Had a nightmare with blackberry wine

[Nicks90]

As per my usual yearly routine, time to defrost all the blackberries and elderberries I've collected and get 9l of wine on the go!

All went swimmingly to start with and followed my usual process.

2kg blackberry
1kg elderberry
2kg sugar dissolved in 8l boiling water
1 cup strong tea

Place fruit in to my spare biab bag and drop in to the fv, pour on the sugar water solution after it's cooled down a fair bit. Add the tea and a crushed up campden tablet. Seal it up and leave for 3 days, giving it a bit of a stir twice a day to agitate the bag and release that flavour / colour.

On the 4th day pull the bag and give it a little squeeze and add the yeast.

BUT IT ALL WENT WRONG.

Asked girl child to go get my wine yeast and rehydrate it in the sanitised jug I prep'd earlier whilst I sorted out the fruit bag. Down she comes with a jug and I get her to pour it in.
"Why are there grey lumps in there?" Says I
"The yeast was all gloopy,I tried to stir it in, but it wouldn't dissolve properly" says she

OMG, what they hell. I race upstairs and check the dried yeast packet, to find it has obviously failed and the yeast has absorbed moisture and girl child didn't know it was supposed to be dried yeast, scooped it out of the packed and that slop is now in my wine must!!!!!!

PANIC MODE ON.

What do I do? Blitz it with a dozen campden tablets, throw it in the bin? Arrrrr

Never fear, nothing that the application of heat won't solve. Now I have no idea what it will do to the flavour profile, but I dropped the must in to my big stock pot and brought it up to an initial boil, then knocked it back to an incredibly low simmer for 15 minutes whilst I bleached and cleaned the fv.
All back in the fv again and waiting on a fresh packet of yeast from Amazon tomorrow.

Lesson learned, check everything before letting the girl child help
Totally not her fault as she wasn't to know, but check, check and check again.

Hopefully this won't be ruined, we will see in about 9 months time.

If the wine is drinkable, it already has a name "the berry lucky brew"

 

[MattH1973]

my hope would be that the bad yeast would end up dead at the bottom of the vessell post fermentation, just like the good yeast. I'd therefore be optimistic that, even without the boil, it would be OK. As I have done more cider over the years, I have realised fruit juice is pretty resilient as long as you avoid oxidisation.

Good luck !

 

[MashBag]

The 3 day preamble seems a tad strange to me but hey ho.

More yeast will fix. Hope it's been turned out OK.

 

[Nicks90]

Moment of truth, 5 months on and it's bottling time.
It's been wracked once and is lovely a bright and clear. Always put a few in clear bottles just because I like how they look. They live in the cellar, so it's always dark in there so no worries with UV degredation

Did it need finings? Nope never use them
Did I use pectin? Nope never use it even for fresh fruit
Did it need metabi-whatsit? Nope never use it in wine
Did it need degassing? Not after 5 months. But I will do my usual and let the bottles come to room temp and 'burp' them and put them back in the cold cellar

Is it clear? Crystal


More importantly does it taste nice after the slight panic during brewing?
Oh yes! Lovely drop that will only get better throughout the year. Time to put it away until autumn and not start drinking it till the next blackberry wine is put down.

 

[MashBag]

Really pleased for you. Cheers.
Bonkers method but everyone finds there own way.

Looks great.

Tbh. I am not really one to comment in have used 20 kg of white grapes in my red wine.

 

[An Ankoù]

Moment of truth, 5 months on and it's bottling time.
It's been wracked once and is lovely a bright and clear. Always put a few in clear bottles just because I like how they look. They live in the cellar, so it's always dark in there so no worries with UV degredation

Did it need finings? Nope never use them
Did I use pectin? Nope never use it even for fresh fruit
Did it need metabi-whatsit? Nope never use it in wine
Did it need degassing? Not after 5 months. But I will do my usual and let the bottles come to room temp and 'burp' them and put them back in the cold cellar

Is it clear? Crystal


More importantly does it taste nice after the slight panic during brewing?
Oh yes! Lovely drop that will only get better throughout the year. Time to put it away until autumn and not start drinking it till the next blackberry wine is put down.

Sod the wine. How's the girl child after all this trauma?

 

[Nicks90]

Really pleased for you. Cheers.
Bonkers method but everyone finds there own way.

Looks great.

Tbh. I am not really one to comment in have used 20 kg of white grapes in my red wine.

Interested to know why it's a bonkers method - leaving the fruit to macerate in highly sugared water is good for extraction of fruit juices.

 

[MashBag]

There's a lot to unpack. But that might by me thinking red. Did you want a rose?

 

[Nicks90]

Yes, rose blackberry wine.
If I want a red, I usually do it with elderberries and ferment it fully on the fruit for a week or so, then rack it to a DJ after primary is complete

 

[Clint]

Thought you'd scoffed a couple of out of date stuff and suffered some adverse nighttime hallucinations.