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Wild Berry Wine
le0n:
^^ some mighty tasty holidays coming up for you 8)
the beautyberries are 'ok' when eaten raw. nothing to write home about, however, they are readily abundant out here and can make a quick snack while walking the trails.
unfortunately, i had to scratch the idea of getting any Muskadine or Elderberry in the mix. just can't find enough.
*******************************************************************
EDIT: Here are the ingredients as of 13 September 2016.
(If I add anything else to it, I'll document it here.)
Fruit & Sugar:
* 3 lbs - Peppervine Berries (Processed as previously described)
* 12 lbs - American Beautyberries
* 3.5 Gallons - Reverse Osmosis Water
* 8 oz - Chopped Raisins
* 2 - Bananas
* 9 lbs - Granulated Sugar
Additives:
* 7.5 tsp - Acid Blend
* 2.5 tsp - Super Ferment
* 6 - Campden Tablets (1 in the Peppervine juice, 5 in the final Must)
* 1 - Package of Yeast - Lavlin RC-212 Bourgovin
Clarifiers:
* 10 tbs - Bentonite Slurry*******************************************************************
fast forward to yesterday. i picked the last bit of beautyberries to make my 12lb mark and began cleaning them.
threw them all in the pot and started heating them:
kept them here at this temp for about an hour to try to coax some of the color out of the skins.
while picking these, your hands do not get purple. they get slightly tinted yellow/orange.
i added the peppervine juice along with 8oz of chopped raisins and two bananas to the mixture at this point.
after about 30 minutes at this temp, things started to smell a lot sweeter; unlike the semi-cooking plants odor it had going on.
it revealed it's color right around that time too. i'm really hoping the color will carry through to the final racking.
from what i've read on the very few bits and pieces of recipes that i can find online, the color can change to a orange color.
i don't want that to happen, but, we'll see:
^^ note how a lot of the skin color is missing from the berries ;D
that spoonful of juice was really, really good.
i setup the RO water, sugar and the bentonite slurry in the fermenter, then added the must to the bag:
and here is where it will sit for a few days (weeks, if i can get away with it >:D):
i'll take a few measurements and pitch the yeast around midnight tonight.
Chief RID:
I will work on breaking your code on day if I try doing this. (: Very entertaining read leon. Sure the end product will be outstanding.
TrevorM:
Looks great le0n! Shame you couldn't find enough Elderberry's I've heard they make fantastic wine. I don't think you missed out to much with the muskadines, at least the wine I had wasn't my favorite. Although I think that was just muskadine, it would probably do a lot better mixed. Out of interest was the Campden tablet to help with the needles, or as an extra precaution against wild yeasts?
That reminds me I've got 5 gallons of mead in my garage I need to check on it's been several years, hopefully it doesn't taste like diesel anymore :D
le0n:
i'll keep an eye out for the elderberry trees throughout the next year now that i know what they look like.
yes. the campden is for the unwanted bacteria; wild yeasts get taken care of too.
Edit: Regarding the needles, gravity works here because the needles are insoluble in water. I used the bentonite slurry to get this done more effectively. They get pulled to the bottom and you can rack off the upper volume.
I'm going to do a complete writeup on what i've done and edit the posts above so I know exactly what I did. This way I can look back and have a reference, even if it fails on any aspect of it.
To date, I still haven't seen a finished glass of this wine.
le0n:
from last night. before pitching (1.088 SG):
temp of 79°F (in a ~75°F kitchen):
temperature corrected to 1.09 SG
set, go:
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