Making your own wine is rewarding and can also get you and your family our doors as you forage for ingredients. So a word or warning here; the countryside is full of free ingredients but beware unless you KNOW what a particular fruit is DON’T pick it.
Just a shortlist of things I use that are commonly found for free either in your house, garden, allotment or the countryside that you can make wine with.
Blackberries
Damsons
Wheat
Rye
Left over tea
Apples (look in the hedgerows along some of the main rows today)
Crab Apples
Rosehip
Plums
Carrots
Rhubarb
Grapes
Pears
Dandelions
Elderberries
Elderfloweres
The list could go on.
Also you may be able to get cheap left over fruit and veg from your local shop or market at the close of day.
So you will need an amount of the above, probably some lemons, maybe some raisins, sugar and yeast.
The lemons and raisins are used to balance the wine.
As a rule of thumb; dry wines need 2lb or 1Kg of sugar per gallon while a sweet wine needs 3lb or 1.5Kg of sugar. This with practice may need to be adjusted; not just for your taste but some sweet fruits may need less sugar.
The basic process then is; take the primary ingredient, add boiling water to it, allow to steep for a week, it may begin to brew with the natural yeast on the fruit or vegetables. You may want to add the lemons and raisins here.
After about a week strain through a muslin cloth into another fermenting vessel and then add the sugar and yeast.
Allow this to ferment until it has stopped (anything between 2 – 8 weeks). Some people add a Camden tablet to stop any future fermentation (no exploding bottles).
You can now rack your wine into demijohn or fermenter and allow it to clear (this can take months).
Once cleared you can bottle the wine. It is worth noting here that you may be able to drink the wine now but it will improve with age. I once did an Elder flower wine and when we tried it after about 3 months it was horrible, it even took the top off a formica table. Another 12 months later it was a wonderful wine!
We have listed all our recipes as posts on this site so you can search for them, just key in a key ingredient (not sugar) and see what comes up, if you want to share a recipe then send it to me and I will add it. If you become a frequent flyer we will add you to our subscriber list and you can upload the recipes yourself; subject to editorial approval.