Selfsufficientish.com

... made with real randoms!
I decided to take a look at the things in the garden which usually just disappear - early fallen apples and premature blackberries in particular. I noticed a few ripe blackberries (yes - THAT early) a week ago which the birds had and decided that they should have been mine (the birds get loads of other things!). So today, there were more - only a couple of dozen ripe ones, but enough to give a nice pink tinge to a wine and, maybe, a hint of je ne sais quoi. And there were quite a few juvenile apples which the drought has forced the orchard to evict, so I took a look at those too - thirty or so not-quite-ripe things which either I had or the slugs would have (no contest, really). It was all too much - those things MUST become wine.
There aren't enough apples for an apple wine, and nowhere near enough blackberries for anything, but we'll see. So they're all cold-water (plus a kilo of sugar) extracting overnight complete with a single fruit teabag and an ordinary teabag because - well, because they were there, really. I may throw in a small handful of chopped raisins or sultanas in the morning, then the yeast and accoutrements, and we'll see how it goes. It's going to be extremely light-bodied, however it turns out, but it will have a 12%ish smack to it.
I'll let you know ...

I think I'd be tempted to throw in some raisins or something, just to give it something a bit more, but seems like a plan to me (then again, wine always does )

That is pretty random, I agree. You might make it even more random by adding some vegetables. Depending on what you are growing, carrots, peppers, courgettes, potatoes, squash, melons all can make good wines. Not sure that raisins would give it "a bit more", though folk often toss in a handful of raisins because they feel that if grapes are good then oxidized wizened grapes are better, but in the past people might throw in a slice of bread to help feed the yeast.

BernardSmith wrote: ↑Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:03 pm Not sure that raisins would give it "a bit more", though folk often toss in a handful of raisins because they feel that if grapes are good then oxidized wizened grapes are better

Yeah, didn't really mean more as a good thing, I think the idea I was looking for was padding, hence the "or something" (veg seems a better "or something" for a random wine, although it could make for a longer aging). So saying, I have actually made perfectly drinkable raisin wine before.
Pepper wine has me intrigued (even if the pedant in me says it's a fruit and therefore perfectly normal to turn into wine). Any suggestion for a recipe?

I tend to chuck a handful or chopped raisins/sultanas into everything now and back off the normal yeast nutrient. All my wines seem (yes - seem. I haven't timed it) to start earlier and more forcefully. For the sake of a handful, I'll keep adding them, if only because it makes me feel happier.
Meanwhile, I've done an experiment or two in overcoming potassium sorbate (see how bored I can get?). Boiling doesn't make a damn bit of difference to sorbate, so I did some homework into how it actually worked. You have to chuck in a ton and a half of yeast. The sorbate gets a lot of it but runs out of - errrmmm - sorbate. I tested this by (after attempting a start with reasonably robust yeast) dumping the sediment from a 5-gallon juice fermentation (so pretty clean) which would still have had a lot of live yeast in it. It worked and there is now a reasonable fermentation going on - but that was a LOT of yeast just to get the thing to start. But now I know it can be done, I don't think I'll bother in future.
PS - I am, though, going to attempt a jalapeno wine. The possible outcomes appeal to my sense of humour.

Wine out of anything? I have an ancient pear tree that produces reasonable numbers of small, very rock hard, fruit despite feeding and watering. It is a remnant in a very old orchard (along with the resurrection figs) so may have been there as a cross pollinator? Essentially, I leave the lot to the lullaboos because they are inedible; BUT, are they drinkable?

Strangely enough, I have have one of those in the orchard which I think was planted when the house was built in the early 1920s. A few fruit grow quite large, but they remain rock hard and, essentially, tasteless. I have tested them with fermentation, and they do make a wine - which is also tasteless. I live in a group of four identical houses, all built at the same time on old burgage strips (long and thin) and each has an orchard at the top, and each orchard had one of these pear trees.
So I've tried the fermentation, as I said, and I've tried cooking with them, and they're bloody useless except, maybe, for pig food. But the tree's as old as the house and I can't bring myself to take it down.

I had a sip last night. Pleasant, certainly very light - a bit too light, in fact. So this morning it got another handful of blackberries (they're ripening at precisely that rate at the moment) and a half-dozen more apples and a past-its-best stick of rhubarb. Tonight it will be de-fruited, topped up and given a dose of the magic fungoid. I've decided to go for mixer kind of thing - something that can be diluted 50-50 with lemonade, add a couple of ice cubes, sit back and relax in the evening shade. By the time everything's in the glass, I think it may be a subtly fruity, slightly effervescent thing of about 5% ABV. Of course, it may be dishwater, but I'm optimistic.

about the pear tree, I'm with you MKG. It is a stately old thing, it does no harm and the lullaboos like it so it stays - it may become incorporated into the chook run later (or have an Iris bed under it if I'm not quick enough)

There were too many blackberries this morning to chuck into random wine - they're now being collected in the freezer. So, it all has to go with what it has. The moment we've got rid of the 2-year-old disruptor, its time for the go. If I still have any energy left at all, that is. Sultry heat and a young mobile disruptor do not leave much behind.

Well, I tasted it again. It's surprisingly pleasant for what is, after all, sweetened and heavily diluted odds'n'ends juice. It's also surprisingly red considering the small amount of blackberries in it. However, I'm going to set it off tonight with maybe a half-teaspoon of citric acid, a tenth of a B1 tablet, a few raisins and some Wilko yeast (which I believe is ECC118, which will ferment an old dog if you treat it nicely). No other nutrient needed considering the long soak on the fruit, and the apple skins should have provided more than enough tannin, but I'll keep my eyes on it in case I'm wrong.
I think I'm going to end up with a 'between rose and red' wine, light-bodied and with a deeper than intended fruity flavour at about 11 to 12% ABV. Hopefully, it will turn out to be worthwhile, considering it's made from stuff which would normally have rotted away or been eaten by any passing appleovore. In this weather, the fermentation will go like a rocket, so I shouldn't have to wait long. If everything goes well, I'm going to be completely pretentious and call it an apple wine with blackberry overtones and a subtle hint of rhubarb. I didn't check the apples religiously, so it may have a subtle hint of slug, too.

One year on, has anyone made any more wine from 'a bit of this and a bit of that'?

The only experimental mixture I recall was Plum and Apricot which turned out very nice the first time and fairly good the second.

I've never tried tea, or any veg, though I should. Next time I see parsnips I may get some to try.

I have some very old sultanas ( 1kg) and looking to do something with them, possibly as a mix. I may have added some to something (lemons?) a few years ago and ended up with odd, very dark brown wine which tasted ok but not good enough to repeat. Taking off all that pith, no thanks.

Last winter I made apricot wine from dried fruit but I used too little fruit ( based on something I'd read which said dried fruit only called for 1/4 of the fresh fruit by weight and was rather reminiscent of a description in a paint catalogue ("a hint of apricot").

I've considered Raspberry and Blackberry though my trusted wine recipe book (The Winemaker's Garden by Duncan Gillespie) treats them similarly, he says the primary fermentation is a week for rasps and only 3 days for blackberries and I couldn't reconcile the two.

Hmm, that seems a waste of raspberries. That might be because we only get a few pickings though.

My main uses for raspberries is wine and jam. The last couple of years, I made a couple of gallons of wine and no jam but I may make some when I get more fruit. Actually, I prefer my other wines but most people who try it like it more than, or at least as much as the others. It's quite pleasant and a very pretty colour and clears nicely. No, not a waste.

My raspberries started some years ago as half a dozen canes which I supported and looked after at first but over the years they spead so too many for support and I just pick small, tasty but flawed and mostly unattractive fruit, so not so good for any dessert use where presentation makes a difference. I could dig them up and replace with new vigorous stock, but that means work and I doubt I'll get round to it.

Our raspberries seem to have gone the other way. They pretty much look after them selves but this year the fruits have been huge and juicy.
I'm sure the downpours we've had since April may have contributed!