A demijohn of rhubarb wine was bottled last night. Possibly my best to date. Gorgeous on its own at room temperature, delicious when chilled to freezing in the summer, and makes a stunning fruit 'cup' when mixed with any fruit juice, this is an impressive 'freebie' off the plot. My friends and family agree so there must be something in it. This will be the first wine I will be making this coming season, with blackberry being another favourite. Carrot is another surprise, similar to sherry.
Alas I lack sufficient raspberries, redcurrants or blackcurrants to use these.
What will other members be making from available produce this coming season?
If we get enough rhubarb I might try that. There'll be the elderflower champagne, maybe elderberry and blackberry. Last year I made a 'mixed berry wine instead elderberry, balackberry, raspberry a few sloes and anything else I could find. Not sure beyond that though.
Jeremy.
Looking forward to the rhubarb ;D, elderflower again, and really fancy trying a recipe I found for broad bean ! :o
Broad bean sounds intriguing, not sure how it would taste, could you post the recipe?
Similar to last year for me
Rhubarb wine
Beetroot wine
Raspberry wine (hopefully swap for some of my neighbours ;))
Pumpkin Wine
Runnerbean Wine ( nearly went blind with this years's , a acquired taste ;D, doubles up for paraffin !!)
And going to try Carrot Wine
Curry - found it again, here goes:
4lb broad beans (shelled)
2+3/4lb sugar
1/4lb raisins (or 4oz white grape concentrate)
2 tsps citric
1 gall water
yeast + nutrient
Boil beans slowly in water for an hour(do not break skins), strain off, add rest of ingredients (bar yeast-add when cooled). If using raisins, remove after initial ferment(5 days ?), then into dj + airlock & ferment.
Have lifted this from CJBerry, who recommends this amount of sugar for a dry wine only.
Personaly havent tried this yet, but having just sown 3 double rows of Masterpiece Longpod I'm definitely going to !
Erm, our own produce. Later in the year we're looking forward to: apple/elderflower, apple/elderberry, mead (well, OH's gran's honey, so sort of ours!), rhubarb, lavender.. maybe blueberry if we get lucky with cropping quantities..
At the moment we've got ribena, papaya, rhubarb, pear, and cranberry brews on the go.. none of which were home grown, sadly! (Would love to grow papayas, though.. :D )
Mm, homebrew..
Melanie
I love the sound of rhubarb wine, is it easy to make?
Ha ha, I have worked the search thing and found some recipes. I can't wait to try!
Grape.
Red - "Regent" (5 plants looking good) with a little splash of "Pinot Noir" (5 bunches looking sorry).
White - "Orion" (4 plants looking very good, with another plant in my dad's front garden).
We've got some dandelion and rhubabr wine on the go from what we've picked down the lottie.
Also some parsnip and fruit tea wines that have been on for ages but are still fermenting.
A couple of spare demijohns here so I'm sure we'll be putting some more on soon.
Our first attempt at fruit tea wine was fantastic mmmmm raspberry tea although the potato wine blows your head off and we've not managed to drink more than 3 glasses before having to go to bed drunk!!!
Made a small batch of lemon balm wine a few weeks back, upon a friend's recommendation - a previous encumbant of our allotment evidently planted one and it is now practically a weed...
Wine still fermenting merrily, so I'll get back to you.
Looks like there's going to be a bumper crop of elderberries on the road where we live, so I'll probably be having a go at some of that too.
Pete