Started 30th July 2012
We popped into Wilko's a couple of weeks ago and found these wine kits for just £12 each. They claim to make 30 bottles in less than 14 days, so we've got to try one and see what happens!
The kit is essentially a big can of concentrated grape juice with sachets of yeast, nutrient, stabiliser and finings under the lid. All we need is 3.5kg (about 7lbs) of sugar and a few gallons of water. What could be simpler than that?
A 5kg bag of sugar in Sainsburys is just £3.99. Therefore 3.5kg of sugar costs £2.80.
That makes the total cost of this kit just £14.80
For 30 bottles, that should work out to just 49.3p per bottle. That is 10% of the cost of ordinary shop bought wine when it's on offer!
We have the red version of this wine too, so we'll try that once the white has finished.
Update 5th August 2012
The instructions in the kit say it should ferment out in just 7 days. It's now 9 days. I took a hydrometer reading today and it's at 1.030, so the ferment is nowhere near finished. Disappointing considering the claims in the instructions. I'll check the SG again next weekend.
Friday 27 July 2012
Raspberry Wine - Love It!
We're just finishing the last of our first Carafe 21 Red and Carafe 21 White kits. Both were very drinkable. The red definitely improved over the few weeks since bottling. We have about 1 bottle of each left.
Our second Carafe 21 Red will be bottled on Sunday evening. We stabilised it a couple of days ago and we'll be racking off tonight and adding the finings.
To help make the Carafe kits last this long, we've opened some of the raspberry wine. It is amazing! It tastes so much nicer than any shop bought wines and we're definitely going to make some more.
Raspberry wine 1 is very nice. It's fairly dry, with just enough sweetness. The raspberry flavour really comes through. It's mellowed a lot since we bottled it. If we had enough of it, I would drink it every day.
Raspberry wine 2 is very good too, but much sweeter than raspberry wine 1. It's more of a really good dessert wine. It's a bit too sweet to drink every night. It's really nice 50% wine and 50% soda water, still a good raspberry taste but not so sweet.
The reason raspberry wine 2 is sweeter than raspberry wine 1 is that raspberry wine 2 was made with currants, which have a lot more sugar than grape juice. That meant that raspberry wine 2 should have been left to ferment longer. Unfortunately, being beginners, we didn't think to test the SG before stabilising. But never mind!
It's been a really good learning experience for us and we've decided we like raspberry wine so much that we're going to plant more raspberries in our garden. We've picked and frozen a few pounds of home grown raspberries so far this year, so we can make a couple of gallons from that (probably with a mix of loganberries in there too).
But before I put any more raspberry canes in the ground, I need to crack on and get even more wines started ....
Our second Carafe 21 Red will be bottled on Sunday evening. We stabilised it a couple of days ago and we'll be racking off tonight and adding the finings.
To help make the Carafe kits last this long, we've opened some of the raspberry wine. It is amazing! It tastes so much nicer than any shop bought wines and we're definitely going to make some more.
Raspberry wine 1 is very nice. It's fairly dry, with just enough sweetness. The raspberry flavour really comes through. It's mellowed a lot since we bottled it. If we had enough of it, I would drink it every day.
Raspberry wine 2 is very good too, but much sweeter than raspberry wine 1. It's more of a really good dessert wine. It's a bit too sweet to drink every night. It's really nice 50% wine and 50% soda water, still a good raspberry taste but not so sweet.
The reason raspberry wine 2 is sweeter than raspberry wine 1 is that raspberry wine 2 was made with currants, which have a lot more sugar than grape juice. That meant that raspberry wine 2 should have been left to ferment longer. Unfortunately, being beginners, we didn't think to test the SG before stabilising. But never mind!
It's been a really good learning experience for us and we've decided we like raspberry wine so much that we're going to plant more raspberries in our garden. We've picked and frozen a few pounds of home grown raspberries so far this year, so we can make a couple of gallons from that (probably with a mix of loganberries in there too).
But before I put any more raspberry canes in the ground, I need to crack on and get even more wines started ....
Monday 9 July 2012
Carrot Wine 2
Started 9th July 2012
I nipped out to Sainsbury's yesterday for a couple of bits and spotted some bags of carrots reduced to clear, so for 30p, I picked up enough carrots for another gallon of wine.
Although the plan is to use mostly free fruit and veg, either home grown or foraged, I don't mind spending a few pennies here and there. In any case, carrots take months to grow and we now have several bags of sliced carrots in the freezer, ready to just bung into a stew in winter.
We're almost out of sultanas and raisins, so this time, we decided to use a small tin of white grape juice concentrate instead. We would rather use the sultanas if we have them, especially as most carrot wine recipes use sultanas, but CJJ Berry uses concentrate in his carrot wine recipe, so we have too.
The method for this carrot wine recipe is a bit different to the previous carrot wine. No special reason for this, it's just how we did it this time.
Carrot Wine 2
Ingredients:
4lbs carrots
2lbs sugar
1 x 245g tin white grape juice concentrate
1 cup strong black tea (for the tannin)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Youngs wine yeast
Step 1:
Add sugar to bucket
Slice the carrots - do not peel or grate them
Boil the carrots for about 20 mins until soft but not mushy
Strain the liquid from the carrots into the bucket to dissolve the sugar
Allow to cool to about 25C or less (5 or 6 hours)
Step 2:
Add the concentrate to the bucket
Add the lemon juice to the bucket
Add the tea to the bucket
Add yeast to bucket and stir well
Cover and leave for 10 days, stirring every day
Step 3:
Strain through a sieve into clean, sterilised demijohns
Fit airlocks
Store in a warm place until fermentation has finished
Step 4:
Rack off into clean demijohns
Leave in cooler place for 6 months
Step 5:
Bottle and drink
I nipped out to Sainsbury's yesterday for a couple of bits and spotted some bags of carrots reduced to clear, so for 30p, I picked up enough carrots for another gallon of wine.
Although the plan is to use mostly free fruit and veg, either home grown or foraged, I don't mind spending a few pennies here and there. In any case, carrots take months to grow and we now have several bags of sliced carrots in the freezer, ready to just bung into a stew in winter.
We're almost out of sultanas and raisins, so this time, we decided to use a small tin of white grape juice concentrate instead. We would rather use the sultanas if we have them, especially as most carrot wine recipes use sultanas, but CJJ Berry uses concentrate in his carrot wine recipe, so we have too.
The method for this carrot wine recipe is a bit different to the previous carrot wine. No special reason for this, it's just how we did it this time.
Carrot Wine 2
Ingredients:
4lbs carrots
2lbs sugar
1 x 245g tin white grape juice concentrate
1 cup strong black tea (for the tannin)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Youngs wine yeast
Step 1:
Add sugar to bucket
Slice the carrots - do not peel or grate them
Boil the carrots for about 20 mins until soft but not mushy
Strain the liquid from the carrots into the bucket to dissolve the sugar
Allow to cool to about 25C or less (5 or 6 hours)
Step 2:
Add the concentrate to the bucket
Add the lemon juice to the bucket
Add the tea to the bucket
Add yeast to bucket and stir well
Cover and leave for 10 days, stirring every day
Step 3:
Strain through a sieve into clean, sterilised demijohns
Fit airlocks
Store in a warm place until fermentation has finished
Step 4:
Rack off into clean demijohns
Leave in cooler place for 6 months
Step 5:
Bottle and drink
Friday 6 July 2012
WOW - Wurzel's Orange Wine (Breakfast Juice)
Started 6th July 2012
This is the second version of the WOW. The recipe can be found online here at Wurzel's Orange Wine. A more detailed recipe and instructions with lots of good photos can be found at The Homebrew Forum.
This time we've used Sainsburys Basics Breakfast Juice (a mix of orange and grapefruit juice) instead of the orange juice.
This is the second version of the WOW. The recipe can be found online here at Wurzel's Orange Wine. A more detailed recipe and instructions with lots of good photos can be found at The Homebrew Forum.
This time we've used Sainsburys Basics Breakfast Juice (a mix of orange and grapefruit juice) instead of the orange juice.
Carafe 21 Red Kit Number 2
Started 4th July 2012
We popped in Wilko's in Sutton at the weekend to pick up some more airlocks. They had Carafe 21 kits reduced from £19 to £12. As the previous Carafe 21 Red is going down quite nicely, we just had to get the only two on the shelves. Sadly, we forgot the airlocks.
The missus got hold of another 2 Carafe Red and 2 Carafe White kits from another Wilko's near her work. And she forgot the airlocks again.
We decided that this time we'd experiment a little bit. The kit comes with 1 litre of red grape / elderberry juice concentrate. We're going to add a small tin (245ml) of red grape juice concentrate. Hopefully this will give the wine a little bit more body.
We popped in Wilko's in Sutton at the weekend to pick up some more airlocks. They had Carafe 21 kits reduced from £19 to £12. As the previous Carafe 21 Red is going down quite nicely, we just had to get the only two on the shelves. Sadly, we forgot the airlocks.
The missus got hold of another 2 Carafe Red and 2 Carafe White kits from another Wilko's near her work. And she forgot the airlocks again.
We decided that this time we'd experiment a little bit. The kit comes with 1 litre of red grape / elderberry juice concentrate. We're going to add a small tin (245ml) of red grape juice concentrate. Hopefully this will give the wine a little bit more body.
Tuesday 3 July 2012
WOW - Wurzel's Orange Wine 1
Started 3rd July 2012
This is a very quick and simple wine using cartons of fruit juice from supermarkets. It's known as Wurzel's Orange Wine (or WOW for short), after the author who is known as Wurzel.
We've been making quite a lot of wine, but it takes time to ferment and clear and mature, so decided we'd have a go at some WoW to help tide us over. We had a trip to Sainsbury's yesterday and they had white grape juice on offer, so we picked up a few cartons with a few cartons of orange juice as well.
The recipe can be adapted to use other flavoured carton juice. We started 3 gallons of orange WoW today and we'll start one with a different flavoured juice very soon.
I won't repeat the recipe or method here. The recipe can be found online here at Wurzel's Orange Wine. A more detailed recipe and instructions with lots of good photos can be found at The Homebrew Forum.
This is a very quick and simple wine using cartons of fruit juice from supermarkets. It's known as Wurzel's Orange Wine (or WOW for short), after the author who is known as Wurzel.
We've been making quite a lot of wine, but it takes time to ferment and clear and mature, so decided we'd have a go at some WoW to help tide us over. We had a trip to Sainsbury's yesterday and they had white grape juice on offer, so we picked up a few cartons with a few cartons of orange juice as well.
The recipe can be adapted to use other flavoured carton juice. We started 3 gallons of orange WoW today and we'll start one with a different flavoured juice very soon.
I won't repeat the recipe or method here. The recipe can be found online here at Wurzel's Orange Wine. A more detailed recipe and instructions with lots of good photos can be found at The Homebrew Forum.
Sunday 1 July 2012
Carrot Wine 1
Started 1st July 2012
The local fox raided our tubs of carrots, probably hunting for slugs. Most of our home grown carrots had been dug up, most of them still small, baby carrots. So we decided we might as well make our first carrot wine.
In our ideal world, all our wines will be from home grown or foraged foods - we wouldn't normally buy any fruit or veg to make wine with. But as we only had about 1.5lbs of our own carrots, we bought a couple of bags of cheap carrots while we were out today. 1.5kgs (approx 3lbs) of carrots are only 69p in Morrisons, so not a big expense.
This is a basic carrot wine recipe for 2 gallons. It takes about a year for the wine to clear and be drinkable, so we'll see how it turns out. Some recipes use sultanas, which can give some extra body to the wine, others don't. We decided we would do this, but we didn't have enough sultanas, so used a mixture of sultanas and currants.
Carrot Wine 1
Ingredients:
8lbs carrots
4lbs sugar
1lb currants
1/2lb sultanas
1 pint strong black tea (for the tannin)
6 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons Youngs wine yeast
Step 1:
Add sugar to bucket
Slice the carrots - do not peel or grate them
Boil the carrots for about 20 mins until soft but not mushy
Strain the liquid from the carrots into the bucket to dissolve the sugar
Add the currants and sultanas to the bucket
Add the lemon juice to the bucket
Add the tea to the bucket
Stir well, cover and leave for 12 hours
Step 2:
Add yeast to bucket and stir well
Cover and leave for 10 days, stirring every day
Step 3:
Strain through a sieve into clean, sterilised demijohns
Fit airlocks
Store in a warm place until fermentation has finished
Step 4:
Rack off into clean demijohns
Leave in cooler place for 6 months
Step 5:
Bottle and drink
The local fox raided our tubs of carrots, probably hunting for slugs. Most of our home grown carrots had been dug up, most of them still small, baby carrots. So we decided we might as well make our first carrot wine.
In our ideal world, all our wines will be from home grown or foraged foods - we wouldn't normally buy any fruit or veg to make wine with. But as we only had about 1.5lbs of our own carrots, we bought a couple of bags of cheap carrots while we were out today. 1.5kgs (approx 3lbs) of carrots are only 69p in Morrisons, so not a big expense.
This is a basic carrot wine recipe for 2 gallons. It takes about a year for the wine to clear and be drinkable, so we'll see how it turns out. Some recipes use sultanas, which can give some extra body to the wine, others don't. We decided we would do this, but we didn't have enough sultanas, so used a mixture of sultanas and currants.
Carrot Wine 1
Ingredients:
8lbs carrots
4lbs sugar
1lb currants
1/2lb sultanas
1 pint strong black tea (for the tannin)
6 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons Youngs wine yeast
Step 1:
Add sugar to bucket
Slice the carrots - do not peel or grate them
Boil the carrots for about 20 mins until soft but not mushy
Strain the liquid from the carrots into the bucket to dissolve the sugar
Add the currants and sultanas to the bucket
Add the lemon juice to the bucket
Add the tea to the bucket
Stir well, cover and leave for 12 hours
Step 2:
Add yeast to bucket and stir well
Cover and leave for 10 days, stirring every day
Step 3:
Strain through a sieve into clean, sterilised demijohns
Fit airlocks
Store in a warm place until fermentation has finished
Step 4:
Rack off into clean demijohns
Leave in cooler place for 6 months
Step 5:
Bottle and drink
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