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Usual glut of blackcurrants at this time of year....

previous attempts at blackcurrant wine have not been too successful - unbalanced, incomplete ferments, off tastes and other horrors... inadequate records kept to figure out what I may have done wrong.

I am using steam extraction - 4.5 lbs fruit yields about 4 pints of juice with SG 1040...

Anyone any good bombproof recipes? - e.g. should I really make a gallon of wine from 9lbs of fruit or dilute it?


What do I get if i just ferment out the juice as is? blackcurrant cider?

Blackcurrant is one of those flavours which takes over everything if you're not careful - so much so that it's all too easy to make a gallon of stuff that really does taste like unsweetened ribena. If you tried making a gallon with 9lbs of blackcurrants, I suspect it would be even worse than that. I wouldn't go above 3lbs to the gallon, which is about the amount which would give you lots of body - so your 9 lbs equates to 3 gallons.

But it's all personal taste and it's your wine.

Keep us informed - especially if you decide to really go for it

Mike

Oh - forgot. Jack Keller is usually pretty good for recipes - just remember that he's American and often uses US measures.

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques95.asp

I can't offer a bombproof recipe, especially as last year's blackcurrant wine is a bit rough. Like you, Dave, I didn't keep adequate notes, but I suspect I left the skins in too long. Before that, though, I've made wine that I really enjoyed, once I got used the fact that it tasted of blackcurrants. I favour very simple recipes, so 3 lb blackcurrants and 2 lb sugar per gallon (plus a bit of yeast, of course), mashed and left in a bucket for four days before straining into demijohns, then left alone for, um, some months. As I said the results are a bit variable, so probably not what you're after, but I'm keeping better notes this year in the hope of testing my theory about leaving it in the bucket too long.

To answer your other question, dave45, blackcurrants contain about 6% sugar (fructose, glucose and a bit of sucrose - all of them fermentable). If you got all of the juice from your 9 lbs of blackcurrants and then made it up to a gallon with water and fermented it, that would give you a little over 5% ABV. You never get ALL of the sugar, though, so knock that down to between 4 and 4.5% ABV.

You'd have a very rich, over-flavoured drink with the strength of a decent quaffing beer. If you added a couple of pounds of sugar, though, you'd have a very rich, over-flavoured wine at between 14 and 14.5% ABV.

Hope that helps

Mike

PS - I'd check my maths if I were you, I think it's accurate, but you never know.

Going to my usual go to (First Steps) CJJB says 4lb blackberries and 3lb sugar. CJJb is notoriously sugar heavy so I'd personally use 1kg sugar. He suggests crushing the berries adding the sugar and pouring over boiling water with 1 CT. when lukewarm add a tsp of pectolase, the next day chuck in the yeast+1tsp nutrient. remove from pulp after 4-5days. Allow to ferment and clear and job should be a good one.

A tip, if your wine is a bit rough, leave it a bit longer - it is absolutely amazing what a bit of age will do for wine.

Yes, Berry is (was) very good. But I've seen quite a few editions of First Steps and all of them suffered from terrible editing - a few of the recipes (different each time) in each edition are WAYYYYYY over the top. It wasn't Berry's fault, but how is a beginner supposed to know that a gallon of wine made from 15 lbs of rhubarb is probably a misprunt? My own favourite guru is Bryan Acton.

However, there always appear to be lots of PDFs of First Steps to be had on the net.

Mike

In my opinion many recipes use far too much of the flavour ingredient, I often reduce it by about half. I'd say 3lbs of berries is ample for a gallon of wine, I might actually use only 2lbs.

Brewtrog wrote:A tip, if your wine is a bit rough, leave it a bit longer - it is absolutely amazing what a bit of age will do for wine.

I tried, I really did, but the blackberry and elderberry disappeared rather quickly, so it was the only red I had...

(Actually, that's not quite true. I have a gallon of elderberry that I'm being very disciplined about, and not touching until it's at least a year old.)

I have an evaporation problem too.

OK - well I decided to just add 1kg sugar and water to the 4-pints of OG1040 extract to make a gallon and its fermenting away merrily now.... this will be my base recipe. Hadn't thought about pectolase, but I have some in the cupboard so may give that a go. Will report back.

1kg sugar per gallon is my standard starting point. Pectolase is a definite need for fruit wines and it's better to use 1tsp now rather than needing a double dose when you notice the haze

I'm getting lazy in my old age. If it's one of my "suck it and see" wines, it doesn't get any pectolase unless the ingredients are particularly pectin-heavy. I'm the only one who is going to drink it and I don't particularly care if it's hazy. If I'm making it for someone else to drink then yes - in it goes whether or not there's much likelihood of a haze.

Mike

MKG wrote:I'm the only one who is going to drink it and I don't particularly care if it's hazy.

Same here. I avoid additives if at all possible, mainly because I don't want to pay for them!

And I make 3. We only add pectolase if it's quite murky - a bit of haze is no problem. However, this has reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask for a while, so on to a new thread.

Just started 2 gallons of blackcurrant wine today. I'm not the only one who drinks my wine so I add pectolase to most wines, especially any fruit wine I make. Smelt gorgeous as I was prepping the must - like ribena but better.