Has anyone made wine?

Discussion in 'Recipes & Remedies' started by sun burn, Nov 5, 2010.

  1. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    I went to the local winery today. I had a lovely tasting session and came home with a bottle of mango wine which was the best in my view. I also like their lychee wine but they have sold out.

    They also had kaffir limoncello as opposed to lemoncello. I like hte idea of making my own lemoncello they way they do it by making wine first.

    I wonder how cheap or expensive it is to make wine? Does anyone have any experience? I'll do it if it will save me money.

    If figure the lemon cello is good enough to substitute for gin so that's definiltely worth doing. And as for the wine, alas i tend to buy very cheap wine. These days its the $6 cleanskins otherwise its a $15 2 Litre cask.
     
  2. paradisi

    paradisi Junior Member

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    if the fruit is free, then the wine is free

    I wont mention the equipment and bottles which are generally a once only purchase because they can be reused continuosly

    lots of info and sites around the web specialising in wine making - - get to a good home brew store (theres one in calundra where I live) and talk to them - they have everythgin you need to kick off

    it is a bit expensive to start with, but if you buy good equipment it will last a life time
     
  3. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    For the limoncello you have to buy some alcohol. But you are right about the wine i guess, apart from sugar and yeast or maybe it doens't even need sugar.
     
  4. paradisi

    paradisi Junior Member

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    in queensland we can legally have a still - for distillation of essential oils

    about $450 - 550 for a kit

    you need to make a sugar water brew first then distill that to get the alcohol
     
  5. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    I'll keep that in mind for the long term. In the short term, i will probably just buy the pure alcohol or whatever is needed. Thanks for the tips.

    Today I realised i had a lot of mulberry trees coming along. Down the track i will make mulberry wine too. Last night i was reading about watermelon wine. I quite like the sound of that. What wine's have you made?
     
  6. pippimac

    pippimac Junior Member

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    Watch out: I've tasted some pretty feral 'liquors' boosted with commercial ethyl alcohol.
    It can add a nasty cheap'n'burny flavour. Also make sure you don't end up with methyl alcohol, which is nearly chemically identical but'll make you go blind, nuts, and maybe kill you! I havn't bought them, but I imagine it's like most stuff: you get what you pay for.
    Wine's one of those really easy, but really easy to stuff up things...
    My climate's temperate, so most of my wine ingredients won't apply. Do you grow rhubarb? Makes great wine.
    You can make it with really minimal gear and the only non-negotiable in my experience is be really careful with hygiene, or you'll end up with fancy vinegar, and use proper wine yeast. You don't HAVE to, but it majorly simplifies things!
     
  7. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    That's the sort of thing i gathered pippi. My father used to make beer at home and although it worked, I wondered if the hygiene should have been better beucase it never tasted that good.

    I had friends who made bottles and bottles of pear vinegar when i was at college hahahaha

    What do you mean your climates temperate so most of mine ingredients won't apply. Rhubarb does not grow well, if at all, in the tropics. I think i might start next year with watermelon wine. As its not a tree, it shoudl be easy to get enough fruit quickly.

    My father said the expensive part is buying the bottles because you have to be able to seal them properly. I suggested i could use his beer bottles but do you think there's a way of sealing well the wine bottles with screw cap lids. I woujlnd't want to have to buy a whole lot of new bottles. I wondered about useing hte screw cap and then sealing hte whole thing with wax. What do you think?

    About the alcohol for spirits, i am sure there is something decent one should buy. I have tasted really bad alchol in israel. oh you'd have to be an alcoholic to want to drink it.
     
  8. aroideana

    aroideana Junior Member

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    I have made lots of beer , even tried to make cider when I still lived in Vic. and had access to lots of apples & pears .
    Even tried to make mead once . Practice by making ginger beer ,, I used 1 gallon fermenters .. I got 2 with airlocks at a recent market @ $8 ea.
    Boil up bruised ginger and sugar with some lemon or lime rind . I save the ginger as it can still flavour the wort even after a few uses .
    [keep in freezer] I used a beer yeast from a mates fermenter , and add some raisins and citric acid before putting airlock on .
    I had a collection of Grolsch swingtop bottles that are fantastic for homebrew .. 8 bottles of beautiful clear drink every week . Once you get into the swing of things you can do continuous brewing . ANd experiment with slight changes .. I ran out of ginger and made lemon beer for a while it was amazing . Got the ginger beer recipe from an ancient PWMU [Protestant Womens Missionary Union] 1930's cookbook of my mothers .
     
  9. pippimac

    pippimac Junior Member

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    I've only used recycled wine bottles with new corks, but I'm sure there's plenty of other ways.
    I've never had good real homebrew: people always seemed more interested in getting it up to 12% than making it tasty. The commercial beer kits work well though, Coopers is good.
    Our climates are completely diiferent, so I wouldn't want to make fruit recommendations...but I reckon anything wtih 'mango' in it's name's gotta be good!
     
  10. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    Made some pretty good wine as a teenager , of course thats a while ago . We lived in a grape growing area so supply was no problem , stomped them with our feet the whole bit , i remember we had to get the right starter yeast and the main worry was vinegar fly infecting the batch . so we had barrels with vents that allowed gas to escape but no fly to enter . Just on that subject vinegar is real easy to make if you want . If you have any Italian contacts you might be able to squeeze some tips out of them although they do guard thier secrets and rightly so .
    regards Rob
     
  11. geoff

    geoff Junior Member

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    sun burn, for the last few years we've made wine and put it into the bottles with the screw cap lids, without any extra sealing, and they've worked just fine.
     
  12. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    That's brilliant news geoff. What sort of wine did you make by the way? thanks so much.
     
  13. geoff

    geoff Junior Member

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    We've only made Elderflower wine so far. I've got a lot of grape cuttings of merlot, cab sav and shiraz in the ground, so as long as some of them take then I might be able to branch out.
     
  14. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    I' ve made heaps of wine back in Melbourne you could order grapes through he Italian green grocer or drive out to the vineyard in Lilydale
    I bought my press and demijohns up to Qld will wait for some abundance of fruit.
    Ive also made limoncello,cointreau,apricot and cherry brandy
     
  15. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Care to share your secret recipes Grasshopper?
     
  16. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    *licking lips in anticipation of limoncello recipe*
     
  17. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    I got the recipes of the net this is a great site
    https://www.homedistiller.org/ (distilling alcohol is illegal in most places so do what you like with the information at your own risk)
    for the Cherry one I made it up
    got a kilo of cherrys cheap from vic market
    Got a large jar(about a gallon it had pickled artichokes in it originally) covered the cherrys(in vodka) and added the cracked pips of a few cherries(3 or4 )
    Let stand for 3 to 4 months
    Drain off liqueur quite strong but subdued dark coloured with more than a hint of cherry
    Grab the cherrys add sugar and leave for weeks
    A sweet liquer is drawn from the cherrys
    this is really nice and not nearly as alcoholic but obviously still is
    Then eat the cherrys on ice cream or as is
    They become alcoholic sweet glace cherries and are delicious
     
  18. hardworkinghippy

    hardworkinghippy Junior Member

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    Oh Grasshopper you're making my mouth water ! ;)

    This is me making garden/hedgerow wine in the 70s. It was a gamble, I got some terrible and some wonderful wines.

    [​IMG]

    Since moving to France I've not made wine because our neighbours do it much better than we do and they have the equipment to do it on a bigger scale.

    For stronger stuff, we have a mobile still (Legal) which comes to the village every year and we take our fruit (Plum, pear, fig... ) then swap with neighbours after a week long party with a good selection of different flavours.

    [​IMG]

    We use the eau de vie for medical uses of course and for cleaning our air dried conserves like jambon, then the better tasting ones are used for bottling fruit.

    [​IMG]

    We make crème de cassis, wood strawberry and any other fruit that we have and we also make white, red and rosé Pinot (A sort of fortified wine.)

    The very best eau de vie are kept for the table and small bottles make very welcome gifts.

    This is our latest recipe called 44. Try this !!

    An orange stuck with 44 coffee beans 44 spoonfuls of sugar, topped up with alcohol, wait for 44 days....

    [​IMG]
     
  19. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    I like the sound of 44. 44 is my name on another site. lol

    If its illegal to distill alcohol, i think you can buy it already made. I think that's what the winemaker was indicating when she told me how to make limoncello. YOu can buy the spirit. Because when she makes port from wine, I didn't think they were distilling it. I thought she said somethign about making a wine first and using a bought alochol. But maybe I am confused.
     
  20. hardworkinghippy

    hardworkinghippy Junior Member

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    44's for you then ! ;-)

    That's right, you add distilled alcohol (Eau de vie in France or Aguardente in Spanish) to a normal wine to make all sorts of fortified wines.
     

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