Luath wrote: The one I have never had success with is marrow wine - tastes like old socks smell, so don;t bother with that.
I'm reading this sipping my 3rd glass of the evening of my own marrow wine. It was my first venture into making wine a couple of years ago and hated it. I also made damson at the time and that was awful too. I put all my items away and forgot about it.
Now, just over 2 years later, I got it out of the garage intending to throw it away; I tasted it and was hooked. It's gorgeous and made me dig out all my equipment again and check out CJJ's book to look up seasonal recipes (I now have 3 gallons of rice and raisin bubbling away). I'm also down to my last bottle of marrow (ha-ha, 2 years in a demijohn and I decide to bottle it!) which I don't want to open because then it will be gone... Needless to say, I recommend giving marrow wine a go :)
Sorry I haven't read all replies so I might repeat some of the points already made.
To my person: I am a passionate home brewer and winemaker. And I have to agree to both sides, cat's piss and good beer. I meanwhile produce very little of the first and more of the latter. If you go out and buy a kit in the supermarket and expect to get a Fullers ESB you might get disappointed. That's closer to what comes out at the other end of the cat! But if you go through the effort of brewing all grain, meaning using malt, hops and yeast and do it the right way, you will end up with a beer which is way better than the usual supermarket crap! Except if you completely stuff it up.
We have competitons (and I know you have them in UK,too) The judges are international beer judges (BJCP certified), mostly brewers from well known breweries. The homebrews get judged exactly the same way as the commercial beers do. And there are a lot of medals for homebrewers. My German wheat beer won Bronze and best of class. So yes, you canmake excellent beer at home.
You are more than welcome to pop in and try one of my beers. I am trying to do a Bateman XXXB clone at the moment! yummy stuff!
Cheers
Peter
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter, don't mind.
Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)
MrFalafel wrote:How I learned to make wine is to cheat and buy those kits where its all pretty much pre-measured for you and the grape juice is provided etc. Its a good way to learn the mechanics of winemaking at home and still produce drinkable wine. The kits make very passable wine as good as the cheap plonk at the supermarket, but it costs about £1.50 per bottle, which is not a bad price. One can then go on and try to make wine from found materials in the old fashioned way.
Yep, me too. Somebody gave me a nettle beer recipe the beer tasted so foul I put it in the greenhouse ready to feed to the tomato plants. A couple of months later I decided to taste it and it was really nice. So I bought a couple of concentrates from Wilko and started on wine. Maybe I've got crap tastebuds but I really like it. I'm now looking forward to this year's berry harvests to make wine from scratch (I'd rather start with blackcurrants etc.,) and I've got hold of a press for the cider. If the home made ones are better than the kits then that's me set up for next Winter.
Money talks - but it dont sing and dance and it cant walk.
I had the same with Nettle beer - the first taste was awful. I only made a small batch and after a couple of pints I decided it would only be good enough for slug traps. A few weeks later some friends came to visit and drank the last three pints of the barrel after I had gone to bed. The next day they all agreed it was an excellent beer. I never got to taste it but I'll be brewing some in the near future and leaving it just that little bit longer.
I have been playing for years and have found my main downfall to be a lack of patience. I can never leave anything long enough to mature properly. Except my wife of course, thats all legal.
I reckon a "Ish" Homebrew, Wine and Bread, cheese, onion night would be a fine idea.
