Gnarly Wine- The Brewing Begins
0 comment Saturday, July 26, 2014 |
Made some gnarly dandelion wine; it's been on the ferment for two days. It's "gnarly" because this isn't the refined fruit-wine I tend to make; I literally used whatever brewers yeast I had on hand, picked the dandelions myself, brewed it on the stove and let it sit, threw some yarrow fronds in as this is a libation wine, and did half sugar, half local honey for the sugars. This is some rough-and-ready country wine, the likes of which your granddad probably used to make (and more than likely just as lethal to drink!). I might be pleasantly surprised as it smells absolutely amazing and almost like a melomel, but I'll age it properly and rack it a few times, clear it with finings and at least do my best to get it to drinkable for certain holidays during the winter months next year.
Just limbering up the wine-making muscles again as even though I don't drink that much these days, I do like to crack a bottle during certain times of the year. It takes a while for fruit wine to be drinkable but they're invariably worth the wait. However, because I find corking a bit of a struggle and can't afford a big corking machine, I'm going to stick wine into beer bottles. Horribly uncool, I know, but I've got bottles and caps aplenty, may as well use them!
For my now-and-again needs when it comes to pints (when I can actually have pints), I'm going with the strawberry cider again this year. It's economical and I've got storage space. If I can't drink it, there's the added benefit of being able to use it for barter sometimes, where it comes very in handy (even the 'girly' strawberry cider goes down well).
So I turn my eye to my plants and planted hedges, watching and waiting for flowers and fruits, whispering encouragement and feeding them well and hope they'll reward me this year with a bit of bounty. Partly because the end result is rather nice, but mostly because I find the whole process rather fun, really. May as well admit that.

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