Monday, 18 December 2017

Trouble brewing

I find it odd that beer and tea are both brewed, but wine is not; it is made.  Apparently this is because boiling is used at some point to make both tea and beer, but not wine, although I think that the fermentation involved makes winemaking closer to beer-brewing than tea-making.

Some friends and I made some fruit wines when we were teenagers, with varying amounts of success.   The best was rhubarb wine that my mate Nick made, and I have long wondered if I could ever make anything as lethal good.

We have a few damson trees in the garden, and they always produce more fruit than we can eat, and this struck me as an ideal source of raw material that I could use to test and re-hone my skills.   So while we were in England recently, I bought  a set of wine-making gear from a nice chap at 4u2brew Ltd, a shop in Fareham that sells such stuff.

Here it is; all I could need: a demijohn, yeast, airstop, bung, various chemicals, a siphon and a hydrometer.   I have yet to see anything like this for sale in France.   Never seen it at car boot sales, nor spotted any specialist brewing shops.  Mind you the French would probably think you were a bit mad, trying to make wine with anything other than grapes.

I will let you all know how I get on.  I'm beginning to think it was a mistake to dig up a rhubarb plant that I had; I'm going to have to wait until plum time.


Incidentally, you can get fruit wines in England, I saw some at a garden centre, but it was ten quid a bottle.
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4 comments:

  1. helen devries18 December 2017 at 06:22

    I used to make fruit wines when in France, but, like you, had to import the gear from the U.K.

    Here I make banana wine...a bit of a so and so to clear, but it makes a good sweet wine.

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  2. Mark In Mayenne18 December 2017 at 07:52

    I asked my sister to look out for second hand gear in car boot sales

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  3. Woodsy4220 December 2017 at 10:05

    I make damson wine here in the UK, but it can be very overpowering, sort of ultra red, so I use white grape juice and some damsons to make a light red. I do the same with other red fruit, white grape juice and a handfull of raspberries ferment really well as a light rose fruity wine. I don't start with a demijohn either, I start with a lidded bucket for the initial ferment on the fruit then strain into demijohns after a couple of weeks when it's less fizzy. Beware of some commercial 'fruit wines', some are simply flavoured wine. Most importantly have fun drinking it!

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  4. Mark In Mayenne20 December 2017 at 12:46

    Thanks for the tips, Woodsy

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