Homebrewing

Making Plum Wine

Plum wine in a demijohn

Our plum wine in a demijohn

I’ve mentioned before just how many plum trees there are in our garden. We used many of their plums in jams and chutneys, but I’m sad to say we struggled to keep up. Part of the problem was that most of the trees are self-seeded, and so close together that they have grown quite leggy and all of the branches are out of reach. I’d often come out to the garden of an evening and find a mass of plums had fallen, burst and been like that in the summer sun all day. In these conditions mother nature had started…

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Making Apricot Wine

Demijohn containing apricot wine

Homemade apricot wine fermenting in a demijohn

After making two batches of apricot jam, and with our neighbours still offering more fruit, we decided to look for other methods of apricot preservation. One of my first ports of call is always Brian Leverett’s Winemaking Month by Month book. As usual it didn’t disappoint. Leverett’s standard apricot wine recipe calls for sultanas to improve the body of the wine. However, he does offer a variation of the recipe which doesn’t use any sultanas, instead using more sugar than the standard recipe. Leverret says that wine made by this variation of the recipe lacks the body of the standard,…

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Making Carrot Wine

Carrot Wine Fermenting

Homemade carrot wine fermenting in a demijohn

I’ve never made carrot wine before, but I have been tempted. I was recently passing a farm that was selling feed carrots for £1.50 a net. I decided to invest this small sum and try to put the carrots to the best use I could. The majority were used as food, but I thought being in possession of so many small and forked carrots was the perfect excuse to give carrot wine a try. I searched online and found a recipe that was being raved about. Generally I refer to Brian Leverett’s Winemaking Month by Month book for all things…

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