Homemade blackberry wine tips?

[treefarmer]

Wondering if anyone has a recipe for making blackberry wine out of the Himalayas ?   Lots of static online.   Wife and I tried making apple wine last year and failed miserably but we do have a lot of wine making junk.   Thanks

[JKEEN33]

If you get it figured out, post it. I'm not much of a drinker, but always wanted to try the wine making.

[jmscon]

How involved do you want to get? Have you ever made wine or beer before?

If you're up for it you can make some really good wine but you'll have to get scientific with it. Usually need to add sugar, how much depends on how much the berries already have in them. Blackberries are also naturally high in acid, there are ways to deal with that.

My dad has made some great blackberry wine, I'll see if he can come up with a kind of generic recipe.

[lokidog]

Mmmm, blackberry wine.  Here is a recipe for one gallon.  The handwritten notes are what I did differently and quantities of ingredients.  I pretty much used pure juice on this, but you can add water as per recipe.  I like sweet very flavorful wines so used the same amount of sugar but more juice, which is why it started at a higher S.G.

If you failed on a previous batch, you likely had contamination.  Sterile technique is very important as is reducing the natural yeasts and bacteria in your fruit until the yeast you add takes over.  I used Premiere Cuvee yeast, if I recall, I've always been happy with it.

[NOCK NOCK]

Have never made blackberry wine, but have made wine out of some goofy stuff.
Check out Jack Keller, has recipe's for wine made from just about everything you could ever imagine.

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/

[GBoyd]

Lokidog gave great advice, but his recipe wouldn't be to my liking. I think I like less flavor (or less of an acid punch) than he does.

I would make sure you have good equipment to measure the acidity that you want, then add fruit until you hit that level. After that, add table sugar or honey until you reach the specific gravity that you want. I'd highly recommend keeping it on the sweeter side. It just tends to turn out better for whatever reason.

You would be wise to read Jack Keller's winemaking website. He has a ton of recipes, but also information on general technique and processes. I learned how to make country wines from that site and they're sometimes really good. You can find information on the sterile technique that Lokidog described, as well as the recipe adaptation that I was talking about.

I'll add that I've given up on blackberry wine. I only make plum wine and mead now. I never really liked it that much and it was just too much work to pick and process the fruit. I focus on the easier things that tend to turn out better.

[GBoyd]

I somehow missed Nock Nock giving the exact same website recommendation. Guess it's a good website.

[treefarmer]

Thanks for the responses.   I'll check out website   Seems to be a bumper crop of Himalayans this year