Blackberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Fill a large stone jar with the ripe berries and cover them with water.
Let the mixture stand for 24 hours to ferment.
Mash the berries and strain the juice through a cloth.
Make the wine
To every 3 quarts of juice, add 2 quarts of cold water and 5 pounds of brown sugar.
Pour the mixture into a demijohn, reserving some to top off as fermentation occurs.
After 6-8 days, add ½ box of gelatine for every 10 gallons.
Cover the bung hole with muslin for 2-3 weeks, then cork tightly.
Leave undisturbed for 6 months, then bottle and seal.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Blackberries or dewberries
- Provide the juice, flavour and natural sugars that ferment into the wine.
- Common brown sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Gelatine
- Helps clear the wine by binding suspended particles so they settle out.
The step that matters
Topping off the demijohn. Fermentation pushes foam and gas out of the vessel, and leaving headspace lets the wine be exposed to air and spoil. Keeping the demijohn full with reserved mixture protects the wine from oxidation and contamination.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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