Amazon is nice for pricing on many items so each of these items was $10 or less except for the Yeast Energizer which was $13.75. 1 pound of each will go a long way with making 6 gallon batches. I have enough yeast to make 24 batches right now with what I bought and what I still have on hand. Just waiting on airlocks and I can have 12 more batches going at once, I'll have to get another pack of 12 before the end of the year.
First wine on the list will be a solid mixed berry with about 5 lbs each Juneberry, Chokecherry, Elderberry, and Hawthorne. I have my most recent mixed berry but it is primarily chokecherry so I want a better balanced one. Then I will do a straight Hawthorne since I have so many in the freezer. I'm really looking forward to the Hawthorne and then this fall I will collect a bunch of Mountain Ash berries for a batch. Trying to only use personally harvested berries, fruits, and produce for the wines that I make and so far am.
NOW if it would just cool off enough that I could heat my sugar water without cooking the house as well, that would be very nice of Nature!
As a side note: Wine yeast will maintain viability for a long time if kept in the fridge. I am using stuff that is 4 years old now and it is working fine. Takes a little longer to kick into gear but it is still fermenting. Granted I can't be scientific about the quality of my output, that is all anecdotal for now.
This is the pallet of Isopropyl Alcohol jugs I got for $1 each at the Junkworx store in Spokane. Of the 36 I used 12 for nest boxes for the chickens and have 24 for making wine.
Just look at all the various wines that can be made from wild edibles!!
The BEST site for berry wine recipes!
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woo hoo wine !
Hi @flemingfarm, thanks for this post. I didn't realise you could make wine from hawthorne - we have lots of them on our property.
Someone has just given me 6 demijohns and assorted other bits of winemaking equipment as they are no longer using it so I am keen to have a go at winemaking. Never tried it before - hopefully what I make will be drinkable! All tips welcome for avoiding common newbie mistakes...
6 demis.... very nice! The best thing I can say is to read through Jack Keller's site linked above. There is a large amount of good info there about various techniques for wine making with all kinds of base ingredients. I have printed out info from years ago that I reference regularly but I have no link to it currently.
Most importantly I personally feel is to try your hand at gallons first so if you kill it you won't be many gallons. (I didn't but I have brewed beer so have a small basis to work from and felt confident enough) Many people and places tell you not to heat your berries aside from the sugar and water mix, but I like to put my berries in a wine making bag and heat with water, then pull bag. This gives me juice with no pieces of berries, stems, fruit, etc in the fermenter. If you are going for speed then this is the way you want to go.
Finally don't expect perfection right away and wine is not an overnight creation, it can take a few tries and a month or two minimum to get a batch finished, and play with the recipes.
Also, make sure everything you use for wine making is clean and sanitized. Wild yeast or mold spores can ruin a batch of win pretty quickly.
Thank you too @amberyooper
Thank you @flemingfarm for the tips and advice.
Good post!
I see you're using Lalvin brand yeast. The local place where I get my wine making supplies carries more Red Star yeast varieties than Lalvin, so that's what I've used so far. I try to make mostly sweet wines, so I use the yeast types appropriate for that. I'm not familiar enough with the Lalvin yeast types to know which ones are good for a sweet wine.
I've been using Lalvin since our local homebrew shop carried it a few years back when I started my first batch. I went with it primarily because the recipe I was using called for RC212 yeast, but I also got some of the EC1118 to try. The 212 is recommended for the elderberry as it produces a good full red wine.
This is a good overview of the Lalvin and Redstar strains.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/strains.asp
Also the packs were 10/$5 of the Lalvin on Amazon and looking it seems some of the Redstar are priced similarly.
Thanks for that link, that has a lot of really useful information on what yeast to use for the type of wine that a person is making.
Great info here! We make wine her on the homestead with a little simpler process, its much slower process but works well, just need to have some going at all times! Best of luck to ya!
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It sounds like you harvested a lot of fruit last fall! Wine is a great way to use a lot of fruit. What will you do with the mash leftover -- feed it to some of your animals? That list of wild wines gives us something to think about with the wild plants in our own region. Chickweed wine -- it must be good for our health, lol! Happy brewing!
Yes, last year was amazing for most all the various types of native or wild plants on the property and I hope this year will be as good with the amount of moisture we had. My leftovers always go to the chickens since if they don't eat it, it gets scratched into the soil. Jack's site is a wealth of knowledge on berry and fruit wines.
Rain and snow really do help the plants! So much easier than drought! As a kid, the second book I ever ordered was George Herter's "How to Make the Finest Wines at Home". That sure opened my eyes as to how many fruits, berries, and other things can be used to make wine! I made quite the career of it as a high school student, lol. I'll have to check out his site -- I've never seen Chickweed wine before. But I can see how that would work, lol. Sugar, water, yeast, and time! ; )
Those are some interesting wines on that list! Your post highlights a good foraging and preservation strategy -- freeze the berries and other fruit as you find it, until you finally have enough to use. Even small amounts can add up, if we pick a little here and there as we are out and about during a plant's season. Enjoy your wine - and keep us posted! :D
Exactly. I have small bags of all the types of berries and fruit in the freezer since I find some at different times than the normal harvest. Like rose hips last year, I found a half pound and threw them in the freezer, but once I keyed my eye to what I was after I found another pound and a half. So as I gathered I tossed em in the bag in the freezer, then I made rose hip syrup this winter.
Wine from wild-foraged fruit? Winning!