Any foragers out there?

[fury_tea]

I love the idea of foraging, and I'd love to make a beer, wine or cider using foraged ingredients but I rarely do it. I'll sometimes grab nettles for nettle soup and once made a pretty awful nettle beer (might have another crack at it this year). I get blackberries from time to time for cider or wheat beer and sometimes grab wild garlic for stir frys, but that's about the extent of it. Might have a proper go at it this year. Anybody know of any good foragable ingredients for alcohol making and what time of year is good to find them/what kind of areas?

 

[Drunkula]

You might be interested in Andy Hamilton : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb_HM8GmI0_XeeTBKC2zRhg

He's got this here book called Booze For Free that I've got but never really read properly but there's tons of stuff in it.

 

[An Ankoù]

You might be interested in Andy Hamilton : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb_HM8GmI0_XeeTBKC2zRhg

He's got this here book called Booze For Free that I've got but never really read properly but there's tons of stuff in it.

Just had a look at the kindle edition on amazon. Looks a bit dodgy to me as he always refers to "booze" and make quips about sticking ones cock in beer. But, I love reading this stuff and I reckon I can afford 6 euros for a secondhand copy. You reminded me of this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sacred-Her...=1581234072&sprefix=beer+herbs,aps,219&sr=8-1
Which I've had for years and never fully read. I'll find it, dust it down and give it a good oggling while the other one's coming.

 

[hedgerowpete]

i used to do it at a semi proffessional level. we also used to plant hedgerows to get a better selection of crops as well as trees and fruits

 

[An Ankoù]

Anybody know of any good foragable ingredients for alcohol making and what time of year is good to find them/what kind of areas?

You might get hold of a copy of Richard Mabey's "Food for Free". I've had this since the early seventies, when I found it fascinating. I see the latest edition is 2012.

 

[Oneflewover]

You might get hold of a copy of Richard Mabey's "Food for Free". I've had this since the early seventies, when I found it fascinating. I see the latest edition is 2012.

Great book. I've got two versions, a bookcase copy and a 'pocket' version

 

[geigercntr]

Both are good books. A couple of others I like are "The Forager's Calendar" by John Wright and "Foraging" published by Wild Food UK. Both really good.

I do a bit of ad hoc gathering: if I see something exciting I'll grab some: mainly fruits and mushrooms. I'm less confident/experienced with leafy stuff. Keep meaning to brew with foraged stuff, but haven't ventured much yet. I do have a rosehip & hawthorn mead concoction sat in a DJ at the moment. Probably won't be ready til ~August or so.

Maybe I'll brew that nettle beer I keep meaning to do this year! In the meantime, I'll keep following Little Earth Project, Wildflower Brewing and Wilderness Brewery on Twitspace :)

 

[jceg316]

I keep going on to my wife about all the herbs brewers used to put in beer before hops, things like mugwort, yarrow, heather etc and as a plant enthusiast she points them out to me when we go on walks. Wild hops do grow about the place as well, although I grow enough of my own so I don't need to forage them.

On our farm we have a hedgerow filled with damson trees and I made damson wine for the first time this year, along with blackberry wine. There's also the odd plum tree and sloe berries. There's a common near us which has loads of apple trees which seem to have grown naturally and loads of damsons as well. I pick loads of apples and make cider from there.

I've tried to make dandelion wine before but the amount of work that goes into it is not worth it in my opinion. I've made nettle beer before as well but I didn't like it too much.

 

[Hanglow]

I've not really brewed with wild ingredients, done a nettle beer before which was ok but not worth doing again and elderflower champagne that was nice enough. I usually forage just for food, mainly mushrooms, wild garlic and few flowered leeks to ferment, brambles, blaeberries etc. Would like to up my foraging this year to use hogweed to eat and also use douglas fir in an ale or two.

 

[fury_tea]

I've not really brewed with wild ingredients, done a nettle beer before which was ok but not worth doing again and elderflower champagne that was nice enough. I usually forage just for food, mainly mushrooms, wild garlic and few flowered leeks to ferment, brambles, blaeberries etc. Would like to up my foraging this year to use hogweed to eat and also use douglas fir in an ale or two.

How did you get into mushroom foraging? I would love to forage some but scared of killing myself or going on a accidental trip

 

[Clint]

Mushrooms are best picked from Asda unless you are 200% sure...you could kill yourself and others easily!

 

[Hanglow]

As long as you can positively identify them with a couple of sources and stick to a select few, it's very hard to poison yourself! I used a couple of books, the River Cottage one is very basic and was the first one I got, then also a Collins one and another bigger one. Also youtube channels like wildfood UK are a good resource.

Here's a couple of pictures of some I picked last summer

 

[Oneflewover]

As long as you can positively identify them with a couple of sources and stick to a select few, it's very hard to poison yourself! I used a couple of books, the River Cottage one is very basic and was the first one I got, then also a Collins one and another bigger one. Also youtube channels like wildfood UK are a good resource.

Here's a couple of pictures of some I picked last summer

View attachment 22984 View attachment 22985

Top are ceps?

We get quite a lot of horse mushrooms in the garden for several months of the year. They're ok, bit strong.

 

[Hanglow]

Yeah, those ones are pine boletes. I dried most of them, probably picked 50kg worth.

I've never picked horse mushrooms, everything I pick tends to come from forests. I like the strong tasting ones like hen of the woods and winter chanterelles, they add a great umami flavour to soups and stews

 

[geigercntr]

This time of year is a good time to start getting yr eye in to mushrooming. Not many species about and a couple of easily identifiable 'edibles' like jelly ear and velvet shanks reasonably common (both have toxic lookalikes, but are fairly simple to tell apart)

 

[Rodcx500z]

I agree with Clint

 

[chrisb8]

I forage sloes for gin infusing and have recently added a spent batch of sloes to an ale in secondary to see what happens...

 

[Dutto]

The photograph is of foraged Crab Apple and Plum Jam that I forgot about so (obviously) turned into a wine!

Foraged sometime during 2010 and turned into jam, lost in the cupboard for four years and fermented in 2016, it was an absolute bugger to clear, but it must have tasted good enough to drink because:

1. I hate pouring stuff down the drain. and,
2. I don't have any of it sitting on a shelf!

I love foraging for stuff and can include Wild Garlic, Sloes, Quinces, Plums, Apples, Cherries, Damsons, Pig Nuts etc amongst my finds ...

... and even after vomiting a night away on a sleeper train heading for London from Aberdeen (I had picked and eaten what I now know to be Yellow Stainer mushrooms) I still love the hobby; but I am just a bit tad more careful about what I pick and eat!

 

[Clint]

Christ you're like a goat...

 

[Drunkula]

I do a bit of what I call 'Urban Foraging' and hang about by the bins outside KFC. You wouldn't believe how much meat some people leave on the bones. It's criminal.

There's a group of 'girls' that come every Wednesdy after "Young at Heart" over the sally army and you can bet without fail that at least one of them has forgotten her teeth. There's one called Joan that has a real go at chewing but can't get anywhere. It's like watching a hamster chewing the bars on a cage. By the time I've swooped on her leftovers it's like they've been tenderised to perfection by her incessant gumming and slathering. It tastes a little bit more of lipstick than I'd like but it sort of sets you up for the inevitable snogging.