home made wine

[prison break fan]

I want the truth!! Have recently started making wine again after many years (economic reasons!!) Have googled lots of recipes and it seems to me that the modern way to do it is just chuck it in and hope for the best! Has anyone had success with this method? By success I mean is it drinkable! pbf

[StripyPixieSocks]

Wine is easy to make but you can't just chuck it in, you need to properly sterilize everything otherwise you will end up with gallons of something that may not even make the grade for vinegar!

We rushed into making lots of wine by different recipes (and peoples advice) and the result was most of the wine we made got poured down the sink because it just tasted disgusting... my advice would be DO NOT use Camden Tablets in your wine and especially not every time you rack it as we were told... you end up with something that tastes like sulphur

There are lots of pitfalls just like with everything else and even if you do everything right sometimes you just get that one batch that doesn't want to play nice... have a go is all I can say, it is easy... if you follow good instructions.

[MikeM]

dunno about just chuck it in, but I've used loads of recipies from this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Winemaking ... 824&sr=8-8

and not had a bad batch yet. My stock wine is a sultana one, which is cheap, easy and can be made any time of the year.

This one is also very good:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Steps-Win ... y_b_text_b

[the.fee.fairy]

Well...

I have had mixed results with mine. I have some gorgeous ginger and lemon, and a really tasty Mystery (it was whatever fruit in the fruit bowl wasn't eating condition anymore...), but the coconut and the coffee are bloody horrible!!

[contadino]

How timely. It's winemaking day tomorrow.

I just clean all the equipment with normal water, then boiling water in order to sterilise it. I make my wine the old fashioned way - no chemicals, no yeast, no sugar, no water. So far it's yielded some of the best wine I've enjoyed. I suppose I just chuck it all in together, but as it's only grapes it's a bit of a moot point.

[daisydoo]

Coconut and coffee!!!!!

[MKG]

Yes, you can just chuck it in and hope for the best, and you'll get wonderful wine - about once in thirty attempts. Of the other 29 attempts, ten will be passable, ten will be awful but OK for mixing with lemonade, and nine will be stick it down the sink and never do it again jobs.

Why take the risk? There are loads of recipes around (CJJ Berry, Bryan Acton, Jack Wotsisname etc) for which the balancing, the additives and the adjustments have all been worked out. Use those (and observe the necessary hygiene precautions) and you'll get 29 out of thirty attempts as passable, ten of which will be really good. One will still fail, probably, but so what? It's probably unfortunate for beginners that the failure is going to be the first attempt.

The knowledge gained from experience is half the fun - the drinking being the other half. Believe me, when you've bashed your head against the wall a few times working out which fruits go with what, acid balance, tannin balance, vinosity, body, and flavour adjustments, you get a real buzz out of producing a really good wine. And if you want to go that way, you can make wines which imitate commercial grape wines (well, everything but Sauternes and Tokay).

So no - chucking and hoping will not get you very far.

[prison break fan]

Thanks very much everyone, I knew it was too good to be true!! I have the Berry book (wonderful name) so shall stick to that. Mind you the cartons of apple juice wine was jolly good! after the first glass anyway! pbf