What Preps are you doing this week? Part 6.

[jennyjj01]

A gesture towards Heat and Fuel reserves. Just done an ALDI run to get my Gas stove for a tenner and a supply of gas bottles.

Then onward to screwfix to buy 3 20l jerry cans, which will soon be full of Diesel.

Last but not least, set 5g of beer and 5 gallon of Cabernet brewing. Got to keep rotating those stocks

[Deeps]

A gesture towards Heat and Fuel reserves. Just done an ALDI run to get my Gas stove for a tenner and a supply of gas bottles.

Then onward to screwfix to buy 3 20l jerry cans, which will soon be full of Diesel.

Last but not least, set 5g of beer and 5 gallon of Cabernet brewing. Got to keep rotating those stocks

Have you got any recommendations Jenny, the wine I've tried over the years has been pretty rank.

[jennyjj01]

Have you got any recommendations Jenny, the wine I've tried over the years has been pretty rank.

Hi Deeps, Historically, I've made craft wines with a mix of raisins, grape juice concentrates and... ordinary sugar, with maybe some magic ingredients such as dried apricots, elderberries, boiled potatoes, dandelion petals, rose-hips etc. Those wines were never meant to be like shop bought wines, so they were uniquely my creations.

More recently, I'm back to mainstream styles, like Merlot, Cabernet, and Sauvignon Blanc and I've tried kits from wilkinsons, but they were always VERY disappointing, probably because they compromised on sugar source.

But now, i reckon I've cracked it... Youngs cellar 7 kits!
These come as a whole gallon of well selected, concentrated grape juices. Not cheap at about 30 quid a kit, making 30 bottles, but they are the bees' knees. No granular sugar to add and dead simple to make. Ready to bottle and set aside after about 12 days. Drinkable at about 6 weeks.

Cellar 7 kits

30 bottles of Cabernet goes a long way, even for me.

Similar story with my home brew beer. I used to brew from basic ingredients, back in the days when even Boots sold fresh hops. There's some rubbish kits from Wilkinsons and even 'The range', but these are ruined by reliance on lots of granular sugar.

Here again, Youngs kits are pretty good. But I use These John Bull Bitter kits Where they say add 1kg sugar, i use 500g granulated sugar and 500g Beer enhancer

Again, you only get what you pay for and these are not super cheap.

Avoid beer kits from Poland. I tried a few from my local brew shop and they were rubbish. Eventually, the shop dropped them after complaints.

Incidentally, besides trying to maintain a pretty big stock of brewed beer in bottles, I now, also have a stockpile of kits and brewing sugars set aside so i'll have something to do and work with post SHTF. Call it 'water treatment'

[Deeps]

Thanks Jenny, I'll give them a go. I've tried the enhancer too, more with lager but I've not been able to produce something I'd drink instead of the stuff the professional's do. I'm happy to compromise to an extent but I'm a lot more of a snob than I was in my early 20's when I first did home brew.

[jennyjj01]

Thanks Jenny, I'll give them a go. I've tried the enhancer too, more with lager but I've not been able to produce something I'd drink instead of the stuff the professional's do. I'm happy to compromise to an extent but I'm a lot more of a snob than I was in my early 20's when I first did home brew.

I forgot to say.. I add an extra racking and settling stage with my beer. Always bottles, never kegs. Plus, use the right yeast, not necessarily what comes with the kit.

[Deeps]

I forgot to say.. I add an extra racking and settling stage with my beer. Always bottles, never kegs. Plus, use the right yeast, not necessarily what comes with the kit.

Thanks again Jenny, its something that me and the missus have talked about having another crack at.

[jansman]

When it comes to beer, then use Muntons or Coopers kits. I am not a lager boy, but my wife likes a drop, and the Australian lager from coopers is bang on.

[Deeps]

When it comes to beer, then use Muntons or Coopers kits. I am not a lager boy, but my wife likes a drop, and the Australian lager from coopers is bang on.

A while back I did have a nose around and there's a LOT of options out there, we're working our way back round to giving it another go. Cheers for the steerage.

[Djorn]

Hi All

Interesting read there team, I also have been making beer and wine over the last few years with different results, then I found a still on Amazon, now into making spirits from scratch, excellent results...my experience has led to the idea of being able to make bio fuel...got the process down to being able to produce 85%, with some effort I could probably mix it with mineral oil to produce a crude Bio diesel..

[Arwen Thebard]

Hi All

Interesting read there team, I also have been making beer and wine over the last few years with different results, then I found a still on Amazon, now into making spirits from scratch, excellent results...my experience has led to the idea of being able to make bio fuel...got the process down to being able to produce 85%, with some effort I could probably mix it with mineral oil to produce a crude Bio diesel..

Great prepper skill that, would be much in demand I'm sure.