First time wine

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goonmaster

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For starters its my first time brewing anything.
I had recently bought a self-sufficiency book and it talked about brewing etc so I bought my first demijohn last week!

Having decided to make wine by badly following a recipe in the book here I am.

4.5 litres of water
3 oranges
3 lemons
3 quarters of a litre of gorse flowers
a small cup of black tea made with 4 teabags
1kg white sugar
brewing yeast

All this was warmed a tiny bit
blended with one of those hand blenders
and it stewed in the demijohn for a day

It ran into some problems - too much pectin
it was syrupy as fu*k
After about the second day I filtered the solids out
and it sat there for about 5 days

did some research and bought some pectolase
it worked a charm!
everything sank to the bottom and it cleared up to simply slightly murky orange clear.

then just yesterday (its been a week since it all began) I racked off the gunk that sank down and now ive about half a gallon in total left
its still bubbling lots in the evenings when the heat comes on in the house

also note every time i closed it i used one of those kitchen lighters to burn up all the oxygen before putting the air lock back on

************************
My question is:

should i have left that stuff in it?
was it the yeast or glucose or sugar or something?

Will it be safe to drink?

When will i know when its ready?

images:

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p34/goonmaster/19022008015.jpg?t=1204141401
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p34/goonmaster/21022008004.jpg?t=1204141403
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p34/goonmaster/24022008.jpg?t=1204141404
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p34/goonmaster/27022008.jpg?t=1204141446
 
Well, I make lots of wine but I have no idea what to tell you about this recipe. I guess you'll know when it's done if you either buy a hydrometer to test it, or when it stops bubbling completely.

I don't know what gorse flowers are, so I don't have any better advice. My favorite place to read about wine making is here, though: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/basics.asp

You lost me on the kitchen lighter, too, as I have no clue about that. When I open the top, I just do it without splashing anything, then stick the top back on.
 
Yes, I know what a kitchen lighter is! But putting it in your demijohn sounds ridiculous. That's what I meant, but I didnt' know how to say that without sounding like a snob. No need for that, trust me!

I would say that this would be drinkable (if gorse tastes good). Next time, don't use a blender or anything like that when you make wine. Just use your fruit, or whatever, and it helps if you use a big mesh bag and tie it all up in that. When I make dandelion wine, I line the bucket with the sanitized mesh bag and then pour my must into that. When I want to remove the oranges and lemons and petals, I just lift out and gently sqeeze that bag. It's much easier that way!

Pay careful attention to sanitation. Use a sulfite or other no-rinse sanitizer on all your equipment, and use campden in anything you don't boil. If you read that link I gave you, that will be very helpful. There are also tons of recipes on that site, making wine from everything from figs to rutabagas!

If you want something else simple to start with, I have some beginner wine recipes under my recipe pull down section (under my avatar).
 
hehe, ridiculous you say? :p
well it couldn't do any harm

aiiit,
thanks alot for feedback!
 
Actually the lighter trick seems pretty clever. It might be useful when the only secondary carboy around is too big, especially for those of us that don't have CO2 tanks to purge the headspace.

EDIT: And on second thought, it might also be useful to purge the headspace in half drunken bottles of wine.
 
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