1-2kg/2-4lb of blackberries
1kg/2lb of sugar
5litres/1gallon water
1 tin of Red grape concentrate (optional) - it'll say on the tin how many litres it's intended for
Red wine yeast (not bread yeast)
Container big enough to hold at least 5 litres with lid. A five litre water bottle from the supermarket works quite well.
Rubber bung with airlock (or ballon over the neck of the fermenting bottle)
Campden tablets (optional)
- Put the blackberries in your container (a food grade bucket or similar) and add enough boiling water to cover.
- Wait for the mixture to cool enough to put your hand in, then add the yeast, and half the sugar
- Put the lid on and wait for two days (not vital - it'll be fine if you forget and don't do it for four days). The mixture will produce gas, so you'll need to burp the container occasionally.
- Strain the berries out using jelly net (or muslin cloth, or a sieve over a funnel if that's all you have)
- Return to the bottle, and add cold water to make the juice up to 5 litres.
- Add the rest of the sugar, and grape concentrate (if using)
- Wait for about 10 days. If you're using an airlock you'll know it's done when the blooping slows to a crawl.
- Taste, make sure it's not sweet (if so, there's more fermenting to be done). It will be a bit rough, yeasty, and seem fizzy on the tongue at this point
- Carefully decant the wine into a fresh container leaving behind all the sludge at the bottom. This is best done using a siphon tube.
- If using, add a crushed campden tablet (this definitely stops any more fermentation - ie. it'll remove the risk of the lid exploding off the bottle )
- Put this container in a cool, dark place for a month, then decant again (optional, but for best flavour do this) then leave it again for as long as you can. A couple of months is good, six months is better.
Make sure everything you use is sterilized - I use some thin bleach to wash everything out and rinse well. Boiling water also works for this purpose if you're careful.
Grape concentrate isn't necessary, but it'll add extra body to your wine. Blackberries have an amazing smell and taste, but a bit of a hand from the grape concentrate doesn't go astray!.
If you're having trouble with cloudy wine, decant it again and leave it in a cool place for a bit longer. Some pectolase (you can get it from your homebrew shop) will also help to clear it, and in the unlikely situation that it really won't clear your home brew shop can sell you some other 'finings' which should clear it up.