Hi

How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?

Wendy

"Sunny Girl" wrote in message
...
: Hi
:
: How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?
:
: Wendy
:
Squeeze them gently and if they are not firm they are getting ready , if
they give a nice bit they are ready, and of course if they're not the red
ones , they go yellower when they are ready. The other way is to try them!

On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 14:30:53 +0000 (UTC), "Sunny Girl"
wrote:

Hi

How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?

Wendy

For cooking etc, they're ready any time they're big enough. For
dessert they're ready when the blackbirds have eaten them ;~))
Rod

Weed my address to reply

http://website.lineone.net/~rodcraddock/index.html

Rod wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 14:30:53 +0000 (UTC), "Sunny Girl"
wrote:

Hi

How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?

Wendy

For cooking etc, they're ready any time they're big enough. For
dessert they're ready when the blackbirds have eaten them ;~))

And for wine, they must be unripe. I don't understand why, but it's
true: somehow the flavour which works best for wine diminishes as
they ripen. True for cooking, too, as Rod says.

--
Mike.

On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 22:10:39 +0100, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:

Rod wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 14:30:53 +0000 (UTC), "Sunny Girl"
wrote:

Hi

How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?

Wendy

For cooking etc, they're ready any time they're big enough. For
dessert they're ready when the blackbirds have eaten them ;~))

And for wine, they must be unripe. I don't understand why

Define criteria !
I've been doing 5gall of gooseberry anually since '70
the later I can leave them (ie.beginning to burst but before the birds
find them) the better !
When they are unripe it is a characteristically country gooseberry
wine,,
(I know, my mother used to make it, floating yeast on toast in a
covered crock etc ! ),,
,, later it can be a nice white wine !

Hi
How can I tell when my gooseberries are ready?
Wendy

Ready for what ?
cooking
freezing
eating fresh of the bush
winemaking
etc&etc ?

The message
from (Corncrake) contains these words:

/snip/

(I know, my mother used to make it, floating yeast on toast in a
covered crock etc ! ),,
,, later it can be a nice white wine !

Coo! That's how I was taught to make it by our housekeeper back in the
days when it was a clandestine activity. (I was about ten, and knowing
she made wines at home pestered her something rotten to show me how.)

I used to make about a gallon of rather too sweet dandelion and another
of parsnip, and it lasted about a year with the help of a medicine glass
bought from F.W.Woolworth for 1d, and a lot of self-control. Being at
boarding school helped too, as I had to leave it behind in my shed.

The last time I used the toast and bakers' yeast method was in 1955 when
I made five gallons of beer: after that I used to beg a bit of brewers'
yeast from the local brewery, from where I used to buy my crushed malted
barley. (Rebagged into smaller units, and with several trips home on my
bicycle.)

The first time, I took a hundredweight sack home on the bus, and getting
it to the bus-stop and home from the home bus-stop. (I was fifteen at
the time. That experience convinced me that I had to find an easier
way.)

--
Rusty
Emus to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from (Corncrake) contains these
words:

/snip/

(I know, my mother used to make it, floating yeast on toast in a
covered crock etc ! ),,
,, later it can be a nice white wine !

Coo! That's how I was taught to make it by our housekeeper back in
the
days when it was a clandestine activity. [...]

What _was_ the point of the toast-floating method? It always struck
me as absurd.

Interesting, Corncrake: individual taste, I suppose. Certainly I
always used whitecurrants ripe.

--
Mike.
--
Mike.

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 09:41:54 +0100, Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
(snips)
back in the days when it was a clandestine activity.

Cor :-!)
So Chancellor Reginald Maudling is your hero as well then ? !!
Actually, where I was it wasnt particularly clandestine, technically
illegal to home brew beer and ale but nobody seemed to worry abut it,
which is probably why Reg. did away with the regs.
Home wine making, as far as I remember, was never illegal.

I used to make about a gallon of rather too sweet dandelion and another
of parsnip

our favourites - burnet, blackberry, elderflower.
but it took ages to pick enough burnets to make a gallon

1955 when
I made five gallons of beer: after that I used to beg a bit of brewers'
yeast from the local brewery, from where I used to buy my crushed malted
barley. (Rebagged into smaller units, and with several trips home on my
bicycle.)

Cor ! Me too, sack across the bicycle crossbar and walk it home from
the brewery, 'twas amazing what got, errr, 'liberated' from that
brewery !
Malt extract was sometimes available from a baker as well, I dont
remember what they used it for ??
I was a few years later than you with my first beer, about 1958/9/ish

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 11:01:24 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:

Interesting, Corncrake: individual taste, I suppose.

I was just about to offer that as a possibility

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 11:01:24 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:
What _was_ the point of the toast-floating method? It always struck
me as absurd.

Hmm, good point, I dont know, but I'm thinking,,,

bakers yeast is not as brewing-friendly as the yeasts that we have
access to these days.
Perhaps it would otherwise just drop to the bottom too quickly and sit
there, thus the only active bit would be the top layer with little in
suspension in the wine ?
Yeast needs air to multiply and bulk up, perhaps it was a method of
geting it moist but in good contact with the air to get it working
well ?

The other question is : why was bakers yeast used anyway ?
I know it was readily available in the corner shop, and not everyone
had a friend in a brewery. But brewers yeast could have been passed
round just like the ginger-beer plants (remember those ! ) and the
bees-yeast cultures.

I'm still thinking ,,,,

Corncrake wrote:
[...]
The other question is : why was bakers yeast used anyway ?
I know it was readily available in the corner shop, and not
everyone
had a friend in a brewery. But brewers yeast could have been passed
round just like the ginger-beer plants (remember those ! ) and the
bees-yeast cultures.

I'm still thinking ,,,,

I don't think enough people were home-brewing to form county-wide
networks of yeast-culture exchange. And the stuff does get
contaminated with wild yeasts and bacteria quite easily in inexpert
hands: few people would have been able to keep a culture pure for
long. So baker's yeast was probably the best idea as well as the only
one. It can work pretty well if you're skilful and don't mind a bit
of waste and rather lower strengths; I wouldn't recommend it, though.

Bees-yeast? Educate me, please, O Guru.

--
Mike.

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 12:46:11 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:
I don't think enough people were home-brewing

I agree that home-brewing of beer was not all that common but home
winemaking was very common ( well it was in the NW of England in my
youth !),

contaminated with wild yeasts and bacteria quite easily in inexpert
hands: few people would have been able to keep a culture pure for
long.

Ginger beer yeast plant cultures seemed to survive well enough !

rather lower strengths;

very true

I wouldn't recommend it, though.

Nor me.

Bees-yeast? Educate me, please,

Maybe I should have typed "bees-wine-yeast" ?
A yeast that clumped together in little fuzzy lumps and strings that
would be in constant motion up and down the jar of liquid usually to
be found on a kitchen or pantry windowsill (depending on time of year
and angle of sunlight)
Fed with a dolop of sugar or syrup from time to time etc, like a
ginger beer plant, split when growing too big and passed on to a
friend (who probably had one already from another friend, so extras
would be thrown away !)


O Guru.

Dunno bout that !

Corncrake wrote:
On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 12:46:11 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:
[...]
Bees-yeast? Educate me, please,

Maybe I should have typed "bees-wine-yeast" ?
A yeast that clumped together in little fuzzy lumps and strings
that
would be in constant motion up and down the jar of liquid usually
to
be found on a kitchen or pantry windowsill (depending on time of
year
and angle of sunlight)
Fed with a dolop of sugar or syrup from time to time etc, like a
ginger beer plant, split when growing too big and passed on to a
friend (who probably had one already from another friend, so extras
would be thrown away !)

You've helped me with a step toward clarifying something I read in a
sixties cookery book I sadly no longer have, so can't give the title.
The author was describing a friend's kitchen, and referred to a
demijohn of "bee wine" on the windowsill, with, s/he said, a dead bee
going up and down in it. Have you got more detail?

(Was it Katherine Whitehorn's _Cooking in a Bedsitter_ ? How we've
travelled on since then!)


O Guru.

Dunno bout that !

If you can answer the question, I think you'll have earned the title!

--
Mike.

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 13:23:14 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:

The author was describing a friend's kitchen, and referred to a
demijohn of "bee wine" on the windowsill, with, s/he said, a dead bee
going up and down in it. Have you got more detail?

I dont recollect ever having seen a _real_ bee ( dead or otherwise or
dead-drunk) in them, I have always assumed that it was so called cos
it was always busy with activity as in busy bees buzzing about and
doing good work etc,
( and "fly yeast" wouldn't have sounded so nice !! )
I suspect that the dead bee tale is suspect.
And they were usually large general purpose glass jars, like in pickle
jars, not demi-johns. Didnt those catch on much later ? Or maybe only
richer households out of my ken had pucker johns ?


(Was it Katherine Whitehorn's _Cooking in a Bedsitter_ ? How we've
travelled on since then!)

Just so !
ere hang on half a mo. I think I still have that in the library,,,,,,