So far we've given it 7 days in the bucket, now got to 10 days in the demijon and need to (according to recipe) rack it off into a bucket, add more dissolved sugar water and put it back in the demijon.
But.
The water in the airlock stopped bubbling a couple of days ago.
It definitely smelled like alcohol when we seived the fruit and put the liquid along with sugar water into the demijon, but should I really be adding more sugar?
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated
"It's breaking the circle.
Going to work, to get money, to translate into things, which you use up, which means you go to work again, etc, etc.
The Norm.
What we should be doing is working at the job of life itself."
- Tom Good, The Good Life.
Have read the recipe and looks lke a hell of a fag to me!!!The blackberry wine we made was -
3lb blackberries
3lb sugar
1 gall boiling water
1tsp yeast
Put berries in bucket,with sugar and pour a gallon of boiling water over.Leave to cool to blood temp and add yeast.Leave for five days to ferment,stiring daily.Rack off into demijohns and(we have)left for about ten days to ferment/clear(ish).then bottle.Tastes lush and makes my OH lean on my shoulder lots!!!
I would say that your brew is fairly close to the bottling stage but without seeing it could not be sure.Basically,if it tastes good,and is fairly clear I would bottle it and leave it standing on a shelf(Then if it does explode you only lose what blows out the top.
Good luck
I wouldn't be too fixed on length of time etc, either. It all depends on your circumstances; my kitchen is about outside temperature, so pretty cold. The raisin wine has been sitting in the pot for two weeks instead of the one it says in most recipes, and I'm sure it'll need more time before racking, too. Last year I made pretty good blackcurrant wine which sat in the demijohn for ages - never once bubbled (or only when I wasn't looking!), consequently never got racked, and almost chucked down the sink, when I realised just in time that it was actually rather good stuff...
Ina
I'm a size 10, really; I wear a 20 for comfort. (Gina Yashere)
The basic recipe looks OK, but the faffing around is totally unnecessary with today's yeasts. If the berries and all of the sugar had been crushed/dissolved in water, any modern yeast would have fermented it out without too much problem. The method used was designed to get max. alcohol production by gradually acclimatising the yeast - but you don't need to do that nowadays unless you want to make super-strength wine (18 to 22%).
What you need to do is work out how much sugar you've already put in, add to the total another 6 to 8 ozs. for the residual sugars in the berries, then calculate the current alcohol content at 1 lb of sugar = 5% alcohol. If that's OK for you, leave it as it is. If you want more, add the remaining sugar - the yeast still present will reactivate and start fermenting again. However, it may be a very slow fermentation - you have been warned.
The recipe calls for bottling at a ridiculously early stage - it's begging for trouble. When the wine has finished and cleared, rack it off the sediment into another demijohn (adding Campden tablet or sodium metabisulphite if you're into that), stick an airlock back on and LEAVE IT IN THERE until a couple of days before you want to drink it (anything between two weeks, if you're like me, to two years, if you're teetotal). You must be entirely sure that there is no yeast left in there before you bottle it, and that usually takes a few rackings as the wine matures in bulk.
Old recipes are fine in general, but you have to read them carefully and appreciate why they were made the way they were. Usually, you can cut down appreciably on the amount of fruit, and certainly on the amount of sugar. But DO NOT bottle when an old recipe advises you to do so - old yeasts would have been dead by then: not so the yeasts we use now.
EDIT: Of course, you COULD just have a stuck fermentation. Taste it. If it's very sweet, come back and tell us. If it's dry, then carry on as above.
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
Well, we racked and tasted - wine was very dry. Added some more sugar & have let it ferment some more. Fingers crossed we haven't messed it up!
"It's breaking the circle.
Going to work, to get money, to translate into things, which you use up, which means you go to work again, etc, etc.
The Norm.
What we should be doing is working at the job of life itself."
- Tom Good, The Good Life.
To be honest, i have now come to a set procedure when making wine. (as a result of corks shooting across the room followed by a stream of various wines that had not completely fermented.)
A big 55 litre drum in the kitchen is normally the primary fermenter, where the must sits for 5 - 7 days.
It is then racked off into a 5 gallon secondary fermenter for 3 months.
Leave for 3 months, and then rack again.
Leave for 3 months and bottle.
I find this ensures that fermentation is complete, helps in clearing the wine, and also matures the wine. I also then leave it for a year after bottling until i open it.
As a general question, what's Blackberry wine like? I've got some berries, and I'm not sure whether to make wine or jam with them, I don't think I'll get much more than 3 lbs so it's an either or....
