[poultrygeist]

I've managed to get a load of kit via freecycle and want to have a go at winemaking using what we have in the garden.

We have a bumper crop of raspberries, a fair amount of rhubarb and will soon have a lot of elderberries in the hedges.

Having skimmed through the forum, it seems that raspberry is too strong flavoured alone, but is good when combined with, for instance, rhubarb.

Has anyone got an easy recipe for a gallon of this, or any alternatives that may work.

Would rasps combine with elderberry ?

Thanks for any advice.

Rob

[SG6]

You can make raspberry wine on its own easily, same for elderberry.

Elderberry wine would need a couple of years or more to mature as it will have a high degree of tanin in it and this takes time to "mellow".

Raspberry wine will come out a nice light red and be good.

The standard ballpark amount is 3lbs of fruit to a gallon and tailor the sugar to your taste, add a little citric acid to them.

Never made rhubarb wine, well cannot recall making any, probably light and slightly sharp. Would come out pale amber I expect and as it is light would mature reasonably quick - 6 months.

[poultrygeist]

Cheers SG

Off to pick some more rasps 

Rob

[SG6]

Just read through a few books and most say 3-4lbs Rasps.
One however says raspberry wine is difficult and should be made light and dry, it suggests 1 1/2 raspberries and 2 1/4 sugar.

So I have recipies that go from 1.5 lbs of raspberries in a gallon to 4 lbs of raspberries in a gallon. Take your pick.

Wish I hadn't read the books as one recipe is for Coffee Wine  It uses a Tablespoon of Nescafe

[poultrygeist]

I've heard tea wine is good. I like a cuppa 

We've just finished a bottle of cheap vino off to start the bottle stock.

And I've picked about 2.5 lbs of rasps so should do nicely 

Rob

[GrannieAnnie]

If your rhubarb is nice and red, it comes out as a Rose (not sure where me little thingy is to go over the last e!!)

I picked 9.5lbs blackcurrants the other day, but not got enough sugar, so I've frozen them until I go shopping, and I've still got 3lbs of last years elderberries in the freezer which I'm going to mix with them.  Then I've got 20lbs of rhubarb that next door gve me the other day in the freezer too!  Hopefully I won't muck it up this time like I spoiled my elderberry wine last year.  But I'm still drinking it slowly, its not bad with a drop of lemonade!!!!   

[poultrygeist]

We harvested a handful of balckcurrants the other day but next year will be better !

There's a couple of pounds potentially of blackberries on the various brambles around the garden, so I may be able to mix with some elderberries when the time comes.

I don't want to have too much on the go since we have about 4 bottles so far.

Rob

[Umbrellalady]

I made two batches of vanilla tea wine last year in February.  It tasted so awful when I bottled it I almost poured it down the drain.  Glad I didn't - it now tastes great! The only problem with it is the fact that it seems to retain it's caffeine.  lol

I make rather oddball types of wine - I've made wine from lemonade, limeade, rhubarb, mango, pumpkin, raspberries, you name it.  The best dry ones so far have been the rhubarb, and raspberry.  The rest are sweet wines except for the lemonade wine, which is like drinking liquid lemons without the sour - wonderful for coolers, which is why I made it.  The limeade wine is great with lots of ice and is even better with pink lemonade.  I made the lemonade and limeade wines to use for coolers and they haven't let me down.

[poultrygeist]

Hello umbrellalady. Welcome aboard 

I've made a start on the rasps, with 3lbs-ish soaking with some pectolase(?) and a couple of camden tablets. Going to trasnfer to a tub this evening and get it going, if I can find somewhere warm enough. If only the heatwave had lasted 

Rob

[Umbrellalady]

Hi there Poultrygeist,

Way to go on the raspberries!  Mine aren't ripe yet - we are had a very late  spring and everything is at least 2 weeks behind where it should be.  (Couldn't even plant my garden before mid June  - we had too much frost.) I did pick a huge amount of rhubarb and froze it as I make the rhubarb wine in the winter.  I will probably be able to pick again in another 2 weeks or so and hopefully by then the raspberries will be ripe as well.  Have you ever made a raspberry/rhubarb wine?  I wonder what that combo would be like.  I have made raspberry/red currant - it was wonderful.

I did laugh a little at wanting your warm spell back - I use a waterbed heating pad to kick-start stubborn batches.  It backfired on me this spring when - somehow the temperature was  set too high and left a dark burn mark on my kitchen floor that was a good foot across.  lol  My husband wasn't too impressed.  Good thing we are planning to redo the kitchen this fall.

[poultrygeist]

Whereabouts in the world are you ?

Sounds like North America since you don't say Autumn 

This is my very first attempt although I grew up on my Dad's home made wine. He tried some 'interesting' combinations.

I'm hoping to get a batch of elderberry going when they're ripe. I read that rhubarb needs to be early season for wine so I think we've missed it this year but we have two patches and I have access to a large patch elsewhere. It'll be one for the future.

Rob 

[Umbrellalady]

You win the prize!!  I am in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, which is almost smack dab in the middle of the country in the southern part of the province.  Very intuitive of you to pick up the discrepancy between our languages.  Although we do use fall and autumn interchangeably.

You know you can pick you rhubarb all season as long as you remove only the stems on the outside of each plant - picking only the larger ones.  It forces the plant to continue to produce.  I've been doing it for (ouch) decades.  Just make sure you leave at least a few weeks between pickings.  If you haven't been doing it all along this season I would be inclined to leave it till next year as it the larger ones might be a bit bitter by now if they have gotten too big.

I too grew up on my uncle's homemade wine.  My mother wouldn't let my Dad make any after his first attempt - bit of a story to that - I'll have to share it sometime it is really quite funny.

Well, I have to go back to making my 200 cupcakes for my husband's niece's wedding - definitely going to take awhile to do those!  The duds taste great though.

[poultrygeist]

Sounds lovely. One of our moderators is in Ontario. You'll likely be keeping her company now and then.

WE have some rhubarb in the freezer but I think my wife has it earmarked for other things. It will definitely be on the cards for next year though.

Don't forget to open the doors of the other forums and you can post in the welcome forum if you want to introduce yourself to the wider community. I hope we bump into each other elsewhere.

Rob

[Kate and her Ducks]

I like the idea of tea wine. Would save having to make a choice of drink when getting in from work!

[poultrygeist]

 

No more grumpy mornings after night shifts 
But you may find your memory starts to suffer after a few weeks.

Rob