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We have a TV set but we use it only to link a computer to it to watch Netflix and Amazon movies and the like. Mind you, here in Upstate NY, the only access I have to the internet is through the same company that offers cable TV so my internet fee is about 100 pounds a month (about $70) and they woul...

I'll try to help, as you both have wrote some books and people say country wine can't be drunk for two years :angryfire: absolute rubbish i'm afraid, i drink mine a couple of months after fermentation has finished, i do agree if you have the willpower to leave your wine (i don't :oops: ) it will ma...

What in fact is blackberry whisky? Is that whisky in which blackberries have been infused? Or a whisky made with blackberries added to the malt and then distilled? or ???? If it's "simply" an infused whisky then I wonder if you could not make this yourself - using either an inexpensive whi...

One of the easiest ways to make a first country wine is to start with apple juice to make either a hard cider (about 5 or 6% alcohol by volume (ABV)) - or an apple wine (about 12 % ABV). For the cider you simply look for store bought (or orchard bought apple juice (best is the opaque juice that has ...

Don't consider myself an "expert" but I just did win a double gold and a bronze medal at this year's New York State Fair for two different honey wines (meads) I made. Here's what I consider are the secrets for making good country wines. 1. Use lab cultured yeasts and not bread yeast (unles...

I like both solutions, but I think I will try the oil solution largely because I don't have a roof from which I can easily collect water: a barrel will be collecting from the rain as it falls from the sky so I cannot think of any sound way to seal this barrel so that it would create a barrier to mos...

Okay, I'll take the bait. My yard in upstate NY is small and I try to grow some vegetables on a few raised beds (potatoes, onions, basil, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, courgettes etc. To grow them efficiently I need to water the plants regularly but to water them I need to use a fair amount of water...

Hi Ina, Hope you find your energy again very soon. I am in upstate NY about 180 miles north of NY City - and our temperatures are in the 70's - 80's during August (about 25 C) but temperatures of 15 C or thereabouts tend to be OK for yeast. They may perform more slowly but their performance at such ...

Actually, too warm temperatures create too fast fermentations and those can create poor flavors and off flavors from the yeast. You really want cooler temperatures for wine making - perhaps 18 -21 C. Perhaps even lower.

Well, I'll certainly make more of an effort to make wine in future... For various reasons I didn't do that this year. Truth is that wine making is incredibly simple and takes virtually no time from a busy schedule. You can use fruit you forage or buy, juice you press or buy, edible flowers you fora...

What might happen as taxes on alcohol rise is that more folk may turn to making moonshine... Certainly not advocating this...merely making the observation. In the USA this is still illegal in every state as far as I know and the cost of licensure is prohibitive both in terms of time involved and cost.

I used to make liqueurs like that - but there is no inexpensive booze here anymore, so it's really too expensive these days. Hmmm... In NY we can get 1.75L of inexpensive vodka (80 proof) for about $19.00 and that converts to about $4.00 per 350 ml and if you add simple syrup that will increase the...

Interesting, Green Aura. I would have thought that alcohol is a better solvent than sugar and using sugar to extract flavor means that you in fact obtain fewer of the essential oils from the substrates and less of those you do obtain than using alcohol. Sounds like an experiment that is begging to b...

Harvested basil (so far two harvests with a third just about ready)to make pesto and some rhubarb .

Here's another suggestion for those who can forage only a very small quantity of berries or other fruit: what about making liqueurs? I was able to harvest about 400 g of mulberries so not enough for even a bottle of wine, but plenty for a liqueur, and so to these berries I added about 750 mil of an ...