First Winemaking Steps

A couple of months ago, a friend convinced me of the worthiness of winemaking as a hobby, recommended a book (First Steps in Winemaking by CJJ Berry) and presented me with a couple of demijohns. The book cost less than a fiver, so I bought a copy and had a read -- it does a good job of explaining the basic theory, describing the essential equipment as well as the less essential but useful kit, and has many dozens of recipes for country wines, from nettle to elderberry. More recently, I decided to give it a go and ordered some equipment, yeast, sterilising powder, and so on from the excellent Art of Brewing, and last week I started my first brew. The first effort is a mead based on a recipe in Berry's book, with 3.5 lb of honey, and my little modification: I boiled some rosemary in with the honey and water, hopefully giving it a more interesting taste. Nearly a week later, we have a steady fermentation, and it's looking good. According to the recipe this should be drinkable by Christmas, which is extremely fast for a homebrew wine. We'll see... The plan is to raid some local rose bushes for rosehips with which to make my next batch -- slightly more advanced than the mead.