For those interested in homebrew wine....

An elderly lady in our village has just had to be moved to a home and her son has been clearing out her old stone cottage.
He discovered some bottles of homebrew wine in an under stairs cupboard, about 100 of them.
Knowing we had a Beer Club in the village he wondered whether we'd like them to sample, drink or throw away. We took the lot.
We opened one and sampled it. It was superb ! Meadowsweet wine, probably picked and made of hedgerow flowers .... date on the label ... 1977 !
There's others labelled Parsnip, potato, lettuce, etc etc, all dated mid 70s onwards. It's a treasure trove of wines, hopefully all drinkable and very well matured. The one I've had is like sherry.
All the bottles are encrusted with dust and cobwebs, but that aside it remains to be seen what they taste like.
To think all those years ago this lady made all these wines but never got to taste them. It's very special for us to now have them.

 

Thought you were having a give away there

 

A lovely story - we had some homemade wine yesterday that I made in 2016 - worried about this merlot but it was lovely.

 

back in the 70's I made some home brew cider.... totally forgot about it till about 18 months later. Tried it WOWWW it was powerful stuff.

 

I made some Turbo Cider this morning. Five cartons of Aldi apple juice, a pound of sugar and some cider yeast.
It's already bubbling in the demijohn.
From the specific gravity reading I took, 1.080, it looks like it will be heading towards 10% abv.

 

What do you need to make that?

 

are these the only ingredients mate, or are there others.

 

How long from this morning to actually drinking it?

 

No brains and a strong liver.

 

I've got both.

 

Ok then folks, listen up.
Turbo cider.
One demijohn and airlock.
5 one litre cartons of apple juice from concentrate. NOT the cheapo apple juice with water and sugar. I got mine from Aldi at 55p each.
Sachet of cider yeast. You can get this online (about £1.10) or homebrew shop.
Sterilise the demijohn and wash thoroughly.
Pour in the apple juice to just above the shoulder of the d/j.
Pour in the yeast.
Shake the d/j a bit, bung in the airlock with water in it.
That's it !!
Keep at room temperature.
Leave until the fermentation stops, about two weeks-ish, maybe longer, until no more bubbles are coming through the airlock and the liquid has cleared and there's a sediment in the bottom.
Then syphon into plastic PET bottles, the sort that hold fizzy drinks. You can use old lemonade bottles, but not wine bottles, they will explode.
For carbonated cider add a teaspoon of sugar into each bottle (I use 500ml bottles) and syphon from the d/j into the bottles, give them a good shake so the sugar dissolves then screw on the bottle tops and leave for a few days. In this period the sugar will ferment out the last bit of yeast and the bottles will firm up. To start with they'll be soft and squidgy and then they'll firm up quite solid.
That's when they'll be ok to drink.
If you prefer flat cider then don't put any sugar in the bottles.
This will give you cider that's about 6% but if you want to experiment then you can add sugar in the d/j when you first put the juice in it. Just make sure the sugar (I put a pound weight into mine) is fully dissolved and the entire liquid is clear.
The more sugar you put in the stronger it will be. Put too much in and it loses its flavour and just becomes rocket fuel.
The one pound I put in will give a strength of about 10%. You play around until you're happy !!
Since I make proper cider from village apples I don't often do this Turbo cider, this is a quick and easy way of making cider out of season.
I'm thinking about making a 5 gallon drum, about 23 litres, so at most would cost £12 plus yeast, plus bottles.
Any more questions then please ask.

Just added ... this will not taste like shop bought cider, Bulmers, Strongbow etc. It's a more acquired flavour. You can't make it any sweeter during the process, it is what it is. If you want it sweeter then you have to add a bit of sugar or some sweetener when you pour it to drink. Adding more sugar during fermentation will only make it stronger not sweeter.

 

Just ordered 60lb of sugar.

 

How old was she when she died ?