Wine making is one of the easiest and most rewarding ways of dealing with an excess of fruit or vegetables. With only
a small amount of equipment, you can easily produce gallons and gallons of delicious, distinctive homebrew for yourself and
your friends and family; few Christmas gifts are better received than a well presented bottle of blackberry wine!
Before delving further into this hobby, here's a link to
Jack Kellers site, one of the finest and biggest repositories of recipes for making wine on the net.
The first thing you're going to have to do is get your self kitted up. You're going to need at least the following:
Two or more demi-jons (gallon bottles for making the wine in)
At least one airlock
A bucket (or other container you can keep covered, as a primary fermenter)
Campden tablets
A straining bag or plenty of muslin
A clear plastic tube or syphon
A long handled wood or plastic spoon
A clean bin bag or similar.
Now, that'll set you right for making at least your first batch of wine; if you want to get more into it (and I assure
you, if your first batch is any good at all you will) you're going to need a few more things.
So, you've got your kit, you've got a big pile of fruit... Now you need some recipes. Well, to begin with I'll
reccomend you look through Jack Kellers site (linked above). You might also want to check out Terry Gareys excellent book
"The Joy of Home Winemaking". In the mean while, here's
one of my own recipes.
