[HelenK]

Hi all, sorry to bore you all with yet another question about the above but thought it was better than hijacking someone else's thread!

I wasn't planning on making any blackberry and elderberry wine but someone kindly presented me with about 4lbs of blackberries today!

My questions are, does anyone have any thoughts on making just blackberry wine? Also, I recently made elderflower champagne really basically, just putting it all into a big bucket and then straining and putting into recyled bottles. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do something similar for B & E wine? Am aware that I'd need to buy some wine yeast and possibly pectin etc. Sadly I don't have demi-johns, airlocks and all that gubbins...

[tode]

I would imagine that wine made from blackberries alone would be pretty insipid. Which is why its usually BB + elderberry, which has more "bite". (But don't overdo the elderberries ! )
Or adding tea and lemon juice.

[poultrygeist]

Blackberry wine is allegedly one of the best you can make but you need at least an airlock of some sort. The demijohn is merely a vessel to contain it, so anything that's airtight, can take an airlock and can be sterilised will be ok.

BBs will soon go mouldy if left open to the air, so I would think BB juice with sugar will do the same. The natural yeasts give an unpredictable outcome, so you want to exclude those and allow the wine yeast to multiply without competition.

I've got some BB and EB in the bucket at present, waiting to be racked to a demijohn. It smells ok at the mo, so will hopefully make a decent wine in a year or two.

Rob

[SG6]

Blackberries make an excellent wine, have 2 lots waiting to be bottled. But you will need a demijohn.
If they are sat around then put them in a conatiner and freeze.

Every recipe for blackberry wine I have appears easy: Blackberry's, sugar, water, yeast. Would seem that they need very little added to make a wine.

Only advice is keep the demijohn out of the light (direct sun) as this diminishes the colour.

[HelenK]

Thanks for the good advice all, I guess jam it is then! Would very much like to make this wine next year when hopefully I'll have all the kit and also room to store the wine for three years!

[SG6]

Take £8 to Wilkinsons and buy a demijohn and a pack of 2 bungs with airlocks and make the wine.