What's going on in your winery today..

[goldseal]

Lots of head-scratching. After Rich said my VCDR was actually drinkable, I thought I'd dig out a bottle and find out for myself. The problem is, I can't find any.

We had 30 bottles of the stuff and we havn't consumed/off-loaded more than 10, so there are 20 bottles hiding somewhere. 20 bottles take up quite a bit of room, so where the heck are they??

[billybuntus]

Started 1 gallon of ribena with 3lb sugar..

[Rich]

Bottled 30 bottles of soon to be sparkly wine. Cleaned out my 2 big primary buckets ready for grapefest (then put the sparkly wine bottles in them)

Then made a 5 gallon batch of wine #1 with white grape/apple juice using D47 yeast. Which took of really well, having made the yeast starter earlier in the day.

Edit: and 2.5g (square BB) of Rosé wine, plan being to make it quite 'fruity' and sweeten it when finished. Not quite as sweet as a mist kit but not too far off.

[grumpy]

I've just racked off to demi-johns 5 litres of Beaverdale Merlot and 5 litres of Beaverdale Sauvignon Blanc. Now have two empty fermenting buckets sitting idle.
I have 2 litres of white Grape juice and 4 litres of Apple juice in the larder. I'm thinking of making 5 litres of Gooseberry with tinned fruit and 5 litres of ??????.
Any suggestions?

My 5 gallon fermenter is also standing empty, but saving my pocket money to get a decent kit as someone suggested previously. I still think £90 is a lot to pay but I would like to give it a go. I'll try to put it away till Xmas of next year. I hope some of it will last that long.

As I only started wine making in May after a 30 year gap, I want to build up some stock, I am hopefully making enough to keep ahead of consumption.

[lockwood1956]

Lychee if you haven't made one yet ...it is a great wine...

I use 1 litre white grape concentrate and two tins of lychee.....works out fab

especially if you like Gewürztraminer

[hedgerow]

whilst i am working away i am stripping all the local farmer hedges clear, so far this week we have 5 lb of black berries and we were going to pick elderberries tonight but one of the farmers has just trimed his hedges with a flail cutter so most of the best trees are now stups, but i have found by chance a wild damson tree that still has some decent fruit left, and i belive i have found a medlar tree too, whoopie

[kampervan]

getting a bit peeved with elderberries have loads round about, takes minutes to fill 27 ltr drum then hours to de stalk. birds love white elderberries have a real fight getting enough

[grumpy]

Lychee if you haven't made one yet ...it is a great wine...

I use 1 litre white grape concentrate and two tins of lychee.....works out fab

especially if you like Gewürztraminer

I won't...No I won't... Yes I will

' I don't know, I've never Gewuztraminered..'

Sorreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee couldn't resist. See my avatar, that's a real self portrait.

Seriously, thanks for the tip, Lychee hunting tomorrow.

[spritzer]

I have managed to pick 3 carrier bags FULL of elderberries...
I now need to destalk, then reshuffle the freezer... I may be sometime

[goldseal]

Lucky sod. I went hunting today - I was lucky enough to find about 1lb!

[spritzer]

Lucky sod. I went hunting today - I was lucky enough to find about 1lb!

There are zillions up here Pete...
But they are early... the past couple of years they have not been ready till the end of September...
And the berries are much bigger this year than previous years too. Even the brambles are bigger this year !!

[Rich]

Lychee hunting tomorrow.

If you find some near the brambles, let us all know


Tinned, Tescos for about 65p each. Have been as low as 40p high as 90p a tin! very odd.

[kampervan]

pete if you want can bring some down to grapefest for you as plenty here but not destalking for you

[goldseal]

pete if you want can bring some down to grapefest for you as plenty here but not destalking for you

I'd appreciate that, Ian. Is there anything you want in return?

[lockwood1956]

Lucky sod. I went hunting today - I was lucky enough to find about 1lb!

Pesky pensioners?