What kind of wild fruits have you fermented?

I have come across a few random trees around town that have some tiny fruits on them, still trying to identify what they are. I really would like to start fermenting almost anything I can get my hands on for free, more for my amusement than for making a delicious beverage. What have you all fermented from the wild? Are there any famously poisonous trees/shrubs that I should avoid? Hopefully I can post a pic of what I have found later today. Thanks for any input.

Yes there are poisonous trees and shrubs, always be sure of why your picking before you use it.

So far I have only used mulberry, but I just started too. Lots of wild edibles to be used.

I've done wild chokecherry, pin cherry, sour cherry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, elderberry, peach, crabapples, grapes, dandelions, cranberry, apple, and so on.

Any edible fruit is possible, and so are edible flowers like lilac and dandelions.

Serviceberries would be good, but we don't have many around here.

I'll do a search for how everyone has done this, but in general, do you just mash the fruit (sterilize it?), then add some good water, pitch some champagne yeast and call it a day?

spenghali said:

I'll do a search for how everyone has done this, but in general, do you just mash the fruit (sterilize it?), then add some good water, pitch some champagne yeast and call it a day?

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In general, there aren't enough sugars in the fruit to make wine, so it's common to add sugar (often 2 pounds per gallon) so that you can have alcohol in the wine.

You mash the fruit, and pour a sulfite solution over it to kill bacteria and wild yeast. You can add other ingredients if you want, for flavor, like a squeeze of lemon or some tannin or acid blend, and dissolve the sugar in water and fill up to a gallon (or whatever the batch size is). The next day, add the yeast and cover the wine. Stir daily for about 5 days, then transfer the wine to a carboy or jug with limited headspace and put an airlock on it. Rack (siphon) whenever there are lees more than 1/4" or so after 45-60 days. That's about it.

Hydrometer readings help, so you know if you've added the correct amount of sugar to get a 12-15% ABV wine (so it preserves it), and so you know when the wine is done.

When it's clear and no longer dropping lees, it can be bottled.

thanks for the info, I'll consult some other threads/stickies for further information. Never made wine before, this could become really interesting come summer and fall, there are plenty of wild fermentables here in Oregon. Also excited to use these for a saison at some point.

I've done a few and I only started recently too.
What i've found is: you're going to make some mistakes. For example i added too much acid blend to my elderberry wine, and i lost my entire batch of physalis and raspberry wine because I didn't pasteurise them correctly and they sort of blew their corks and went bad. But you live, you learn!

I have a sloe and blueberry wine on the go at the moment. Won't know how that has gone for another year though.

Dicky

Here the first wine to get made is Rubarb as it is the first fruit ripe in the spring. It looks pinkish while fermenting, comes out white and very nice to drink.
Currently have chokecherry and elderberry fermenting and of course our mead has been in the carboy, 3rd racking for 1 year.
I use a steamer/juicer for all my fruit now. All you wind up with is pure juice, nice not to have to stain or rerack all of the old fruit out of the carboy.

Iv used blackberry and wild cherry (there good together) picked apples and I found a muskiedime vine (wild grape) I plan to brew from later this year.

When you've worked out what the fruit is, do a google search for it + "wine". Jack Keller's website will likely come up. His recipes are often/usually tried and tested, so he's a trustworthy source unless he explicitly says otherwise in the recipe page.

I was thinking probably the best way to go is 1 gallon of wild fruit, taste after primary, if good add to 5 gallon apple wine in the secondary.

I did all wild fruits this past year. I thinly starting this spring I'm going for wines made from different tree saps. Kinda pumped about it.

nwaite said:

I did all wild fruits this past year. I thinly starting this spring I'm going for wines made from different tree saps. Kinda pumped about it.

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I want to do the same thing but using it to make beer, but I plan on doing a dandelion wine and will try it with saps instead. I intend to tap some birch and maples. Do you know any other tree that have lots of saps?

Some of wild fruits I've used last year to make wine were Highbush Cranberries and Sumac. They're still bulk aging and will bottle this summer.

Woot. Reviving a thread. I've done several:

Mulberry: Good fruit flavor, brilliant color, but the flavor is a little limp. But it straightens up real well with an acid blend.

I've made a Morat (mulberry mead) that was great. I have a chocolate mulberry port and a 1 gal sour brown ale with mulberries experiment currently fermenting.

Crab Apple: Pleasantly tart. Great apple flavor.

I used several pounds in a cider and I thought it really balanced out the flavor of the final product. I also did a crab apple wine which is great. Came out like a fruity, crisp chardonay almost.

Dandelion: TBD. I have a dandelion wine that is 16 months old and is still hot.

Persimmon: Made a beer and a mead out of this. I didn't like the way this turned out. Little persimmon flavor. Some tartness. Overwhelmind dank aroma.

I put chamomile in a Belgian Blonde that is priming. I have some chicory that I am going to use in a Wee Heavy soon. I discovered some black cherry, elderberry, and pin cherry trees around my house that I can't wait to use. I will use these to make wine. I can also see adding some black cherries or elderberries to a cider if I decide to make another one. I also have 10 gallons of a Flanders that I might experiment with.

I missed downy serviceberry season this year, but I'd also like to try those next year.

I'm doing a strawberry rhubarb mead right now