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Which youngs kit is it? There is an amazing amount of difference between qualities of kits, and the cheap youngs kits, although cheap and cheerful (even if I can't drink any of their reds anymore), are never going to live up to a higher quality kit. They can take more than a week to ferment out, use...

Just started 2 gallons of blackcurrant wine today. I'm not the only one who drinks my wine so I add pectolase to most wines, especially any fruit wine I make. Smelt gorgeous as I was prepping the must - like ribena but better.

1kg sugar per gallon is my standard starting point. Pectolase is a definite need for fruit wines and it's better to use 1tsp now rather than needing a double dose when you notice the haze

Sounds good, shame my parents wont let me grow nasturtiums any more, not after the 2 little plants (school and sunday school both having the same idea of growing them) took over half of our front garden

My brother works in an air filter making factory, they're the tubes that the media (paper basically) that make the air filters come on. They're very similar to carpet tubes, but thankfully I have access to a band saw.

Started to make a bottle cupboard/chess table out of big cardboard tubes that my brother got from work, it'll hold 112 bottles when finished with a hand made chess table inlaid. Will post up pics as I go.

Cayenne seems a good place to start if you want to make powder. Our cayenne has gone crazy this year, absolutely coated with chilis. Bit too soon to pick them, but we're planning on drying some out and trying to grind them in cayenne powder (one of my favourite spices). We have some sweet banana pep...

Can't remember seeing you say this, but I've always been told to rinse raisins/sultanas as they're coated with veg oil to make them shiny and help stop them sticking together. I know the water looks horrible when you're rinsing them, but I don't know how much harm it'd do not bothering. Probably one...

Going to my usual go to (First Steps) CJJB says 4lb blackberries and 3lb sugar. CJJb is notoriously sugar heavy so I'd personally use 1kg sugar. He suggests crushing the berries adding the sugar and pouring over boiling water with 1 CT. when lukewarm add a tsp of pectolase, the next day chuck in the...

I'd be tempted to bung a strong cup of tea/some tannin powder into the wine Mike. Otherwise sounds very good.

The concentration of ethanol for any human consumption by any means is illegal in the UK. Still that are sold in homebrew shops and similar are marketed for distilling water and essential oils. That people will ignore that is their own choice :lol: Edit: Liquorice was grown in pontefract for years, ...

I'm still not staying logged in

Don't bother, unless you are just wanting to get that extra polish on a special white wine. Almost all brews will drop clear with time, the few obstinate ones can be treated with finings, Filtering a red wine lessens the colour and most whites don't need it really.

absolutely simple one 1lb (450g) malt extract 1oz (25g) hops (say 20g bittering and 5g aroma, something like challanger and fuggles) 8oz (225g) sugar 1 gal water ale yeast. Place ME, sugar, water and bittering hops into a large pan (put the hops in a muslin bag for ease). Bring to the boil and boil ...

Nettle beer is supposed to be very good, although I've never tried it myself. If you don't have much experience then nettle wine is much easier to make, I've got a gallon of it sat ready to bottle when I have a chance.