Recent content by cottonwoodks

Thanks! I have plenty of rosehips I can harvest, including ones that dried on the bushes. I made one batch of pear wine once with rose hips in them, but I couldn't really discern any difference between that and the wine without rose hips. Going to try just rosehips next year. (Or maybe now...

The temp can affect speed too.....

I don't know what kind of cherries they are, but if you want to propagate them, buy some cherry rootstocks, take scion wood cuttings from these cherry trees during the winter (saving them in your fridge until spring), and graft them onto the root stock. Then, whatever variety they are, that's...

Is aronia the same thing as chokecherry? I have a batch of aronia wine going, and I think aronia tastes like dirt (or like beets, which taste like dirt). I ended up adding some Welches grape juice concentrate, because I thought it needed something fruitier too, but would really like in the...

I also have made elderberry wine without heating the berries either. It always turns out really well (and no one has ever had any ill effects). These are the kind that grow wild in Kansas.

I have to say that the elderberry wine I made last year had such a horrible funk smell when I finally bottled it that it stuck in my head for days. But after a year of aging, it was gone and the wine was starting to be wonderful (even more so six months later). So maybe that will happen with...

I've made pear wine by chopping the pears, putting them in a nylon bag, and then squishing them up several times a day during primary fermentation--and I've LOVED the pear flavor of that wine. Haven't tried it with apples. They're harder, so maybe that won't work....

At what point do you pick the rosehips? Should they have started to soften? Would it work once they're all dried out? (Like rehydrating them?)

I agree--don't even bother opening a single bottle until it's been aging at least a year. Fortunately elderberries are so abundant, you can make big enough batches that opening a bottle every 3 or 4 months will leave you lots when you finally reach a point where you're really liking it.

Well, I have to say that the ginger wine I made without cooking the ginger three years ago was incredibly yummy. This is a good reminder that I should make some more. Lots of good suggestions here!

I'm certainly interested in this process, as we are currently growing figs (not going to be a bumper crop year because of an unfortunate deep-freeze while they were all still actively growing last October), and this might be something we could do sometime. Do keep us all posted!

I just made a batch of banana plum wine, and it fermented like crazy in the bucket, and now in secondary it's chugging away. Have you tasted it? Is it less sweet than when you started? How does it taste? Personally, if it doesn't taste bad or off, I'd strain off the banana stuff now and put...

I don't know about better yield, but the flavor was VERY cherry! And it was really easy.

What a lovely idea! I think I'm going to adopt it (though maybe not waiting until December). I also have some frozen buffalo currants and....gooseberries, maybe?

I am wanting to make plum wine, but don't have quite enough plums. Any reason not to mix them with what I have in my freezer, which is dandelion flowers (again, not quite enough on their own) and/or elderberries from last summer????