Yandina Community Gardens

41 Farrell street, Yandina

You are here: Home / Archives for fruit wines

Saturday, 5th December 2020, 9-11:30am, Making Country Wine, Cider and Vinegars

By

Making Country Wine, Cider and Vinegar with Philip Richards

In this workshop you will learn general principles so that you can make any wine, as well as following particular recipes as examples.  You will see all the equipment and materials necessary (bottle, closures, locks fermentation vessels and more) and where possible inexpensive alternatives and I will detail sugar use and its measurement. We will also consider cider, ginger beer and more.  If you are currently using expensive cider vinegars, learn a simple method for making these products at home, along with fruit vinegars for preserving or for salad.

In this workshop Phillip will get you ready for making Summer drinks for quaffing.  Phillip’s advice is that Lemon Beer is tops, along with Parsley wine, so get planting now ready for a summer splash, and take advantage of Phillip’s free recipe for Hibiscus Delight, (a Yandina invention), a Turkish Delight rose tasting drink.  Great for summer sundowners, but make now for some winter cheer.

 

HIBISCUS DELIGHT           hibiscus

12-18 (more if you’ve got them) Good size flowers with stamens. Make sure you knock out all the little black beetles inside.

Put in bucket with 2 lemons grated and juiced or just roughly chopped. 1 kg sugar, 2 tbsp of white vinegar and 4.5 L water. Mix, cover, and leave 48 hours.

Bottle (recycle PET bottles), leave 1 month, check for excess gas by pressing the bottle’s shoulder or letting the cap off a little. It is necessary to check and relieve the pressure every couple of days.

Leave for another month. Taste. If too sweet leave another month.

Tickets are $35 for Non members and $25 for Members of Yandina Community Gardens, they are limited in number so please book here to avoid disappointment

 

About the Presenter:

Leaving his job as Headmaster of a boys boarding school in NSW, Phillip Richards took his family to carve out a farm on a 40 ha bush block of regrowth on sandy degraded granite outside Childers. Gaining organic certification (BFA) they sold vegetables through an organic produce agent in Brisbane as well as into the Sydney and Melbourne markets. Cows, pigs, goats all sorts of poultry helped increase the fertility and caused constant mayhem. They have been on the Sunshine Coast for many years and have 1.7 ha along the South Maroochy river and are self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables and have recently begun growing grains (maize, millet & sorghum) for both chook food and for our consumption.

Phillip writes for Grass Roots (in the past for Earth Garden) as well as G magazine, Owner Builder, and lately in PIP Journal (article on coffee) and Australasian Poultry (grains and sprouts for chooks). He was formally the organic editor for suite 101 a now defunct ezine.

Phillip Richards makes country wines, beers and ciders from fruit, vegetables and flowers. He says: I have some guiding principles and that is as far as possible to use what we grow and have in excess or to use cheap alternatives.

 

 

Saturday, 27 July 2019, 9 – 11 am – winemaking in time for Christmas with Phillip Richards

By

‘Traditional country wines and beers; a bit of Christmas fizzwinemaking

Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring

My summer wine is really made from all these things’

Nancy Sinatra

Actually, I do not include a recipe for Nancy’s Summer Wine but I will describe in this workshop just how you would go about making it. More than individual recipes it will be about demonstrating simple processes to make cheap and tasty wines. As well as wines, we will consider ‘long drinks’ such as cider, ginger beer, and lemon beer and a method of turning wines into fruit vinegars. Making country wines is a very old tradition – you may recall the vet’s experience with parsnip wine in ‘All Things Great and Small’. The wines and drinks I make are from fruit, vegetables, and flowers from our garden or that are found locally. We use what is in excess or what might otherwise, be discarded – guava pulp for example. I can demonstrate the use of the hydrometer and the arithmetic of sugar – bring your pocket calculator if you wish. We will go through the gear needed, sample recipes and additions that make good wine. This may lead to consideration of what to plant to supply stock. I shall make some simple cider (bring a two-litre plastic bottle of cheap apple juice – not from the refrigerator section but from the shelves in the supermarket – preservative free) and we will turn it into cider.

For summer quaffing I shall explain and demonstrate how to make beers – lemon beer and hibiscus delight (a Yandina speciality). After the workshop participants will have a good grasp of the fundamental processes of Traditional Country Winemaking, and a knowledge of the equipment and ingredients needed (as well as cheap substitutes) that they will be able to apply this to a variety of material.

Click here to book for this winemaking workshop

About The Presenter

Leaving his job as Headmaster of a boys boarding school in NSW, Phillip Richards took his family to carve out a farm on a 40 ha bush block of regrowth on sandy degraded granite outside Childers. Gaining organic certification (BFA) they sold vegetables through an organic produce agent in Brisbane as well as into the Sydney and Melbourne markets. Cows, pigs, goats all sorts of poultry helped increase the fertility and caused constant mayhem. They have been on the Sunshine Coast for many years and have 1.7 ha along the South Maroochy river and are self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables and have recently begun growing grains (maize, millet & sorghum) for both chook food and for our consumption.

Phillip writes for Grass Roots (in the past for Earth Garden) as well as G magazine, Owner Builder, and lately in PIP Journal (article on coffee) and Australasian Poultry (grains and sprouts for chooks). He was formally the organic editor for suite 101 a now defunct ezine.

Categories

Tags

biochar chop & drop compost composting Edible Greens edible leaves edible seeds edible tubers Event food waste food waste loop ground cover insect attracting Kids event Kids program know your plants Learning Living sustainably Management Committee medicinal plants medicine member event Morag Gamble native stingless bees Nutrient Dense Food Open garden visit Permaculture Plant plants Recipe Recipes Subtropical Greens Support plants Sustainable Building sustainable living Tropical greens volunteer water plant Wax-wrap making wax-wraps Workshop workshops Worm Farming Yandina Community Garden Yandina community Gardens

Permaculture People

Elizabeth Fekonia - Permaculture Real Food
Anne Gibson - The Micro Gardener
Morag Gamble - Our Permaculture Life
Dee Humphreys - Eatin Garden Edible Garden Tours

Acknowledgement of country

Yandina Community Gardens acknowledges and pays respect to the Traditional Owners of the land, the Gubbi Gubbi (Kabi Kabi) people, past and present and emerging. We recognise and wish to learn from their spiritual and cultural connection to the land.