Just started 2 gallons of elderberry&blackberry wine, ingredients makes 2 gallons
Elderberries-3kg
Blackberries-500g
Red grape juice-2lt
Sugar-1.7kg
Youngs super wine yeast compound-2tsp(1 per DJ)
water
with a bit of luck i might get some more berries at weekend
A couple of experimental juice wines started last weak:
- a loose approximation of Federweißer made from supermarket WGJ with a tanin and acid boost, actually quite pleasant and certainly similar to what was intended
- "blueberry dancer" based on 1l T*sco blueberry juice drink and made up to the gallon with RGJ (plus sugar, tanin, acid, etc), still a way to go with this one but a sneaky taste shows promise
The freezer is bulging at the seems with hedgerow and other fruit, so my visiting nephew may get an induction into the world of brewing next week..
Curently collecting recipes for The Little Book of Liqueurs..
Your sister/brother (in law/not in law) will, from this moment forwards, curse your name. Unless they like your homebrew, in which case they'll worship you.
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
As he's twelve, I figure we can do a hedgerow port that I can mature until he's 16/18/21. I've been pondering the elderberry and oranges based hedgerow port recipe as it looks like a little of the cooked juice could be intercepted and diverted into a cordial for immediate consumption.
Curently collecting recipes for The Little Book of Liqueurs..
Waiting for about 9 litres of blackberry "pineau" to mature. Pineau is meant to be a blend of white wine or verjus plus eau-de-vie and sugar. It is drunk as an aperitif, contains around 16 or 17% alcohol, but commercial production contains a great deal of sugar and I find it cloyingly sweet. My blackberry version is made from 8 litres of muscadet wine, 1 litre of spirit, 1 kg blackberries and a mere 250g sugar. Alcohol content should come out at around 15% and the final product should be ready in about 3 weeks after 8 weeks steeping.
Grape wine which uses the natural yeast in the fruit for fermentation.
Collect about 5Kg of grapes, wash and mash in a container. Leave to ferment for about 5 days and then draw off the juice. Dissolve 1Kg sugar in hot water and mix with juice in a demi-john ans add enough water to make up to the gallon. Insert airlock and leave for 3-4 months to bubble and then bottle.