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One thing that you’ll read a lot about when you are approaching
retirement age is the need to have a hobby of some kind. Hobbies are a
great way to keep yourself occupied and to indulge a passion you may
already have. You could also start doing something you have never had
the time to do before. Like wine making. Wine making. Great hobby, saves you money and you can drink it!
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Wine making is one such hobby that many people have tried as an experiment – only to find they really enjoy it and want to continue with it long term. The recent recession coupled with the good fruit season of 2009 meant some people tried it for the first time. Faced with a huge amount of fruit left over after all the jams and chutneys had been made, they turned to winemaking instead – and many of them loved it.
But how easy is it to make your own wine?
Well there are two basic ways you can make it. The first method is arguably the easiest one for the beginner to follow. This involves visiting a home brew shop and buying a kit. You still need some basic equipment to make it with, such as a demi john for example – a glass or plastic container with a stopper in the top. An airlock is then filled with water and fitted into the cork or rubber stopper. This lets the gases produced by fermentation out while preventing any flies or other nasties from getting in.
With a small and basic wine kit you get everything you need to make six bottles of wine. This includes the required chemicals and full instructions on what to do and when. Some kits take as little as seven days to complete, while others take two or three weeks.
The second course of action you have is to use some fruit you have to hand and make your wine out of that. Left over fruit does just as well – some people make very successful wine out of rotten old bananas! You can even make wine from tea bags and coffee grounds if you wish. It is said that you can make it out of virtually anything – including rose petals. Once they get more experience, some people opt to start mixing things for different results.
The best way for a beginner to get started is with the kit, because you get what you need and you don’t have to worry too much about anything going wrong. With home made wine that you make from fruit or other things, you will never get the same batch twice. Even if you were to make two batches of blackberry wine out of the blackberries in your garden for example, they could both taste completely different. It all depends on how much natural sugar is in the fruit and the condition of the fruit when you pick it.
You also need to know more about the chemicals that need to be added at each stage of making the wine. It is definitely advisable to buy a basic wine making book if you want to do it from scratch. Some recommended books are shown below.
As you can see though, this really is a hobby you can get involved in to any degree you like. You might find you start off with kits and you never want to go any further than that. Some people love bottling their own wine and creating their own home made labels to go on it for example. It certainly makes for an interesting and very cost effective gift to give to friends and relatives at Christmas.
There are lots of kits you can buy and they vary a lot in price. But a reasonable quality kit will produce six bottles of wine for just £1.50 to £2 each. The most expensive part is in buying the small amount of equipment you need for starters, such as the demi johns and siphoning equipment for example. Once the wine has finished brewing you will need to filter it from one demi john into another. This gets rid of any bits that shouldn’t be in there and gives you a nice clear wine as well.
So if you love a drop of wine with dinner and you are thinking about starting a new hobby, why not give wine making a try? Be warned though – it’s very addictive and extremely enjoyable and rewarding once you get started!