Wild Berry Wine

[le0n]

This morning 1.026 SG Corrected:


There is still a good amount of bubbling in the carboy, so most of the light sediments are still mobile:

(note the clarity difference)

After a swirl:


I think it's time for me to rack it off the lees. I'm getting ever so slight hints of the lees in the aroma. They come and go and its probably just because it is suspended in the wine. Once i get it racked it'll have an easier time to clear up.

[le0n]

Tonight's racking 1.020 SG Corrected:


Ok, this won't be touched now until the fermentation stops. It's been through 20 days of fermentation so far.

Here's the sacrificial goo that got left behind:


bubbling away:


It's not going to waste though. Bottoms up


Aside from being pulpy, the lees are really good.

[le0n]

Ok. After two days of non-activity in the vessel, and a little worrying, I finally starting getting some movement on the airlock.

I may have had my storage room a little too cool, so I turned off the AC in there to get it a few degrees warmer. If it still looks good tonight, I'll turn the AC back on and see how it reacts.

Meanwhile, I went for some more berries and grabbed another 12.25 lbs:


Getting setup for the second batch. This is the boring part. But it is the only way I know to 'process' them properly and I know the end result will be free of any spiders and bugs:


Come to find out, this batch is more ripe and I may have picked the others a little too early. I'll see if it produces a better wine. They are much more aromatic and the stickiness eludes to more sugar content.

Trevor, per your suggestions, I'm planning on letting this batch sit on the lees until the fermentation stops. So I'll heat and smash the berries for about an hour at 150°F like before to get all of the good stuff out, then I'll only transfer the strained juice into the primary. There should not be anywhere near a much sediment that the current batch had. A lot of pieces just just fell through the fermenting bag.

[TrevorM]

That's looking great Leon!

Wow that's an impressive haul you've got there, make's me wish I knew more about the wild berries of this area. I'd probably poison myself though If you're planning to make more (given your success I would assume so) you might want to invest in a refratometor, especially since you take your readings daily. A refratometor only takes a drip to tell you your brix/gravity so you wouldn't need to take large samples and you could also test the berries.

[le0n]

^^ thanks.

yeah. i want one of those, mainly because i like gadgets, but also because it would give me a better idea on when to harvest the fruit too. it would aid as a double-check in the primary before pitching the yeast.

but unlike the hydrometer you can't use it after alcohol is introduced into the equation.

[TrevorM]

Alcohol changes the refraction, but it can still be used. If you just did a start and end reading it wouldn't be pretty inaccurate, but daily like you do would be fine. In fact it might even be more accurate since the readings are a lot clearer. As a side note, alcohol does also effect hydrometer readings it's just more linear and so easier to correct.

I would also make the point that a larger part of taking the readings is to see how it's progressing. Unless you're going commercial your ABV is more a nice to know and you really only need a ballpark figure.

[le0n]

^^ interesting.

i was taking daily readings in the primary, afterward, it was weekly.

[le0n]

Started the other batch yesterday evening:


The color was coming on pretty good:


However, when I added the three crushed Potassium Metabisulfite tablets, it instantly turned to a shade of brown:

(Note the color change when I added a very small amount of sodium barcarbonate into the measuring cup.)

This is due to the chemicals in the fruit reacting to the pH level changes. The sodium bicarbonate raised the pH even more and brought the color to a marvelous brown.


The must needed more acid, so I was relying on the Pectic Enzyme to pull it more from the fruit over night.

So nothing else was added to the container, and in the morning it looked like this:

[le0n]

Ok. I finally got everything squeezed away from the pulp:
Being that I added 2 quarts of water to the cooking pot, I ended up getting 1.5 gallons of juice from my fruit.


It was still a deep red, but it was still hovering around the brown hues:


sugar time; 12lbs:


Dissolving some tartaric acid to add to the vessel to lower the pH:
Note the color change in the jar.


SG reading 1.109 SG Corrected:


I finally got to this point at 2:30am:

[TrevorM]

Nice work! Glad you were able to save that color.

[le0n]

Thanks. I'm trying to think ahead just in case I need to stabilize it with the Kmeta at the end. I'll definitely test the some samples before dosing. This batch may get back-sweetened after it completely dries. We'll see what it tastes like at the end of the run

This batch has about a pound of strawberries/raspberries in it, plus a pound of black grapes. No bananas or raisins this time.

[Pat B]

I have some Japanese beautyberry with white berries. I wonder if they will make white wine. 

[le0n]

^^ That would be interesting.

Let me read on that.

Edit: they are edible too. Berries are just smaller and white.

[le0n]

Just in case no one here has had the opportunity to look inside one of these small fermenters during the first few days, I recorded a 14 second clip to show the action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKXFg7XJoNo

Unlike the last batch, this one is being done without the skins/pulp. So there's no pulp cap to break up each night.

Instead of a shirt/cloth over the top, I just used the screw-on lid and put a cotton ball in the air lock hole to keep any bugs out. Get this though, a fruit fly landed on the cotton ball last night before I got home. I was wondering if he was going to try to get past the cotton ball. Upon closer inspection, he was dead. I'm guessing the gasses coming off killed him?

[TrevorM]

Good thing you had the cotton wool ball, fruit fly's carry Acetobacterium. You would have ended up with one large batch of vinegar...