Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Oh yeh, Yours too OB, even though sq bear is
my preferred tonic I did manage to down a couple!

Gnash enjoys my homebrew fairly regularly

Well Gnashy knows not to wait til the use by date

Think the spirits cost $50 for 12ltrs. Might be less than that because the sugar I got was 25kgs and you don't use a lot in a batch. Compared to beer its easier and with 12hr turbo yeast it is very fast. But I do like to age the finished product.

Hi imy, I always wanted to make some some homebrew (beer) but it wasn't until my sons gave me a (Coopers) brewing kit for my birthday (5 years ago) and now I'm making homebrew regularly - it is so easy with a brewing kit!
We have a Mulberry tree and last year I decided to make mulberry wine - lots of recipes on the internet - but I found the following book ...a goldmine of information : "Boots Home Wine Making and Brewing" by B.C.A. Turner.....mine is a 1970 edition....but I'm sure it has been reprinted/updated by now.
My mulberry wine is excellent!
What I don't like about commercial wines .......the wine makers all use sulphur dioxide(220)
as a preservative and to control/stop fermentation; in the above mentioned book - the author calls it (sulphur dioxide)
- the winemakers friend.
I can not tolerate sulphur dioxide - and by coincidence/experimentation I found a natural ingridient instead of ' 220 ' so my Mulberry wine doesn't give me a runny nose!
I have now bubbling away/fermenting 2 x 24 lts of Kumquat brew!

heka

What's the natural ingredient Heka?

she could tell you but then she would have to kill you

she - I thought Heka was a dude

Hey Veebs its a silent 's' OK
Soz Heka

Imy, are your thornless blackberry vines very productive, I found mine weren't. My most productive blackberries had huge snags on them, they were developed by the univeristy of Arkansas and all had native american tribal names. The early spring dew berry varities made really large juicy berries but I called them Jesus Christ vines and that is what you said when ever you had one snag you on the riding mower

My thornless is okay... not popping the fruit out like the blackberry weeds which grow in paddocks but thats okay by me. I'm thinking of chopping a few branches off and propogating this one this year and planting a couple more in the same spot, around the chook shed, this will cover it up because its a bit of a tumble-down eye-sore (made of 2nd hand materials) and give me heaps more fruit I'm hoping.

As for the home brew... we have a guy living over the road who sells supplies from his shed and I've spoken to him last night about getting a coopers kit from him. My partner said 'what do you want to that for? I only drink 6 stubbies a week!' and he does... which I htink would be the perfect amount for a home brew kit to keep up with. The problem is... partner only drinks Carlton Draught... anyone know a mix that tastes like it?

220 used to mess with my dad's sinus too! We had a hard time trying to find wine without it for him to drink. I wonder what the magical ingredient is

Can't wait to get into it The jerky in in the dehydrator. I used a peri peri marinade... burnies! Just a shame we don't have the homemade beer to go with it

Imy - this might help...
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/category4_1.htm

Cool, thanks. I've been to this site when looking for sausage stuff.

I think the kit will come with a pack of coopers stuff. I'll make that first then got experimental

NP! Its been a long night!

Now for the explosive question... who makes their own spirits???

Moonshine anyone?