January 17, 2009

Homemade Wine

I started this blog to write about my garden. However, since garden news is scarce this time of year, I’ll tell about our main winter garden related activity which is winemaking. We can’t yet supply enough winemaking ingredients from our garden so we have also benefited from fruit shared by friends. Plums, raspberries, elderberries, apples, ground cherries and pears are some of the freebies that have become wine. We haven’t made a lot and often only do 1-2 gallon batches. Just enough to sip a little and give the rest to friends and family.

Denim clad wine? The wine (called must at that point) starts its life in a primary fermenter (plastic bucket) and later goes into the secondary (we use one gallon glass jugs) and is fitted with airlocks. We cover these bottles to protect the color of the wine. My Mom made these “denim jackets”. They protect the color and look kinda cute too.

5 comments:

Heli gunner Tom said...

I got my dad into wine making after I returned form Vietnam in 1970, and we used 5 gallon 'carboys' with fermentation locks. I made beer a few times but could not get the right flavor and texture, so I went back to store bought stuff. Now days, I don't drink so much.

Tom
tschuckman@aol.com

Connie said...

Yeah...definitely cute!

Chris said...

Tom- it's sort of odd that we make wine since we don't drink very often. It has just been a fun creative outlet. We just use the one gallon carboys and have fun with it. We just find it great that we can actually make something that comes out pretty good.

From what I have heard from friends, homemade beer is much more difficult to make just right.

TSOTE said...

Well, Ken seems to have been pretty consistently successful in using the Mr. Beer kit, so it may be just a matter of using pre-mix ingredients. The results may not be all that stellar, but apparently they're good enough to be drinkable at any rate (according to him).

Chris said...

Yes, I've heard positive reviews of the beer kits. We try to be as cheap as possible so haven't used kits with wine. The homemade beer I have had that wasn't from a kit was not very good. It sounds like it would challenging but fun to try to make.

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