Mixed Berry Wine
Earlier this year (April 08), we was grocery shopping in Sam's Club and spotted some bags of frozen mixed berries (raspberry, blueberry, blackberry) in the frozen food department. We purchased enough bags to make an experimental batch of this wine and after letting it bulk age for six months, we was thoroughly surprised how good it tasted when we sampled it prior to bottling the wine. The recipe below makes one gallon of wine.
Ingredients
3 - 5 lbs of frozen mixed berries
4.5 oz of Cranberry juice concentrate
2 lbs of granulated sugar
2 tsp Acid Blend
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
¼ tsp of Tannin
1 Campden Tablet
Enough water to make one gallon
1 pkg of Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast
Starting SG: 1.090
Directions
Just as a precaution, pick over the berries carefully once they have defrosted. Watch for mold or rot though I doubt you will find any. Discard anything that looks bad. Wash the berries in cool water, and drain.
Wash your hands. Put the fresh berries in a nylon straining bag and into the primary fermenter, then squish them with your hands or a sanitized potato smasher.
Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from heat and pour over the nylon straining bag that is in the primary fermenter. Add additional water to make one gallon. When must has cooled down, add remaining ingredients except yeast. Cover primary and set aside for 12 hours.
After 12 hours, add activated wine yeast and recover primary. When active fermentation slows down to an SG reading of 1.020 (about 5 days), gently squeeze the straining bag to extract juice and let it drain and discard pulp. Rack to secondary (carboy) and fit with airlock. Leave in secondary until wine has completely fermented dry (SG reading of 0.992) around 3 weeks. Rack off of sediment into a clean carboy , top up and refit airlock. Let wine clear and rack again to a clean carboy. After additional 3 months, stabilize with ½ teaspoon dissolved potassium sorbate, sweeten if desired and bottle. Bulk age wine for at least 6-8 months before bottling.
