Blackberry wine

[Brewtrog]

You could always add nonfermentable sweeteners (or sugars e.g. lactose) to add sweetness. Personally I prefer dry wines. Most wines improve with age and a dry wine will certainly get smoother.

[Zech]

Well if I end up with two gallons to drink young and another two that need ageing, that's not such a bad result.

But wait - lactose isn't fermentable? I thought yeast would eat just about anything. (Sweeteners are out of the question - yuck!)

[Brewtrog]

Lactose isn't fermentable. Milk stout is a type of stout that has lactose added to make it sweet. It's quite a nice style.

[MKG]

The trouble with lactose is that its only one fifth as sweet as sucrose, so you need to add much more of it to get the same effect. I've never sweetened anything in bulk. With a bit of very pleasant experimentation, you can work out how much ordinary sugar would be needed per bottle and then add that at opening time (in syrup form unless you like crunchy wine). You would need to finish the bottle off within a day or so (what am I saying? ).

[Zech]

I'm taking a similar approach to my rough blackcurrant wine. I have some sloe wine that came out a bit syrupy (I was aiming for sweet, but I overdid it) and the two blend quite nicely. You know, you don't have to do a whole bottle at once - it is possible to mix them in the glass

[benner]

Ok so we racked into 5 demijohns this afternoon (not quite the 6 gallons that my fermenter indicated) had a sample...not bad!
Still plenty of sugar and it's incredibly fruity so will let it ferment out and then decide whether to water it down a bit.

[MKG]

Demijohns are often a gallon and a bit, so you could be nearer 6 gallons than 5. It's always worth marking the real gallon level on your vessels.

[benner]

It's been a while but thought I'd update.

We have a success. As expected it is full-bodied, very fruity and a little but not overly sweet. That's Christmas presents sorted for a select few.

Next venture will be elderberry wine with a couple of kilos of frozen from last year... O.H. says its ok now that the other stuff is finally drinkable.

[Green Aura]

Elderberry is one of my favourite. When you've made it keep a bottle back to turn into a very acceptable "port" by adding sugar and brandy. It's extremely good!

[Brewtrog]

Elderberry is a fantastic wine (no surprise that elderberries have been called the Englishman's grape, rough imported wine used to actually be bulked with elderberry juice to make it more acceptable to the English palate in ye olde days). The best wine I brewed was elderberry, but be ready to let it age. Another good trick is to make a second run wine. Once you've strained the wine off the pulp, add half the amount of water and enough sugar for ~10%, ferment on the pulp for a few days, then strain that off, gives you something closer to a rosé and can be drank much younger

[benner]

Cheers peeps...

I'll give both of those a go