Making wine from foraged berries

Pan of foraged berries, gathered last autumn and stored in the freezer until we planned what to use them in

Last Autumn we had great fun gathering berries from all over the place ... blackberries, elderberries and sloes all foraged from the wild and redcurrants and blackcurrants grown at our allotment. We were quite snowed under with produce at the time so we washed them, bunged them in tubs and buried them in the freezer ready to use when we had a good use planned for them.


Last year we made a wonderful blackberry wine which was enjoyed on many a dark winter night. It's by far the best wine I've made so far so we decided to use the same recipe again but with the mixed foraged berries instead of all blackberries. 

Straining the berries after they had infused in the vat for a week

 The amount of berries we had made three times the recipe! It's ever-so easy to follow and I like the way it's not fussy with adding this additive and that additive ... just simple ingredients and great wine :~) If you've never tried making wine before, I'd recommend this recipe.

Garnet ... my favourite colour!

Mixed berry pulp

The strained liquid, ready to continue fermenting

Very much a working kitchen ... it's always busy and never completely tidy!

Filling the demijohn

At the moment, our demijohns have finished their bubbling and just need to sit and settle. Then they'll be racked off which is just syphoning the wine off into clean demijohns, leaving the sediment behind. Then, they'll settle some more until clear and then ... it will be ready :~)

Super strong homebrewed cider :-)

You will need:
5 litres of cheap 100% (unsweetened) apple juice, or equivalent. Last autumn we scrumped apples and bought a cheapish juicer (around £20) to juice them which was much more satisfying than buying the juice!
1 cup of sugar, any type. I use a mug to measure (half a bag)
1 heaped tsp brewing yeast
1 gallon demijohn with airlock

1. Pour 3 litres of the apple juice into a demijohn, make sure you dont
add it all straight away as it froths quite a bit at the start of brewing,
due to the action of the yeast.

2. Add a heaped teaspoon of yeast into the demijohn, super yeast or turbo
yeast is better, as it makes the alcohol content higher. Normal brewers
yeast is fine as well.

Give it a good stir or shake around so the ingredients get mixed
together.

Place it somewhere warm and after several hours it should start to bubble
or froth up.

3. Bung in the airlock and place it in a warm place. It should start to
get quite active and start to bubble away, sometimes even frothing. When
this stage has calmed down, normally after a couple of days, add the rest
of the apple juice until the demijohn is nearly full.

4. Now just leave it until it stops bubbling, which means fermentation has
stopped.

5. Let it clear for a day or so, then it can be put into other bottles
(racked off) or poured straight into a mug and drank :-)

The turnaround for this brew can be a week, or a bit longer, depending on
how much sugar content there is in the apple juice. Some people add a
couple of teaspoons of honey to each demijohn at the start of bre
cinnamon sticks, or cloves. Last time we added 15 whole cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half which worked very well.

Other recipes advise to gently warm a cup of applejuice, then add the
teaspoon of yeast to that, just to get the yeast started, then after an
hour or so tip the whole cupfull of mixture into the demijohn.

Just remember that if you use the turbo yeast, it will make a very strong
brew!!!!!!! Some of ours has come out at 18%! If it is too strong, just dilute it with lemonade :-)


Enjoy xxx