[Casey76]

Can you make wine from red/white/black currants?

What about cherries, or mirabelles?

Rhubarb???

Also I have an apple tree - haven't a clue what variety, but I thinkit is an eating one, rather than a cooking one as the apples go partially red, but stay rather tart.  Could I use the windfalls to make cider if I cut the really bruised bits/wormy bits off?

What kind of equipment would I need (and unfortunately no Wilkos around the corner here lol)

All in preparation for next year of course!

[tode]

Those may be cider apples you have there, Casey. Are they fairly small ?
Wine can be made from anything that has sugars in it, and with added sugar, then the sky's the limit 

Made some coffee wine a few years back: it turned out just like Martini.      

All you need is a big, easily-cleaned bottle and an airlock. And some yeast.  And a bit of patience      

[Casey76]

Woo... a whole tree full of cider apples?  I knew I should have taken more care of it lol.

OK... I guess a fruit press will be going on my wishlist for next year

If I could find a use for the currants it would be good, as they all just become bird food as I don't like the taste of them.

Same goes for the rhubarb... I can't stand the stuff, but have a huge healthy plant which produces loads of stalks.

I can see my spare basement room full of bubbling demijohns and racks of wine bottles lol.

[tode]

Red currants are rather acidic, but make very good jelly   

But you MUST like blackcurrants       

They must be the sexiest fruit going     

[arugula]

Hi Casey,

You can make wine from rhubarb. Quite acidic so it mixes well if you get into blending flavours. My Dad used to make wine for years so I was often his assistant. Sadly he doesn't make it any more. I've known him make it from redcurrants too, but as tode says, acidic. We're supposed to be getting into wine making ourselves here, but haven't as yet  .

Homemade fruit wine, mmmmmm 

Lorna. 

[tode]

Beats porridge, don't it        

[arugula]

Oh yes! 

[New shoot]

Couple of ideas for you Casey

Didn't get around to making this in the spring, but have made it before and it's not bad at all.

Rhubarb & red grape wine

2kg Rhubarb - washed & diced
2 cartons red grape juice from the supermarket
800g sugar
2 Campden tablets
Wine yeast - bordeaux type for preference


Put the rhubarb in a fermenting bin & pour over hot, not boiling water to cover
Once cool, add the grape juice and 1 crushed campden tablet - leave 24 hours
Activate yeast in a bit of sugar and water and add
Ferment on the pulp for 3 days then strain and mix in sugar
Transfer to a fermenting jar and top up with cooled boiled water if need be
Once stopped working and clear, rack into a clean jar and add 1 crushed campden tablet
Leave for 6 months before bottling

Makes a light very drinkable rose type wine and don't see why this shouldn't work with crushed red currants instead of rhubarb

Blackcurrants don't make great wine.  I have posted a blackcurrant rum recipe somewhere on here but can't find it so here goes

For every 1L white rum
300g blackcurrants
300g sugar

Mash the blackcurrants lightly and put in bottle or jar with sugar & rum - cork as doesn't need an airlock
Shake the bottle daily for 7 - 10 days
Strain out the blackcurrants - you can cook with these so don't throw them away

You can drink this pretty much right away but keeps well. It's a seriously nice drink on a cold winters evening but fairly leathal so for sipping only 

New shoot

[thearaig]

Got to disagree that blackcurrants don't make great wine. I think blackcurrant wine is fantastic. We supped the first gallon of ours over Christmas while it was still slightly sparkly as still fermenting slowly. Equipment? any bucket for the macerating. Pillow case for the squeezing. 5 litre water bottles for fermenting. Ideally, a hydrometer, airlock and some campden tabs. I also use pectolase to help produce a clear wine and stop it setting.

[thearaig]

I didnt have my wine diary handy last night but have it now,so here's the recipe for that blackcurrant wine.

I had 3.2kg. of blackcurrants, squidged them up roughly in a bucket with 1litre of red grape juice, 10 litres of water, 2 campden tablets and 2 teaspoons of pectolase. Covered the bucket and left it for 24 hours.
Meanwhile I activated a sachet of red wine yeast with 2 teaspoons of yeast nutriebt, 2 teaspoons of sugar and 100 mls of warm water.
Day 2. Added 1.5kg. of sugar to the blackcurrants bringin the gravity to 1058ish. Stirred in the yeast mix, covered the bucket and left to ferment.
Day9. Pressed the fruit by hand in a pillow case. All liquid strained through the pillow case.
gravity at that point 1034. Added sugar to bring to a gravity of 1080 and put wine into demijohns with airlock.
I racked it off into clean demijohns a couple of times over the next 2 months before the falling temperature stopped the fermentation. The gravity by then was 1020.

As i said in the previous post, we drank it over Christmas. Clear, abit sweet and slightly sparkly. Christmas must have been better than I remembered though because I went to check on the second gallon today (for the purposes of this post) and found the empty dj and the label on the floor.