How to Make Homemade Wine Using Garden Crops
Bumper Garden Crop of Green Beans
This is the true story of my attempt at green living. Excess crops were converted into something useful rather than being wasted. I turned a barren garden into something more fertile by growing green beans. I began my first garden with high hopes of self-sufficiency. It wasn’t long, however, before I realized that my back yard contained too much builders’ trash and not enough healthy garden soil.
That first season was more like clearing out a garbage dump than cultivating crops. But I persevered, and with a bit of help and advice from friends and neighbors, a patch of usable soil eventually appeared.
I followed the instructions of a weekly gardening course that was being published at the time in a local newspaper. The expert gardener advised in his column that beginner gardeners should plant runner beans. He said they were easy to grow and would enhance the fertility of poor soils. That advice was tailor-made for my situation, so I followed the suggestion with enthusiasm. I only had a small back yard and one packet of bean seeds was enough to plant the entire plot.
Green Beans Growing on Canes
Runner beans
Too Many Runner Beans
The weather was perfect for growing runner beans that year. They quickly climbed to the top of their beanpoles and produced an excellent crop of leaves and fruit.
At first I enjoyed having fresh runner beans with every meal. However, after a week or so, the novelty began to pall. I toyed with the idea of making chutney, but decided I didn’t want to spend hours over a hot stove in the fine summer weather. My freezer was too small to take the overflow, so I was left with a glut for which I had no use.
Home Winemaking
Home winemaking
Eureka! Green Bean Wine
I had been making home-made wines from wild berries and fruits for years. Creating drinks like blackberry or elderflower wine was easy as they were quick to mature.
I had never made any vegetable wines. But one of my friends assured me that if you can make wine from parsnips, there was no reason why green beans would not be just as palatable. There was nothing to lose as if I chose not to make green bean wine, only my compost heap would benefit.
I went to the library (this was pre-Internet days) found a recipe for parsnip wine. Then I set my demi-john flasks (glass carboys) bubbling with a green bean wine mash. When fermentation was complete I bottled the batch and put them into my usual wine storage closet.
Wine Making Kit
The Results
Somewhat impatiently, I resisted opening any of the bottles for at least a year. Which was just as well, because when I did so the taste was similar to how I imagine a strong drain cleaner would be. Ugh! Awful!
Another couple of years passed by and I and some friends gingerly tasted some more. Good enough to use in cooking, but not a palatable drink that could be dignified with the name of “wine”.
At last, more than seven years after it had been made, just one bottle remained unopened and untasted. I was about to put it straight in the cooking pot to be used as part of a chicken casserole, but I tasted it, just in case… And yes, it was not only drinkable, but rather delicious.
All the other bottles had lacked was time to mature properly. I felt a bit of a fool for being so keen to open all the other bottles so early.
Bumper Crop of Green Beans
What would you do with a heavy crop of runner beans?
See results without votingHow To Make Green Bean Wine
Recipe
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Use a recipe for parsnip wine and use beans in place of parsnips
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Ingredients
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Use only freshly picked beans. Don't be tempted to use ones that the insects or birds have got to before you!
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Bottling
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Make sure all your bottles and corks have been sterilised otherwise the wine will sour.
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Drinking
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You will need a lot of patience before you can enjoy the matured wine. Six years wait minimum!
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Tranferring Homemade Wine into Secondary Fermentation Vessel (known as Racking)
Racking with aeration to improve secondary fermentation
Making Homemade Wine
The video below shows how easy it is to make homemade wine. You can use any fruit, herbs or vegetables as a base for your wine. As a beginner winemaker, it is a good idea to follow a recipe or reference book at first. As you gain in confidence and experience you will be able to be more experimental with your wine flavors.
The basic equipment needed to make wine is a large bucket and a glass demi-john or carboy. The bucket acts as your primary fermentation tank. In this the fruit or vegetables are mashed or chopped. Water, sugar and yeast are then added and the mixture is left for about a week for fermentation to take place.
To clarify the liquor, the liquid is then siphoned into the glass carboy or demi-john. This is left for secondary fermentation to occur. In order to prevent contamination and oxidation of the wine during this process, the glass demi-john is sealed using an airlock. Once fermentation is complete (i.e. when there are no more bubbles produced), the wine is siphoned into sterilized wine bottles and sealed tightly with a cork.
A Crash Course in Home Winemaking
Using Wild Plants or Weeds to Make Homemade Wine
Once you start making your own wine you may find it difficult to stop. There are plenty of recipes on the internet and in the library to help you make use of all kinds of fruit, vegetables and herbs.
You can make wines for virtually no cost if you use weeds and plants growing wild. Good plants to use in this way are dandelions. They seem to grow almost anywhere and are brightly colored making them easy to find. Most important of all they are easy to correctly identify so you are unlikely to harvest a poisonous plant by mistake.
The video below shows you how to make dandelion (or other weeds) into a tasty homemade wine.
How to Make Dandelion Wine
Make Use of Immature Homemade Wine
If you are impatient like me, then there are going to be times when you open a bottle before the wine has had sufficient time to mature. It may be too “raw” to drink from a glass, but it need not be wasted. Immature wine can be used for cooking. A traditional French dish “coq au vin” is chicken casseroled in a wine sauce.
Wine can enhance any meat or vegetable stew and makes it extra warming dish on a cold winter’s day. The wine could also be transformed into a hot mulled wine by heating it with fruit and spices like apples and cinnamon.
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