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BLACKBERRY WINE
RECIPE
Makes One Gallon of Blackberry Wine (5 litres)
|
METHOD
The
fruit must be checked over first for any small maggots - especially if
you are using wild hedgerow blackberries - and thoroughly washed.
Place the fruit in a white food grade bin or bucket with a lid and pour around 2 pints of boiling water over the fruit, stir well, crushing the fruit to allow the juice to mix with the water.
When it has cooled sufficiently (body heat), add one teaspoon of Pectolase (this is a product that breaks down the starch within the fruit, allowing better absorption of the fruit into the water).
Cover and leave at room temperature over night.
The next day dissolve the sugar in 2 pints of hot water and add to the blackberries, and when cool add a good wine yeast, yeast nutrient and red grape concentrate and give it a good stirring (try not to entrain too much air in the must at this time).
Cover closely with the lid and leave in a warm place (75F/21C) and allow the initial, mad, rushing fermentation to begin.
Place the fruit in a white food grade bin or bucket with a lid and pour around 2 pints of boiling water over the fruit, stir well, crushing the fruit to allow the juice to mix with the water.
When it has cooled sufficiently (body heat), add one teaspoon of Pectolase (this is a product that breaks down the starch within the fruit, allowing better absorption of the fruit into the water).
Cover and leave at room temperature over night.
The next day dissolve the sugar in 2 pints of hot water and add to the blackberries, and when cool add a good wine yeast, yeast nutrient and red grape concentrate and give it a good stirring (try not to entrain too much air in the must at this time).
Cover closely with the lid and leave in a warm place (75F/21C) and allow the initial, mad, rushing fermentation to begin.
After
around 5 days strain the liquid into a demi-john and top up the liquid
to around an inch (25mm) below the neck of your demi-john, that way
allowing room for the bubbles from the initial burst
of vigorous fermentation to subside safely within the
demi-john,
and that way not having any of your wine gushing out through your
airlock.
Leave in a warm place (around 75F/21C) and out of direct sunlight, as the direct sunlight can warm it up a little too much and cause the yeast to stick or die.
If you rack this off once a month, that will be fine, (after the first racking, top up the must to the neck of the demi-john with cooled, boiled water) and upon the fermentation ending a campden tablet should be added to preserve the wine. If using a hydrometer the finished S.G. should read 0.998 or lower.
The campden tablet basically kills off any bacteria within the wine, yeast included, to stop further fermentation.
This, in effect, has produced a dry red wine, and the wine can now be left to mature in a cool dark place (red wines do not like the light) or if crystal clear, bottled. If you would like to sweeten the wine just add a non-fermenting wine sweetener.
To make it into a sweet wine by an alternative, more natural method, simply skip the campden tablet and add a few ounces of sugar to the demi-john, that way allowing the yeast to ferment on.
Once the fermentation has stopped, check again with the hydrometer, and if the reading is around the 1.000 mark, a further two ounces of sugar can be added and the fermentation allowed to continue once again.
This process can be repeated until the last reading you get on the hydrometer is around the 1.003/1.004 mark, which means the yeast has all died and the wine contains all the alcohol it can, perhaps around 14% or 15%, and will ferment no more.
Once it is at this stage, simply rack and bottle it to mature it.
Many variations of wine can be made using blackberries as the bulk of the fruit, including elderberries, loganberries, tayberries, raspberries, in fact virtually any kind of berry you can lay your hands on, as blackberries blend in with most fruit marvelously, even apples.
By using this recipe, and replacing a pound or more of the blackberries with the same weight of another fruit you will be producing your own variations.
Another alternative is to omit the red wine concentrate, but this will mean a thinner wine, but then again, this can be over come with bananas (see alternative port wine for how this is done).
Leave in a warm place (around 75F/21C) and out of direct sunlight, as the direct sunlight can warm it up a little too much and cause the yeast to stick or die.
If you rack this off once a month, that will be fine, (after the first racking, top up the must to the neck of the demi-john with cooled, boiled water) and upon the fermentation ending a campden tablet should be added to preserve the wine. If using a hydrometer the finished S.G. should read 0.998 or lower.
The campden tablet basically kills off any bacteria within the wine, yeast included, to stop further fermentation.
This, in effect, has produced a dry red wine, and the wine can now be left to mature in a cool dark place (red wines do not like the light) or if crystal clear, bottled. If you would like to sweeten the wine just add a non-fermenting wine sweetener.
To make it into a sweet wine by an alternative, more natural method, simply skip the campden tablet and add a few ounces of sugar to the demi-john, that way allowing the yeast to ferment on.
Once the fermentation has stopped, check again with the hydrometer, and if the reading is around the 1.000 mark, a further two ounces of sugar can be added and the fermentation allowed to continue once again.
This process can be repeated until the last reading you get on the hydrometer is around the 1.003/1.004 mark, which means the yeast has all died and the wine contains all the alcohol it can, perhaps around 14% or 15%, and will ferment no more.
Once it is at this stage, simply rack and bottle it to mature it.
Many variations of wine can be made using blackberries as the bulk of the fruit, including elderberries, loganberries, tayberries, raspberries, in fact virtually any kind of berry you can lay your hands on, as blackberries blend in with most fruit marvelously, even apples.
By using this recipe, and replacing a pound or more of the blackberries with the same weight of another fruit you will be producing your own variations.
Another alternative is to omit the red wine concentrate, but this will mean a thinner wine, but then again, this can be over come with bananas (see alternative port wine for how this is done).
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