Prison Bitch....Rocks!!

a reply to: Ahabstar

Yeah, I have read that about ciders, now that you mention it.

I had also read about eliminating the heads and tails in stills. In fact, I was watching a video about that very thing just last night.

Although I jest with the name, the wine actually is pretty good. Not overly sweet as I fermented most of the sugar out of it. I did take a little care and planning with what I was doing despite my silly postings about it.

Good info, thanks!

ETA - Question for you...because I'm just using 100% fruit juice there really isn't any peel or pomace in what I'm brewing. Therefore, I would think the methanol content would be extremely low to non-existent, correct? Isn't the main source of the pectin from the skins and pomace of the fruit?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The peel, the core, the seeds, “meatier” apples and pears even. Pear cider? Yep and hard or distilled becomes Peary unofficially.

Peaches, plums, softer apples and pears is mostly in the peal, core and seeds. Although fooling with peach pits is silly.

You can do citrus but good luck as no one wants to badly enough for good direction and guidance. Lots of failed stories though.

Pectin is also in other fruits and berries as well to one degree or another. Just make sure your juice is not pasteurized. That kills some of the goodness already there.

a reply to: Ahabstar

Thanks!

I actually am going to try some pineapple-mango. Already got the ingredients. When I do, I'll post back the results. Hopefully it won't be another failed story. Next up though is some straight grape in both red and white.

The current batch, and subject of the OP, is a cranberry-blackberry.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I watched my Aunt make beer when i was about 9-10 years old and it gave me ideas , shortly after i was brewing it and selling it in lemonade bottles at school , i got into wine in a big way because we had over a dozen fruit trees in the garden and i had easy access to bottles from a hotel/restaurant that i worked at after school and my grandparents were very easy on me as a kid i got away with a lot .

I also knew someone in a fruit and veg shop and got all their bad stock that was going to get tossed so i had 10-15 gallons going non stop and would leave it for ages before bottling it as i was not a raging alkie then , We had a huge shed/garage and under the workbench and upstairs had hundreds of bottles of wine some 4-5 years old before i got the taste for it , like you i was experimenting with different yeasts and some of that wine and champagne was a lot better than anything you got in a shop but that was nearly 30 years ago now and to even buy a cheap kit now is over 20$ i was thinking about taking it up again but the cost to buy demi-johns etc is simply not worth it for all i drink nowadays .

But yeast and time were the golden ingredients same with beer brewing double the sugar and the time and the stuff will blow your mind all with smoked cheese of course

a reply to: stonerwilliam

You don't need all that stuff to do wine really. You can just use the juice bottles. They're already sterile. That's how I started. Then I wanted to make more. I had kept all my old beer stuff, so I already had the carboys, primaries, airlocks and such. I just bought all new bungs and tubing and I was in business. That, and some wine bottles.

I really like doing it simple just to frustrate all the wine snobs who say I'm doing it all wrong...until they taste the wine, and then they get all mad. People try to make things way too complicated sometimes for no productive reason.

I like to keep it fun, and not get all wadded up about stuff. Hence my wine's name...Prison Bitch.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

We did a five pound bag of (thawed) blackberries. During fermentation there was a wine volcano that blew the bubbler. We didn’t have a meter to check the ABV, but pretty sure there was enough to run a weedeater. Still tasty though.

a reply to: Ahabstar

In college, my room mate and I decided to brew some beer. We had no idea what we were doing...and no money. (like zero). So, we went down to McDonald's and got a pickle bucket (one of the hard core kind which needed a tool to get the lid open). We made our wort, tossed the yeast, and put the lid on the bucket, like hammered it on.

The fermentation went along nicely. One night, after about two weeks, I walked in the door and heard this huge BOOOOM!!!! I found my room mate sitting in the middle of the kitchen...beer was everywhere!! Beer on the ceiling, beer on the walls, windows, beer all over every surface in the room and beyond. It was a MESS!!

It took hours to clean up, and the apartment smelled like stale beer for weeks.

Lesson learned...vent the primary fermentation bucket!!!

P.S. Then we bottled the beer too early and put it in the closet with the furnace. About once a week we'd here a **BANG** and shattering glass as one of the bottles exploded and took 2-3 adjacent bottles with it. The beer was great though, and we learned from each mistake. In time, we had cases and cases of homebrew stacked up in every closet.

It cost next to nothing to do, and was way cheaper and easier then buying store bought beer. Plus...it was fun.

When the whole craft beer thing took off years later, I decided I really didn't like beer all that much. I mean, I liked it, but the whole scene had become almost bizarre with all the different brews. I felt like there was nowhere to go, everything had been tried. Even today, liquor stores are taking down wine shelves in favor of more room for beers.

A person could spend a lifetime tasting different beers and never even touch the surface of all the varieties out there now.

It was like I hit a dead end. I had always had a taste for wine, but wine wasn't cool in those days. I really liked (and still do) French wines, but most true French wines will set you back a ways. My main theme was always...I don't want to do it if it's not fun. And, that's how I feel to this day. Wine is a lot of fun because it's so easy to do, and the whole process is enjoyable. Plus, the whole hoity-toity wine thing gives me a chuckle. So, why not make some (good) wine which flies in the face of all the wine snobs who have to lift their pinky finger and look down their nose at you to show how cool and self important they are?

Hooch, Bay-Bee...Hooch!

If it ain't fun, I ain't doin' it!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I am the type of person that when they get into something their is no half measures , its full on man , In the uk the stuff you make in the jail is called Hooch ! and is made with bread and fruit but will leave you in the toilet all day , been there seen it done it , The first kit i bought was less than a dollar 70 English pennies i tasted it when bottling and it was horrible it was Elder flower , but 5 or so years later when i opened it it had turned into a beautiful wine and blew my brains out .

I have gone from drinking 3 bottles of wine or 20 pints of beer a day every day when i was working to now where it takes me 6 hours to finish a beer at home and their has been a bottle of wine in the cupboard for months but the bottle of malt whisky i bought on Monday has gone down well same with the Camembert and smoke cheese

My sister and i took my mother out for a meal yesterday for her birthday and the cheapest white wine on the menu was about 6 $ for a 125 ml glass and it tasted awful ditto with the food , next time i am doing the cooking my George foreman grill cooks better than that chef

My first ever brew was in a wine bottle with a balloon on top with a hole in it. I didn't really have a clue but it worked. Found that bottle 4 years later and it tasted amazing.

One thing I often done when brewing cheap wine was buy large water bottles, I had to do a little drilling to fit an airlock but other than that you're pretty much ready to go. Great for storage too, not sure how much you can recycle the bottles because the plastic usually degrades quick and I guess flavours might absorb into the plastic.

Works well for a single batch though.