The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Home brewing => Topic started by: DenisCooper on September 25, 2016, 11:49:41 am
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Hi, just walking round on of my fields and stumbled across these.....are they sloes?
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a few more photos
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They certainly look like sloes. About the size of a medium-sized grape?
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They look like a wild plum to me - a bullace. Though sloes are also part of the prunus family they're the fruit of blackthorn - the twigs are extremely spiky! I have loads of these bullaces on my land - they won't kill you but they're pretty sour.
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Hi,
yes they are about the size of a medium size grape. the branches have really long hard sharp spikes on them too...
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I think we need more opinions then! I was fairly but now, from your description, they could be sloes after all. I'd load up on the gin.....just in case. :fc:
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You could try eating one. A bullace would be nice ;)
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I would say they are definitely sloes. Get picking, and get the gin in!
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If the bush is spikey they are sloes, if not bullaces. Matters not as they both can be used the same ways...yummy vodka jelly jam,, gin etc
Get picking!
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excellent...a bottle of gin and a bottle of vodka is deserved i think :)....
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You may be better to wait a few weeks before picking, they will yield more juice after the first frosts. One of my nephews favourite spreads for his toast is sloe jelly.
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It is what goes in my sloe gin. I waited for after the first frost three years running and by the time we had a frost the birds had eaten them all. Then someone told me it was just as effective to pick them early October and put them in the freezer for a few hours before pricking the skins. The frost helps disrupt the cells.