One of the best home brewing tips ever: make sure to brew some extra wine in small bottles! So you can taste, and taste, and taste…

It’s autumn again and since there is not much to be done in these gray, rainy days outside in the garden, it’s time to get warm and well, get some more alcohol to get warmer .

Another hobby of mine… brewing that is, not drinking…

In summer when harvest is plenty, or fresh fruit supply is cheap, I make sure to buy some extra cherries.

I invite the grandchildren to get rid of all the kernels (and give them some jolly delicious cherry pan cakes, cherry ice-cream and well, a sip of homemade cherry liquor their parents are enjoying…) and freeze the cherries.

Any day in autumn when the heating is on and the temperature in the house is stable, I take the cherries out and start fermenting them.

Always make sure to start off with some wine-yeast in some sterilised apple-juice and sugar. I just buy the sterilised juices in the cooling section of the supermarket, those days that I would boil cherry-juice myself are far over.

Once the apple-juice is yeasting well, use it to add to your cherry bottles, put the waterlock on it and there you go!

What I do is making sure I have some small bottles of cherry-yeasting-wine to consume when it’s fermenting.

I just love bubbles in wine and I can’t drive all the way down to the BodenSee in Germany to taste their "Süsser" or half fermented wine.

Drinking only the small bottles also makes sure my big bottle keeps as clean and healthy as possible and can "yeast in peace".

For those who want to try making wine at home, make sure you buy something that’s called a hydrometer : it’s a little thing that looks like an oversized fishing gear that you throw in your juice.

the hydrometer sticks out of your brew (like a straw) and you can read a number with which you can calculate how much sugar you need to add in order to get a wine of a decent amount of alcohol. (too much sugar won’t get you anywhere, so it’s an important accessory).

You can buy it at any decent chemist’s and the plastic ones are quite cheap.

In the end it’s not about exact science, it’s about brewing something at home that tastes good, so no need for the expensive hydrometers.

Once you are yeasting, make sure to put the bottles on a spot where the temperature is more or less constant.

Also shake the bottles from time to time as yeast not only needs sugar but also oxygen to flourish.

After that, it’s sit and wait and make sure to try the little brewing bottles from the 5th day onwards