Blackberry Wine

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jonereb

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I'm planning to make one gallon of blackberry wine -- my first attempt. I have 3 pounds of blackberries (store bought). Too much? Not enough? Plan to use Cote des Blanc yeast. Please advise.
 
I am a contrarian when it comes to making wine from fruit. I don't dilute the fruit juice with water unless the taste of diluted fruit juice is what I want to taste when drinking the juice. My preference is for about 8-10 lbs of fruit to make enough juice to make 1 gallon of wine. But if you prefer a thinner tasting wine you could use 6 lbs... Wine made essentially from water, I believe , was always considered a miracle...making wine from juice is much easier.
 
Put the berries in a bucket. Add 2-4#s sugar. Fill with water. Add petic enzyme. Add sterliant. Add nutrient. Cover with towel and let sit 24hr. Pitch yeast and cover back up. Wait 7days. Rack over in your 1gal container.
 
I've made blackberry wine a few times now - after some experimenting I've settled on 6 lb fruit per gallon which makes a really nice dry wine with no additional acid or tannin.

The seeds or skins of the Himalayan blackberries that grow wild seem to have a lot of tannin. Last year I made 2 batches - one with the pulp removed after 6 days and one with the pulp removed after 4 days, and the latter one tastes better to us. That's with the berries frozen and thawed, and the pulp bag squeezed well.

I generally use 5-6 lb of fruit per gallon for fruit wines, as do lots of people, and the resulting wines don't taste "diluted" or "thin" to me - but everyone's taste is different.
 
I absolutely do NOT want watered down wine. Going back to store and purchase more berries.
 
I have made BB wine two years now. Last year's stuff it excellent! I use 5-6 lbs in a 2 gal fermenter bucket, but with about 1 gal of water added. Final yield is about 1.5 gallons per bucket. Below is my recipe:

6lb fruit (1/2 fresh, 1/2 frozen)
16 cups boiled water
40 oz honey
25oz sugar
fill bucket to near full
SG 28 BRIX
save 1pt+ for backsweetening

This ferments out to 15% ABV, then after stablization I add the saved pt of must, and end up with around 14%. After a year it is oh so good!
 
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