Call Of The Wild

3/30/2011

After my last post you may think that I am stuck on wild berries. Well, I really am. Over the centuries, and even more so in our time, we have been changing what our produce is. We pick the best seeds from the best plants. We water everything more than it would ever get in nature. We use chemicals to not only grow but to keep the bad things away. What you get in your produce department resembles very little what the actual fruit was originally.

Strawberries are the biggest change that I can think of right off the top of my head. I have seen wild strawberries. They are small and you have to pick all day to get enough to do anything with. However, if you taste one of these wild berries and taste a strawberry you get from a grocery store you will taste a difference. You can't purchase the flavor of a wild strawberry from a store. You can get close but is close always best?

Blackberries have changed also. I have had wild black berries almost exclusively. We have always gone into the woods and picked blackberries. They are always sweet and have that distinct taste. They do not grind in your mouth with seeds. Now the ones you get in the store have that black berry flavor but they also have a watery taste and have the grit of seeds. I think I will brave the thorny limbs of the blackberry bush to make sure that any wine I make has the flavor that my ancestors would be proud of.

Now there are some berries that you can't even find in a store. The elderberry is one of the. The gooseberry is another one. For no good reason that I can think of we never domesticated these berries and a few more. We did not make them bigger at the expense of their flavor. We did not farm them into different species. These berries you can only get from the forests and wild areas of the world. Or you can pay out the nose for them on the internet.

The elderberry has become my favorite berry at the moment. This berry comes from a bush and is small and hard to deal with. However, it is worth dealing with it. For a long time I have thought that you needed to use your fingers to pull every berry off one at a time. I have been proven wrong by a video on youtube. In fact all you need to do is use a fork to pull these berries from the group. This can change a few hours of work into about 30 min. Makes getting these berries worth while.

I guess you can get whatever you want to ferment. If you want fruit from a grocery you can get fruit from a grocery. I personally think it is a waste of money when there are such bounties in the wild. I have priced what a couple of gallons of blackberries would cost at the grocery and other berries. It is worth my time to go pick these berries in the wild. It also keeps me from paying federal taxes to the government that I think needs less money than it does. I would rather walk through briars than pay for something that is free in the wild and I have and always will. However if you live in a large city or in a country where these berries do not grow you can only go to a grocery. If you are in another country I would suggest finding a berry that is in that country to keep your wine regional.

I will not judge but I will not use berries form the store unless it is dehydrated elderberries. They cost $5 an ounce and in $15 you have a great wine. I do think after this year I will not need to do this again.

Keep it bubbling!!!
Chuck

Elderberry Blues

3/29/2011

It has been a while since I have had a blog entry. I not only have been busy with family but I have been busy throwing out gallons of really crappy wine. Yes, that's right. I have been tossing out wine.

It seems that every batch that I have listed here has turned out tasting like, what I would call, prison hooch. I did bottle some of the Hard Cider just so I could have a bottle of the first batch that I ever made. It is terrible. Too sweet to even think about drinking. Sure it makes a great mixer with cranberry juice but I am not in this to make a mixing wine. I really spent days looking into where I went wrong. While I was doing this I had a batch of elderberry wine going from dehydrated elderberries. Each week I threw out one to two gallons of prison hooch. Each week I still cared for this elderberry concoction. So where did I go wrong?

Well, when I threw out the last of everything I had been brewing, I racked the elderberry wine. I was a little worried about putting this into my mouth since it looked like blood. If you have never actually made any elderberry wine then you don't know what I am talking about. It is a VERY thick deep red liquid. I can tell you if it isn't then you made it too weak and need to think about dumping it. What did I taste? Young wine! A very young wine that needs a lot of time and care to become something that someone would sell their first born for. Now where did I go wrong on all the other batches? I didn't use actual fruit. Well, I did on the watermelon wine but that is harder than hell to make anyway. I didn't use real apples, I used apple juice. I didn't use real cranberries I used cranberry juice. The mead? I just used too much honey and I could not tell the difference between it and the crap apple wine I bottled. I did not actually use the fruit. I did with the elderberry!!!

Why did I decide to even do the elderberry wine? When I was 13 I would steal wine from my grandfathers wine rack. Every bottle of it was elderberry. I picked the berries himself and brewed up a very nice buzz for a teenager. I wanted to relive my childhood. Now, I was able to purchase 8 ounces of dehydrated elderberries from the brew shop that I get ALL my supplies from. I used that to make about 1.5 gallons of must. Elderberries smell like crap when they are being hydrated and are very unappealing. In fact I walked around all day with the nasty smell in my nose. That made me worry about my choice to tell you the truth. When I did my first racking I thought it was too thick so I added more water and sugar to the leftover must and started a second batch using the same berries. That might have been a mistake. The jury is still out on the second batch but it is not working out like the first batch. When I racked the first bit I added a little sugar since it was so dry already. Then I added more later at a second racking. Then when I racked it a third time I tasted it. When I was 13 I did not have any respect for what I was drinking. Even with all the CO2 in the liquid it was wonderful. I gave a measure to my wife and she even agreed that I was going to have a hard time keeping any of this gallon. I let my little brother have a taste of it last night and he was impressed. What did I learn here? ONLY USE ACTUAL FRUIT TO MAKE ANY WINE!!!

Now from this, I am going to get more dehydrated elderberries to make another gallon. Later this year I am going to the creeks in the middle of nowhere to get actual wild elderberries to make a five gallon batch of this angelic beverage. I have found my berry of choice for now. Yes, I plan on doing black berries and maybe a wild cherry if I can get enough of them. But I am going to do a 5 gallon shot of elderberry wine. There is a reason people write songs about this elixir. I can't for the life of me understand why every winery doesn't make it. I would gladly pay $50 a bottle for what is in a carboy behind me when it is ready for drinking. It is simply amazing what elderberry wine tastes like.

The short of all this? Do not make wine from juices you buy in a Wal-Mart! Only use actual fruit and make sure you use enough of it. Do not cut yourself short thinking you will just make up for it with sugar. You reap what you sow. If you do that you will have a watery tasting wine with alcohol. The alcohol is not worth this. It is a waste of time, sugar, and yeast. You want as much fruit as you can get to make the wine you want to drink. You want more fruit for the wine you will be giving away. You can't make up for the actual taste of fruit with sugar. You can't ever make up for the quality if you do not use as much fruit as you can. Don't brew crap. Brew something that you are proud of!!!

How did I make the elderberry wine? That is simple. I used 8 ounces of dehydrated elderberries and about 4 and a half cups of sugar. I didn't even use the greatest yeast I could use. I used yeast that was in my wine starter kit. Next time I will use some higher grade yeast meant for a fruity wine. That is all I did. I did NOT use my hydrometer. I will probably never use a hydrometer now that I know what I am doing with this berry. There is no reason to. I know the sugar that I want I know the berries that I want. Now I will use the hydrometer for wind berries. You never know what you are putting in your must when you are using anything wild. I will also enjoy every sip of the elderberry wine that I make. If you have never had elderberry wine I highly suggest that you go find a bottle and slowly enjoy a very cold glass of it. In fact I suggest you enjoy several very cold glasses of it. It will make you feel better about brewing it yourself.

Keep it Bubbling!!!
Chuck