I hoped that I would do another blackberry forage and make my usual Blackberry and Elderberry wine, but alas I missed out on the blackberries.
So what to do? Straight elderberry wine takes an age (like 3 years +) to become a delight. I have nothing against laying down a bottle or two for some years, but gallons??? Not my style. It therefore had to be a mixed fruit wine. So that meant visiting some freezers for some bargains. And we found some. This recipe is a first for me, it's a mix of many berries, currants and cherries too. I have no idea what it'll be like but I expect a red with lots of body and fruitiness.
Ingredients (for 5 gallons):
- 3 kg frozen, foraged Elderberries
- 3 kg frozen sweet dark cherries (sainsbury's)
- 3 kg frozen mixed summer fruits (sainsbury's)
- 4 kg Sugar
- 5 Teaspoons Pectolase
- 3 Campden tablets (crushed)
- 1 Teaspoon Tartaric acid
- 3 Teaspoons Citric acid
- Yeast Nutrient (nutrivin, Brupak)
- Sauternes yeast (Ritchies)
Method
The fruits, still frozen, were tipped into a 5 gallon fermenting bin. Yes it is a heap!
Sugar was dissolved in a gallon or so of boiled and still hot water. This was tipped over the fruit. Then the volume made up to around 4 gallons with cold water. The acids, campden and enzyme were dissolved in water and then added to the fermenting bucket also. It was all given a serious lengthy stir and then left, tightly covered, for a couple of days. Mashing the fruit was not a concern to me as the freezing and thawing should have served the same purpose.
When I came back to it I made the volume up to fill the bucket and stirred well. The gravity measured 1092. That's quite high, but as the volume of solids was significant I wasn't worried. I added the yeast nutrient and yeast and covered. Each day the must was stirred sloshily to get some air into solution. After about a week the must was transferred to a barrel to ferment under an airlock.
The volume of liquid I got at this stage was around 20 litres, somewhat short of the 23 litres that more or less makes a gallon. If I made this up to 5 gallons with the addition of water alone then the true gravity of the original must would have been 1081. Assuming this ferments out to a gravity of around 995, which is normal for sauternes yeast in my experience, then the wine would be close to 12% ABV. This is fine for me, so that's what I did. It's now sitting under an airlock and measures about 5 gallons.
(Hold your horses if you make this wine, all that pulp is still useful. The next post will tell you what to do with it if you want to make a Rosé).
In about a week I'll transfer this to 5 single gallon demi-johns because I'll need the 5 gallon barrel for something else. when it stops fermenting then I'll rack, degas and stabilise. It'll probably need something like 6-12 months before it'll even be worth trying, but hopefully next winter there'll be plenty of big-bodied fruity red wine to drink.
Update 12th June 2012;
Well this must be the biggest surprise I've had for some time when it comes to brewing wine. I said that I hoped it would be good to drink in the winter, but here we are in summer and it is ready, and it is delicious too. Very fruity, nice body, nice feel, the cherries stand out form the background, but not so much that it tastes like cherry wine. My intuition tells me that the elderberries were crucial, and so I'm pretty staggered that it's ready so soon. Not complaining tho I may be missing a red wine when winter comes around cos the chances of this lasting til then are slim!
So fellow brewers, if you have a lousy blackberry season (or just miss it) and if waiting years for a straight elderberry wine isn't your cup of tea, then grab yourself some frozen berries to go with your elderberries and you'll be laughing.
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