Welcome to our plot!

I'm Hazel, and in Nov 2006 my friend Jane and I took on a half plot at Hill Allotments, Sutton Coldfield - we want the satisfaction of growing and eating our own fruit and veg, and to improve our diet (and fitness!).

This is the story of what happened next...........

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Wine Combo?

I'm in a bit of a conundrum with regard to the grape wine that I've planned to make with JB's green grapes.

Of course, country wines are generally made by extracting the juice of about 3lb of fruit (or veg), adding water & sugar to make a gallon or so, then fermenting from there, but if you were in a vineyard, you would be extracting the juice from grapes (think feet here), adding yeast, & off you go.

The problem is that I only have about 6lb of grapes when you need 12lb to 14lb grapes to get a gallon of grape juice.

But I do have apples in the garage & redcurrants in the freezer.

So - I'm really not sure whether to treat the grapes as any other fruit, adding water & sugar to the juice OR to say that I have enough grapes for half a batch, so a couple of pounds of the other fruit (with water & sugar) would make up the other half to make - say - grape & apple wine.

Hmm.

4 comments:

  1. Hmmm indeed.

    I'm sure you could mix and match to make a gallon of wine of some sort. If it were me, I think I would do it with redcurrants rather than apple but that's just me thinking that currants and grapes are more alike than apples and grapes. Perhaps you could buy another 6 or 8lbs of grapes cheaply from somewhere or just make half the quantity with grapes - the possibilities are endless!
    Erm, don't think I've helped at all have I?!

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  2. I've made a very acceptable grape wine by treating them as any other fruit in a country wine. Which means I added water and sugar in the right proportions.
    Whatever you try, I'm sure you'll enjoy drinking it!

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  3. I'm with Clare - I'd add redcurrants to the grapes.

    Why not try it? All your other "interesting" combinations make delicious drinks, am sure this one will be just as successful.

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  4. Thanks for your thoughts on this, girls.

    Having consulted JB (after all, his grapes will form the basis of the wine), we have concluded that we'll go with Flum on treating this as a batch of country wine, making up the extracted grape juice with water & sugar, that way it will be 'true' wine.

    It can always be blended with something else at the end if we don't like the outcome!

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