[GribinIsaf]

We are doing our accounts and deciding there is no way we can carry on spending what we do on alcohol.  We are going to make a new resolution to only drink what we make ourselves so we need to get equipped and skilled very quickly.

Would love to hear any thoughts on  the easiest, cheapest, best way to do this.  We have fruit including plums and sloes.  We can grow anythi ng needed and we are not averse to buying in beer making ingredients - it has got to be a lot cheaper than bottles of red wine.

How shall we start?

thanks

[BKeeper]

I have been home brewing for many years and have never been able to reliably produce a good red wine from "country" ingredients. Nowadays I just buy in a middle of the road 30 pint red wine kit (for example Rioja) the cost works out at about £1.50 a bottle.

Having said that however I do produce a very good sparkling wine of the champagne type.  I make this from rhubarb in the Spring and Summer and also from apples in the Autumn. The cost of this is about 0.40p per bottle.

This gives a very warm feeling when considering the cost of commercial fizzy wines!

[GribinIsaf]

Thankyou for that. We are not fixated on red wine. Will check out the kit you mention. Also,  we do have rhubarb in season...

[doganjo]

I can second the kit version - a good quality kit makes wine making very easy.  It's even cheaper if you can persuade family to give them to you for birthdays and Christmas 

[Dan]

We make beer from kits with very acceptable results.

Have found the best bitter-type to come from Woodforde's: https://www.woodfordes.co.uk/

Have enjoyed the Wherry and Nelson's Revenge.

Best stout by far has been Munton's Gold Imperial Stout - fantastic results with this kit.

Works out at about 60p per pint not including equipment. We use swing top bottles, if you can find Grolsch on sale in bottles it's sometimes more economical to buy a load of that and re-use the bottles than buying new.

[Womble]

We made this Merlot kit from Wilko and were pleasantly surprised by the results. It gets significantly better after a few weeks sitting in the bottle though.


Has anybody made wine from supermarket grape juice?  I'm sure I read somewhere that it's possible, but I've never tried it.

[GribinIsaf]

Thank you.  These very specific recommendations are really helpful and give us somewhere to start.

[devonlady]

We made this Merlot kit from Wilko and were pleasantly surprised by the results. It gets significantly better after a few weeks sitting in the bottle though.


Has anybody made wine from supermarket grape juice?  I'm sure I read somewhere that it's possible, but I've never tried it.

Womble, I once had a home wine making book which had a chapter on what the author called "cheat wines" , made by supermarket juices (pure juices with no chemicals) They fermented out and were ready for drinking far more quickly than other "country wines" and were very good. This author, I wish I could remember his name or even the name of the book, only ever used sulphite for sterilising and used cold strong tea for tannin, a quarter teaspoon of marmite as a starter etc. no chemicals at all. I will try to remember, Heaven knows I used the book enough. OH! Winemaking the natural way!
So, the answer to your question is, yes you can use grape juice.

[Dan]

Grab it for a penny: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wine-Making-Natural-Way-Ball/dp/0716020998

[GribinIsaf]

Dan- I did grab one for a penny,  plus £2.80 postage when it was mentioned here yesterday.

[Dan]

Excellent! I just got a copy too, we can compare results. 

[Jas]

Just ordered a copy 
Also started some banana wine a week ago. The smells were great fermenting   Like banana bread.
Takes a LONG time to mature though!

[devonlady]

Takes a long time to clear too but the end result is worth the waiting.

[Jas]

I've noticed it's very  very cloudy and assumed it's because I squeezed every last drop from the pulp. Only making a gallon but probably will wish I'd made more as everyone says it's a great wine

[Dans]

Depends if you are after a grape wine or wine from different fruits. Country home brew  (as I call it) tastes nothing like red, white or rose wine to me but that suits me as I'm not keen on grape wines.

The country home brew has a different taste, more like alcoholic fruit juice, but I love it. Our basic recipe is 3lbs of fruit, 3lbs of sugar to make 1 gallon wine. We add water to make it make it up to a gallon and yeast but that's it.

Dans