Does anyone make their own wine/other alcohol at home?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

We’re going to have a massive crop of strawberries this year and we’ve decided to make wine with what we don’t eat. Has anyone got any tips and/or recommendations on where to buy the equipment we’ll need? Anything is much appreciated 😊

I was going to say Wilkos but they have closed down. If you google you might find a small independent shop, they will be able to give you tons of advice.

I’d make a strawberry flavoured vodka (or gin?) rather than faffing about making wine, unless you are absolutely set on making wine.

In my experience, homemade fruit wines tend to be revolting not as nice as you think they will be.

We make wine, from grapes not strawberries but the principle is the same.

Since Wilkos went under we've bought equipment and supplies from https://www.biggerjugs.co.uk which, despite the name is not a porn site.

You might also find useful CJJ Berry's book First Steps in Winemaking which covers country winemaking.

I have never heard anyone speak positively about home made wine. In fact, I mentioned to a friend last year that I was thinking of making alcohol and she immediately interrupted to say 'please don't make me drink your homemade wine or give it to me a a gift. I won't drink it'. Ha ha, she had very bad experiences and wasn't going to have another.

In the end I got a small copper distillery for extracting oils but I'm still keen to see what I could do alcohol-wise with it

Jam is easier than wine and would make good Christmas presents

Jam would be a colossal waste. Can’t stand the stuff.

Thanks I’ll check that out!

I made elderflower wine. There was sort of nothing technically wrong with it. If I'd been a student I'd probably have drunk it.

I used the champagne method and you had an option to kill the yeast with a chemical which I did as I was worried it would ferment inside me when I drank it. You could taste the chemical which wasn't great at all.

There's a Hugh Fearnley Whittington book on making alcohol, it seemed pretty helpful when I read it.

If I was doing it again I'd do a type of wine which didn't do a second in bottle fermentation. I also went for click top beer bottles which were an error - I should have named up and paid for real wine bottles.

I chop and freeze the strawberries we can't eat and turn them into frozen strawberry daiquiris throughout the summer. We harvested something like 30 kg strawberries last year.

Could you dehydrate them to add to cereals or baking? The chance of making something delicious wine wise seems slim.

There is a reason wine is made from grapes (and specifically vitis vinifera). Wine made from anything else is horrible. Freeze them (strawberries freeze well) and enjoy them over the next year

We once made wine from a glut of strawberries.....never again! We're experienced winemakers: have made wine from countless kits (grape juice) and from our own apples. But the strawberries just didn't work. It tasted a bit better after about 5 years of ageing, but still not something I'd choose to drink.

@Igneococcus please can I be your friend? I adore Daiquiri (in a lot of flavours but Strawberry is my favourite!)

Strawberry daquiris are fabulous @SleepingisanArt if you ever come to West coast Scotland, let me know, happy to share our bounty.