, your garden produces a better crop of nettles and dandelions than flowers - these "weeds" make half-decent glugging juice. Shades of Tom and Barbara Goode!

Snorri
(hic)

try this one----- one large marrow cut off thck end and save cut out pips and
pith fill with brown sugar put cut off end back on wrap in mutton cloth hang over bowl or bucket until juice has stopped put through paper filter and enjoy
i will say dont drink to much at once sweet dreams geoff

We used to make the wine some years ago. It's lethal. Makes your tongue go numb very quickly. The only thing you need with home-made wine is patience.....

Ohh thanks for those tips!

Yes there are plenty of nettles in our garden so we should be fine!!! Some good ideas here, thanks very much!

One thing you can do to make a "special" (e.g. Christmas) pint is this:

Use a simple 40-pint beer kit, and, instead of the usual kilo of sugar, put in 2lb of runny honey plus 8oz. sugar, making sure that everything dissolves 100%. Carry on as per the kit instructions, but add a good heaped teaspoonful of yeast nutrient (animal sugar takes longer to ferment than plant sugar).

Not only does this "mead-ale" take longer to ferment, but it takes longer to mature as well, but it's well worth the wait. It is not honey-sweet (the honey ferments out), but has a nice "nutty" flavour.

Ordinary supermarket honey is fine, but the better the honey, the better the result.

For Christmas, I'd recommend starting it off in September.

Snorri

We have made home made wine,it is nice if you can go out and pick damsons and blackberries fresh and then make it we found blackberry very nice. Ps the longer you leave it the better it tastes,so you nneed to make loads so you can leave some to mature.

Never made home wine but have drank some - jeeeeeze! Blows yer head off!

Probably didn't help that I'd drank the sediment in the bottom of the bottle though Tasted good until my taste buds became paralysed - lights out!