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Sorry I didn't read this earlier, not been on here for ages. I poured the last few bottles down the drain, the cough inducing properties of this wine weren't the best of effects. I'm sure with a bit of messing about you might be able to brew something better than I did. Best of luck to you with it.

Sadly fungi are useless for brewing (except brewing with, and then only yeast and scobys) It's more for getting IDs on plants I'm not 100% on (umbrells being a family that spring to mind). I have litttle experience of IDing plants, so it'd be nice to get advice on things, and to check if my...

Can anyone suggest any good UK foraging forums? I don't have the first clue about what plant is what, so a place where I can post up pics and have people tell me what is what would be great, if anyone knows any such forum.

Sup and see. There's argument about whether plastic bottles breathe or not, I don't know if they do don't. Age is a good thing in a wine so I imagine that as long as the plastic bottle hasn't caused any problems it'll be better than when you drank the rest of it.

I agree with Slid. Although 995 is likely to be the fg, it could still drop a bit. Ignoring that, yeast tends to need to clean up after itself, especially after a warmer ferment. I rarely move from the first dj in under a month - unless the sediment is thick. Even when I do I don't stabilise the...

Mix in salt with your ice bath, sounds odd but it can lower the temp considerably. Ice cubes do a better job than ice blocks as they have a larger surface area. If you don't want to use the ice bath method you could put it in the fridge. Somewhere outdoors that you know will be cold (garage as...

The vinegar is as much a risk, you could stand a chance of infecting the brew and turning it into vinegar itself. I'd personally have made a dandelion wine to about 12% and primed that.

Sounds like you're either over priming the bottles or you're not putting dry wine into the bottles (which is arguably the same thing). The safest way to make any sparkling wine is to make sure the wine has fermented dry before bottling (below 1000 and at a constant sg over a few days), then...

The biggest thing to learn with homebrewing and with wine in particular is patience. There's no point bottling a hazy wine, it looks **** in the glass - and has a possibility of tasting not as good. Wine will clear on it's own happily given time, this also helps the wine by giving it a bit more...

I can't believe it'll be ready to bottle after only three weeks, or even a month. Has it really dropped clear (totally clear, no haze)? Degassing isn't essential unless you don't like the slight tingle that the CO2 will give the wine.

How long has it been going? The way I bottle is to get 6 wine bottles (scew caps are fine, if you want smarter looking bottles then cork, but make sure you have a corker [Do NOT use corks on screw cap bottles, it doesn't work]), sterilise them and siphon the wine into them, the last one will...

It's not uncommon and it'll dissipate naturally. If it doesn't go by the time you are thinking of bottling then a good degassing will get rid of the smell.

Wine will almost always clear on it's own. I've only used finings once or twice when I've either had a wine that wouldn't clear or was a bit impatient.

I always do my first rack at least a month after start of fermentation, unless a large sediment is formed (e.g. rice wine). The CT is totally up to you, people say it helps prevent oxidation, but I've never added CTs to wine and have never had a problem (I do stabilise at the end with stabiliser)

Even if it does taste a bit off kilter, just do another, the kits aren't too expensive.

As a guess it'll be 1.5L of "Apple and Blackcurrant" rather than 1.5L of each.

Mango is notorious for pulp. The cloudiness sounds like you were too early with the bottling, although you do get cloudy cider.

As with anything homebrewed, you can open it up any time (obv it at least needs 2 weeks to carb), but everything improves with some age.

Not a great deal, only guess work. Both Rhubarb and apple are rather weak flavours, so it might work, but it might not. As a wine maker I'd just make rhubarb wine, but that's just me. Maybe try find another cider with fruit recipe and use a similar amount of rhubarb in that, prep the rhubarb as...

I'm sorry that I can't say what the bottles you have would be like. When I've made sparkling wine, I've always used beer bottles and crown caps as they are definitely pressure vessels. You only really have a chance of bottle bombs if you over prime your bottles. Make sure your wine has fermented...