Do any of you make your own wine?

[puzzlejunky]

I'm interested in wine-making. I get tons of dandelions that I use for teas and jelly, and I've never had dandelion wine, I'd like to try it. I also have blackberries that are too tart to eat right of the bush...something else besides jam would be nice.
I'm planting grapes...which I'm hopeful in a few years there will be enough for wine.

Do any of you use your bounty for wine-making? Is it hard? Do I need special equipment? Any recipes?

[rainbowgardener]

We've had a few wine makers around here over the years. Here's one sample:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=54277&p=309774&hilit=wine+making#p309774

I tried one time making lilac wine, but I tried to do it on the cheap, without all the expensive equipment usually used, using the balloon method:

http://www.easy-wine.net/homemade-balloon-wine.htm

It sounds simple and easy, but didn't work very well for me. I think I left it too long, but my balloon never really expanded very much, so something wasn't working right. Maybe I'll try it again some time. Probably not this year, since I'm way busy trying to get my house ready to sell and move out of state.

[sweetiepie]

My husband has tried making wine with apple juice from apples I made apple butter with. He believes he may not of been careful enough with his sterilizing. It tasted like apple vinegar.

Since I can't drink, due to alcohol instantly makes me ill, I didn't pay much attention to him except to show him around the kitchen. Sorry, I do know he wants to try again, and has been researching so maybe next winter. Right now he wants to make a smoke house and I have a honey do list a mile long.

[puzzlejunky]

Your balloon link does sound easy....but it's discouraging that neither of you had any luck. I think i'll visit my library and pick up a book or two about it before I make any attempts.

Thanks!

[puzzlejunky]

This was on farmers almanacs feed this morning and shows an easy way to make dandelion wine:


http://farmersalmanac.com/home-garden/2 ... Almanac%29

I'm also reading From Vines to Wines by Jeff Cox which makes pruning grapes seem really complicated. It's an ok book..but I haven't gotten to the wine making part yet.

[sweetiepie]

Pruning grapes makes since in the book but when I get to my plants they don't look anything like the book and they didn't come looking like the book either. They have three main trunks or vines coming out of the ground for one plant. I have been working on pruning them to book shape but just leery of doing it wrong.

So, yes, complicated. Please let us know if you find a recipe that works.

[applestar]

Raising hand as one more that wants to LEARN.

For now, I just make liquor which just involves white liquor, vodka, or rum poured over the fruits and sugar and stored for a few months.

I 've also made sugar extracted juice/syrup for the kids which are strained out and boiled BEFORE they start to ferment, and I dehydrated the remaining fruits into soft dried fruits -- I did this with plums and apples a few years ago and my kids still talk about "Mama's Prunes" and how good they were.

[Gary350]

I have been making wine for 45 years. Fruit makes good wine because it has good flavor. Flowers smell good but makes terrible wine. Blackberries make excellent wine but needs to age 4 years to be good. I win Best of Show and First Place with my Blackberry wine and Raspberry wine. Go to a wine supply store to get supplies you need to get started. Get used wine bottles from recycle dumpsters. 5 gallons of wine makes 28 bottles. I like to buy wine kits, I buy only the GOLD first place winner kits they are less work than fruit. I don't much wine these days from scratch. Squeeze juice from blackberries you need 4 gallons of juice, no seeds. no skins, to make 5 gallons of good wine. This is equal to $50 and $75 per bottle wine not $5 wine. Some wines only need to age 2 years to be good enough to drink. I keep about 200 bottles of wine aging all the time that way I don't need to make more than 28 to 56 bottles each year.