This year's blackberry and elderberry wine

[Nicks90]

My usual yearly ritual of collecting blackberries and elderberries has been quite successful this year.
2kg of blackberries and 1kg elderberries, all brought to the boil with 2.5kg sugar and left to cool overnight.

Mash it a bit and them strain in to 3 demijohns with a cup of strong tea and some yeast nutrient and pectolase.
This year I'll be using lalvin ec-1118 yeast, although it's supposed to be for sparkling wine, it gets some good reviews for hedgerow wine.

Sg of 1.085 any hoping to get it down to 1.000 for a nice 10.5% tipple

 

[Yaheen]

My usual yearly ritual of collecting blackberries and elderberries has been quite successful this year.
2kg of blackberries and 1kg elderberries, all brought to the boil with 2.5kg sugar and left to cool overnight.

Mash it a bit and them strain in to 3 demijohns with a cup of strong tea and some yeast nutrient and pectolase.
This year I'll be using lalvin ec-1118 yeast, although it's supposed to be for sparkling wine, it gets some good reviews for hedgerow wine.

Sg of 1.085 any hoping to get it down to 1.000 for a nice 10.5% tipple

Nice one they look great! The elderberries up here haven’t ripened yet but I’ll be sure to go out and get some, Do u normally mix them on with other fruits? Last year I did them on there own but I hear they are much better mixed. All the best

 

[Nicks90]

It depends how many i get. I have a lovely big elder tree in my garden, but the sparrows and finches have been having a field day with anything that starts to ripen. So my pickings have so far been quite rubbish. I'll keep picking as the clumps ripen and chuck them in the freezer, and hopefully i'll gather another couple of kilos for some elderberry wine.

I;ve done many elderberry wines and blackberry wines - but i have to admit my favourite is mixing them 2:1 blackberry to elderberry.
All the blackberry bushes in the local woods are also coming good, they;re usually a month behind the ones in my garden due to being in the shade, so i'll continue gathering those as well.

heres what the current batch looks like

 

[Yaheen]

Ah ok have u ever tried blaeberry and elderberry, the past few years the blackberries here haven’t been the best but the floors of my local woods are carpeted with blaeberry bushes so I went out a few months ago and got a pale full, so I might try mixing the both and see how it turns out Thanks for the info

 

[Mr_S_Jerusalem]

what is blaeberry?

 

[Yaheen]

It is a wild berry that grows on moors and forests here, they look like miniature blueberries that u can get in the shop but they taste quite different.

 

[Mr_S_Jerusalem]

It is a wild berry that grows on moors and forests here, they look like miniature blueberries that u can get in the shop but they taste quite different.

They sound a bit like winberries. We picked some once on Exmoor I think it might have been. Interesting

 

[Yaheen]

They sound a bit like winberries. We picked some once on Exmoor I think it might have been. Interesting

aye that’s the ones! I think they just get called different names in different locations. I’ve heard a lot of people calling them bilberries aswel

 

[Wynott]

Yes, I think Blaeberry/whinberry/bilberry are interchangeable names for them. I find them a PITA to pick on the moors, but luckly I was given 1/2 lb this year