We took a trip to Kingston for a pub lunch and took the opportunity to pop in Wilkinsons. There aren't many shops selling homebrew kit, but we know Wilkinson's does, so we had to see what they had. They had a small range of basic chemicals and "bits" like airlocks, a few "quick" kits.
It seems to be a fairly simple kit - nothing difficult - just follow the instructions. It's all done in the one bucket, no straining, no racking, no nonsense. The kit includes everything needed except the bucket, the water and the sugar.
Getting started was easy - it's sitting there in the bucket, hopefully only 3 weeks left. It's been fairly chilly weather though, and we haven't had the heating up high, so it's not been too warm indoors - therefore it might take a bit longer to ferment. We need to test the gravity (with our hydrometer) in about 12 days time.
After we'd started the kit, the missus checked up on the Internet for reviews of this kit - she said all the reviews were good, no complaints, everyone seems happy. All sounds good to me!
Cost £19.00 + about 10lbs sugar (£3.99 for 5k /11lb bag)
= approx £23.00 for 30 bottles
= approx £0.77 per bottle
Verdict:
The wine is ready in 21 days, IF the temperature is a constant 25C. It's been a bit chilly here and we haven't had the heating on, so it's taken longer to finish fermenting. We finally bottled this on 10th June 2012.
We didn't quite get 30 bottles out of it, maybe 29, but we may not have been as careful as we should have been with the measurements. And of course we had to fill a few glasses while bottling.
It's a fairly basic red table wine, nothing special, but very passable. It doesn't touch a nice Shiraz, but we're happy with it, especially as it's far less than £1 a bottle.
Would we buy it again? Yes, but probably only if we're likely to run out of our fruit wines.
We might try other kits later too ....
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