I JUST started trying my hand at making wine. I was hunting a while back and came cross a big patch of blackberries. I am not a wine drinker but I like to fiddle with stuff so I decided to try my hand at making some blackbery wine. I didn't age it or anything, and it was GREAT. I now have a big batch ( 3 gallons or so) of peach and raisin ....a gallon of apple ( both of those are in second stage fermenters with airlocks going) and a batch of asian apple pear ( I THINK thats what they are anyway) in a pot getting ready to add the yeast in tonight. I wanna try brewing some beer as the pay off is WAY WAY faster. BUT it is far more involved to do it right.

I don't make it, just drink it. Is your wine sweet? I like fruity but somewhat dry. A Zin, or Cab or Merlot, or Francis Ford Coppola's blend is good. I would think making wine is a lotta trouble compared to going to the liquor store. Why not just make blackberry pies?

This willsound stupid, but I don't like wine very much. I just like to "do" stuff like this. If I do drink wine I prefer sweet wines. My friends wife drinks some stuff that tastes like vinegar and raves about how good it is.

I understand completely, it’s fun to have a project. It’s funny that you mention it, I’ve been considering trying home brewing. A friend of mine is really into it and I’ve hung out at his place while he was brewing, so I’ve seen it done and helped out a little but never tried it myself.

It looks like a fun experiment in chemistry and microbiology, that the final result is beer is extra gravy. I’ve got plenty of space with a floor drain in case of an over fermenting disaster. But I think that if I fully take the plunge it’ll have to be in a few years when my kids are bigger. In the mean time I’ll have to hang out at my buddies’ place more.

Hey now, don't leave out a good chianti or even a shiraz!

Get yourself some meade, aka honey wine. And yes, RF, I finially got my hands on some instead of just talking about it.

You're so right!! I just bought a shiraz last night & enjoyed half a glass before dinner. I hate white wine, however. Makes me wanna gag. Oh a good homemade sangria is good too.

You and I agree on very little grace , but on Sangria we are definitely in agreement. I LOVE that stuff, even the cheap boones farm. I think the best meal I have ever had in my life was at a restaurant in mexico. The food was excellent but the sangria..........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers, Steve. I got so drunk on Sangria this past Valentine's Day I'm not so sure I could touch the stuff again. Just thinking about it makes me a little queazy...I was driving the bus all night and half the next day.

It wasn't my fault however.

Transferred the peach raisin over into glass one gallon carboys just now. Pulled a sample and tested it with the hydrometer. Specific gravity is at 1.00 and potential ABV ( alcohol by volume) is at 0 so the fermentation is done. I taste tested it and YUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!! this shit is NASTY. Something must have gotten into it somehow. Taste like rubbing alcohol mixed with vinegar. I poured over a gallon down the sink. I had two extra carboys so I filled em, and put em in a closet upstairs. Maybe a decade of aging will mellow it out lol.

OK I did what I SHOULD have done before dumping the wine. I got on a site called HOME BREW and asked a few questions. Keep in miknd this wine had been setting for a couple weeks with NO SEDIMENT AT ALL. I posted the situation and a guy told me what to do to the wine I kept. I did what he said and within a half hour there is an inch and a half of sediment in each jug. I tasted the "cleared" wine and it is VERY dry but tastes like peach wine now. Tomorrow night it will be racked into clean carboys, sweetened and let set for a month then bottled.

Was it relatively easy to make the wine?

yes, very easy. there is a recipe for about any kinda wine you can imagine online. I just strained some asian pear into a secondary..tasted it and WOW!!!. Basically 4-6 pounds of some sort of fruit.... 1-3 pounds of sugar ..gallon of water ...and yeast. chop up the fruit and boil the water and sugar ....pour over the fruit........let it set until it cools down.... In the meantime take a little of the fruit sugar water and put it in a bowl and mix enough cold water to get it warm but not hot. Pour your yeast over top of it and DONT STIR IT . cover it and keep it dark. After 2-3 hours your fruit sugar and water ( called MUST) should be cool. Check your yeast and if it has a bunch of foam on top ,pour it into the must. Cover it with a clean towel and let it set for one week and stir it every day. After a week strain it ( believe it or not panty hose doubled up ( used or new, your preference lol) works great for this. Put in a glass jug and stretch a balloon over the top. Put it some place dark and check it every few days until the balloon deflates. Siphon the wine off of the sediment and you CAN drink it but you SHOULD put the balloon back on and make sure the fermentation is done.
NOW thats the hillbilly ( the first batch I made) way, but there are hundreds of gallons of wine made every day exactly like that. I'd recommend going to a brew store and buying airlocks ( replace the balloon) and getting wine yeast and glass carboys( bottles) It is actually kinda fun. I have some recipes I wanna try but money is so tight here right this minute that I don't wanna spend anything to buy some more carboys and airlocks. Hell I just found an entire used beer brewing set up including 10 dozen bottles, extract kits , caps , carboys, fermentors EVERYTHING to brew beer for 100 bucks..had to pass it up.

Cool! Money is tight here too at the moment but if its not hard then I'm going to give it a try when I can.

repdog...just started a SUPER SIMPLE wine to have SOON instaed of waiting months and months....go to the grocery and get two cans of the WELCH'S 100% grape juice concentrate. It should only have grape juice and ascorbic acid as the ingredients. ( you CAN use the blends like grape raspberry but it is a LITTLE different) buy some sugar and get some wine yeast from somewhere ( I used MONTRACHET) Heat up one quart of water on your stove and put in 1 and 1/4 pounds of sugar ....stir it until it is dissolved. Take it off the heat and pour in the two cans of grape concentrate when this has cooled enough that it won't braek the bottle, pour this into a gallon glass jug and add in enough water to fill the jug about two inches short of running over. Stir it or shake it up. In the mean time put some warm water in a glass and pour your yeast packet in it...don't stir it or anything just pour it on top and cover it up. ...........put a cloth over the grape juice and wait about 24 hours and pour the yeast mix in the bottle of grape juice. Stretch a balloon over the top and it will fill up . poke a few holes in the balloon with a pin and put this in a dark place and leave it for a couple weeks.......siphon the wine out of the bottle into another bottle making sure you don't suck the gunk ( dead yeast) off of the bottom. It is drinkable NOW but would be better in a few more weeks. .