Time to bottle!

Some bottling pictures of the blackberry/blueberry blend.

Cheers!

Chaptalization - Adding sugar to your juice

If you are like me and have made "country" wine with frozen berries, you have most likely had add to sugar to your juice to increase the alcohol to a desirable level of 10-12%, but I've always thought that this was not necessary or legal for wine made from grapes. While this is true in America, wine makers in Europe commonly due this to make up for the lack of sugar in the grapes from lower amounts of sunshine and colder climates. Even grapes from the prestigious areas of France are doctored up using this method. I have a new respect for California Grapes right now, this is a more natural finished product in my opinion. The sunshine of the climate produces all of the sugar you need for the finished wine, and too my knowledge is not even legal if you are to use the California wine association on your labels.

 Cheers!

Wine Making - The Basics

The essential steps in wine making can be summarized as follows:

1. Extract the flavor and aroma from the base ingredients by chopping, crushing, pressing, boiling or soaking them.
2. Add sugar, acid, nutrients, and yeast to the fermentation media or liquor to achieve the proper ratio and ferment, covered, for 3 to 10 days in a primary fermentation vessel (crock, jar or polyethylene pail) at 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Strain off the liquid from the pulp, put it (the liquid) into a secondary fermentation vessel (a carboy or jug), fit a fermentation trap (airlock) on the mouth of the bottle, and allow fermentation to proceed at 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit until all bubbling ceases (after several weeks).
4. Siphon the wine off the sediments (lees) into another clean secondary fermentation vessel. Reattach the fermentation trap. Repeat after another one or two months and again before bottling.
5. When wine is clear and all fermentation has stopped, siphon into wine bottles and cork the bottles securely. Leave corked bottles upright for 3-5 days and then store them on their side at 55 degrees Fahrenheit for six months (white wine) to a year (red wine) before sampling. If not up to expectations, allow to age another year or more.

Build your own winery equipment

This guy's site shows you how he built all of his winery equipment, it is pretty amazing what he was able to accomplish.


http://www.stevehughes.org/Site/The_Winery/The_Winery.html

Time to Bottle!

My son helping out bottling wine.

Fruit per gallon

For a quick reference, here are some estimates for how much fruit is required for a 5 gallon batch of wine, simply divide by 5 for the per gallon estimate. I would advise anyone to over estimate on fruit needed to avoid a watered down tasting wine..

Apricots . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 lbs
Blackberries . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Blueberries . . . . . . . . . . . 13 lbs.
Currents. . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 lbs.
Elderberries . . . . . . . . . . 10 lbs.
Gooseberries. . . . . . . . . .11 lbs.
Peaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 lbs.
Persimmons . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pineapple . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 lbs.
Plums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 lbs.
Raspberries . . . . . . . . . .. 15 lbs.
Strawberries . . . . . . . . .  16 lbs.
Watermelon (Centers) . . 18 lbs.