The wine is in the demijohn and it's bubbling away beautifully! My washhouse has slight pleasant smell of fermenting sugar and fruit and it looks rather beautiful I think. It's also exciting to watch the bubbles bubbling everytime I walk past. I was a bit concerned that wine had gotten into the airlock but apparently that's not really an issue.
I've started thinking about what other wines I will make. Elderflower, gorse flower and dandelions won't be ready until Spring and I want to get an least one other brew going before then. I'm going to keep researching other 'weeds' that I can use but so far I haven't found much. Perhaps parsley at a stretch because there's a lot on campus and I know fields of wild parsley in Wellington.
I'm also considering going down another tangent and focusing on using materials that would normally not be utilised which encompasses the 'weeds' but could also include dumpster food.
Dumpster diving is collection of food which supermarkets have thrown out due to being past the best before date, superficial damage to packaging and sometimes it's just the end of the line (I found five heaters and two soda streams once as the shop changed seasons or models or something, there certainly wasn't anything wrong with any of the products). The food is usually still in delicious condition but due to bureaucracy and capitalist drive for consumption it's thrown into the dumpsters and goes to waste. Food in landfills is not a useful or healthy ingredient, the decomposition of food is faster and therefore interferes with the decomposition of other materials. 23% of methane emission in the USA are from food in landfills. Food wastage is massive problem all over the world, in the USA 40% of all food goes uneaten (NRDC, 2013). This is appalling given widespread poverty and hunger.
So without wanting to get into too much of a rant, I think it would be appropriate for me to make wine out of dumpstered ingredients over the winter when there's no weeds to make wine from. Luckily I don't need to be too picky either as I've got recipes for all sorts; apples, beetroot, bananas, carrot, celery, kiwifruit, lemon, parsnip, rose petal, tomato and many, many more. Just fermenting stuff and sugar makes wine, kind of, the question is if it actually tastes good. As dumpster diving is slightly illegal, I may just say that the food has been unknowningly upcycled to keep it a bit more politically correct for school.
Here's a really cheesy short clip about dumpster diving but it portrays it quite well.
Here's a link to Wellington initiative which collects food after the vegie markets and gives it back to the community through several food banks and charities.
And just while I'm on a roll here's a couple of links to easy ways to make a compost bin for your flat so that you can let your food wastage decompose where it should do.
If only saving the world was really as easy making wine, dumpstering and composting. But at least they're interesting and rewarding activities.
Reducing Food Waste and Losses in the U.S. Food Supply | NRDC. (n.d.). Natural Resources Defense Council – The Earth’s Best Defense | NRDC. Retrieved March 22, 2013, from http://www.nrdc.org/food/wasted-food.asp
ohh oh maby you could try couch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elymus_repens
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vitawise.com/benefits-of-couch-grass.html
it has been used in medicine for yonks and most front yards have it... available in autumn =)
also used for incence..
I'm one of those lucky souls who doesn't have couch in my garden!! Though I do know of a few people who have it. I'll look into it but at the moment I'm going to stick with fruit and flowers as they're a little more predictable. Thanks for the suggestion.
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