How to Make Blackberry Wine - Part II

If you are just now joining in on the process of making blackberry wine from fresh blackberries (preferably just picked), you can read about Part I here.

Taking off from where I left off, after letting the wine sit unmolested for a week, now is the time to drain off the wine must, add some more sugar syrup and let it burble some more.

Additional Ingredients:

Sugar Syrup
5 1/3 ounces water
4 ounces sugar (about 3/4 cup)

Bring water and sugar to boiling and heat until sugar goes into the solution. Let the sugar syrup cool to room temperature (below 100 degrees F).

While the sugar syrup is cooling, remove the cloth from the container where the blackberries have been resting. Strain the blackberries through cheesecloth into a sterilized container, squeezing out as much of the juice as possible. Add the cooled sugar syrup and mix thoroughly. If you are reusing the original container, clean and sterilize before pouring the blackberry wine back in.

There are a few options for creating the right environment at this point. Many people will stuff wool into the neck of the bottle to allow the bubbling to escape, but prevent contamination. Others will use a balloon, but I can't recommend that method as several others have complained that it imparts a rubber taste to the wine, and you probably don't want that.

I had an airlock for when I was attempting the hard apple cider in the past. It didn't fit the neck (it was too small), so I retrofitted the airlock by cutting the original cap for the milk bottle a little smaller that the airlock and pushed it in that way. I'm hoping this is providing a good seal, but I guess I'll find out soon.

Let the blackberry wine (sans its solids) bubble away for ten days and then come back and check here for Part III of how to make blackberry wine. The next step involves bottling the wine, so if you are making it, you'll want to come here first to make sure you have all the equipment ahead of time.

How to Make Blackberry Wine - Part I

About a week ago, the kids and I walked down to their school for them to play on the playground and for me to pillage the blackberry hill. I had already made one trip down and gotten about a gallon of blackberries, which I turned into jam.

This trip I picked some for the hubs to make a blackberry cobbler with enough left over to attempt making some blackberry wine. I didn't want to get stuck with a huge amount of rancid liquid in case of failure, so I started small. About 5 cups worth (or a pound and a half) of blackberries.

Making wine is a multi-part effort. I had attempted making some hard apple cider a few years back and it failed miserably, but I did have some leftover wine yeast to work with so I figured it was worth the time.

I'm planning on posting all parts of the process. If you are catching this later, this is the first part.

Ingredients:

Blackberry mash
1.5 lbs blackberries
1/4 cup chopped raisins
1 1/3 cups water

Sugar Syrup
1 pint water
4 ounces sugar (about 3/4 cup)

Yeast mix
1/4 cup water (100 - 110 degrees F)
1/2 packet wine yeast

After rinsing and draining the blackberries, heat them with the water (1 1/3 cup) to a simmer and mash them down with a potato masher to release their juices. Add in the chopped raisins and stirred to mix.

Random notes: I added in raisins to give it more tannin flavors. Some people will throw in rinsed oak wood chips to impart an aged in oak flavor. Many recipes don't call for heating the blackberries, but I wanted to heat them to kill off any natural yeasts or other funky residues. Generally, people use campden tablets to kill yeast, but I didn't have any and didn't want to bother. So, we'll see how smart a move that is when I'm all done.

Leave the blackberry mixture to cool for a couple hours. While it's cooling, make the sugar syrup (basically bring the sugar and water to boil), so it also has a chance to cool to almost room temperature.

When the blackberry mixture and the sugar syrup are about room temperature (really, anything under 100 degrees is okay), mix the wine yeast with the warm water and then add the syrup and the yeast mix to the blackberry mixture, stirring it well together.

Pour the combined liquids into a sterilized container and cover with a clean cloth. I used a glass 1/2 gallon milk bottle. Be forewarned - you'll want to keep this mixture in a warmish area, but it does highly smell of yeast for the first day or so. So, if you don't want an area smelling like a bakery exploded, you might want to move this to an area not heavily trafficked.

Let this sit for a week and then you're ready for Part II.

Other random, smaller note: If you can't wait for all my posts on making wine, I'm basing my forays into winemaking on this set of instructions. It's also useful for those who want to make wine with larger quantities.