Grapes

[Doris_Pinks]

Oh, Oh, how exciting! Just been to a friend of a friends and picked 2 buckets of REAL grapes! They taste sweet too! Grape wine on the go, after Mr Pinks has picked them all off the stalks!
Also friends dropped round the most enormous Demi-Johns I have ever seen in my life this morning, I can hardly lift one of them! Gonna have to fill them I suppose! Top bung holes are so big I shall have to cobble something together!  DP

[derbex]

Who's a lucky girl then At this rate you and Bannerdown will be putting Bordeaux out of business.

Jeremy

[Doris_Pinks]

I live in hope Jeremy!  (or should that read I hope I live...........after all that wine! )

[budgiebreeder]

                                                       

Well now DP you cant possibly be thinking of drinking all that on your own .What about a party.........Firemen spring to mind.

                                                     

[Doris_Pinks]

Good idea BB, maybe a put to bed Autumn party...the plants not us!

[budgiebreeder]

                                 
Why not us DP ?.Hibernate 'til Spring .I never could do with the cold damp English Winters.Not that i will be here for much of it.

[Bannerdown]

Sounds like it is a Carbouy, item used for storing acids!  Usually had a metal banded cage packed with straw round them.  Make sure you wash it out well.  I had one in Hong Kong, made a fantastic Terarium out of it, (wonder where it is now)?  Cheers, Tony.

[osprey480]

Doris you were saying about the hole being big in the demi-johns. There are a lot of Italian families here that make their own wine in large demi-johns and they dont put a bung in the top they just pour a little olive oil on the top of the wine in the the neck. This lets out carbon dioxide and stops bacteria entering.

[philcooper]

Back at the original issue (the big hole), you could adapt the method I first used many years ago which was just a very large polybag with an elastic band are ther airlock.

If you cut the bottom off a polybag that is big enough to fit over the top of the carboy,  fix with a strong elastic band at the bottom to said carbouy, then put another elastic band round the top of the bag to make the lock.

The idea is now patented and the royalties are measured in glasses of wine 

Phil

[derbex]

More boringly -you could use a hole cutter on a lump of cork.

[Doris_Pinks]

What I did was buy a sweetie type jar with a big cork bung, and attacked it with a sharp knife and a drill bit! Works a treat!! OH working his way through the wine