Mulberry Wine

[fivebk]

Hi Everyone,

I will be starting a batch of mulberry wine in the near future. I have about 24 lbs. of berries frozen right now and the tree is still producing at a rate of about 10 lbs. every 2 days. I do not have a steam juicer , my question is. Can I cook these berries on the stove just like as if I were going to make jelly, Then strain the juice off the pulp? I am concerned about having too much pulp in the primary bucket and ending up with not near enough end product. If anyone has any other ideas I would like to here them. A steam juicer would solve my problem here but purchasing one right now is not an option . Hopefully sometime down the road I will be able to get one.

BOB

 

[gaudet]

You can juice them like that, but its going to be an awful lot of work Bob. You might be better off freezing them for a couple weeks, thawing them out and putting them directly into the fermenter and hand crushing. You could then pour them out into a strainer bag to ferment on the pulp and start your must like that. You would just have to tie off the strainer bag to retain the pulp and stir and punch it down every day to keep it moist.

 

[fivebk]

Thanks gaudet - I was hoping you would reply to my question. I saw your thread and pics of your mulberry wine and it looks awesome. I have to admit that I am cheating on getting my berries. My youngest daughter has a big tree in her yard and she's doing all the harvesting for me. ISN'T THAT JUST GREAT!!! I bet you can guess who I am making this wine for.

 

[gaudet]

All is fair in wine making except stealing thy neighbors fruit.......

So far its doing just fine. I need to rack it soon and put it to sleep for another two months before bottling. I'm getting much better on this patience thing (not)

I have the back to basics SS juicer and it works great. I am just guessing at it but I estimate that I can steam about 12#'s of fruit at a time. It takes about 2 hours to make a run of juice. 20 minutes to get the gallon of water steaming, another 1.5 hours to juice it. Some even make a second run on the pulp. I think Northern Wino does it that way. Plan on a good 8 hour day to juice 2 - 3 gallons of pure juice. It pretty much does all the work for you. Except for canning and processing, but that's not bad either.

If she picks the fruit, then you ferment it, then it should be a 50-50 split..... No bones about that. But don't let her fool you. Picking the mulberries is not that hard, spread some king or queen size bed sheets under the tree and shake the branches. The really ripe ones will fall and all you have to do is collect them off the sheets. Or you can do it the lazy way and leave the sheets down and collect them daily. But you have to be careful of the darn birds.......

 

[fivebk]

That's exactly the way she is getting the fruit. Sheets are down and clean up once a day. So far birds are not a big problem.

BOB

 

[fivebk]

My youngest daughter ( brittney ) and I started our batch of mulberry wine today. After prepping all the mulberries by hand we decided that if we do a batch next year we WILL HAVE A STEAMER JUICER!!!! Brittney has never made any wine so this was her maiden voyage.

Here are some pics.

ABOVE: Preparing the mulberriesAbove: Making simple syrup

ABOVE: Brittney stirring the juiceAbove: Brittney checking the SG

Waiting 12 hours for the pectic enzyme to be added

 

[gaudet]

I was wondering if you had started your batch yet? The steam juicer really makes it easy. But I'm sure you will enjoy this wine as much or more than I will mine since you made it............

If you look closely you can see his purple fingers on the pyrex measuring cup.

 

[Wade E]

Looking good there, I have to go back tomorrow or the next day to see if I can scrounge up some more but its not looking good this year as we lost a butt load to a big wind storm here!

 

[Goodfella]

I see a press in the background.... Did ya let that help you?

 

[Wade E]

Good eye Goodfella!

 

[fivebk]

Goodfella. I was not able to use the press as I wanted to . I found a split in the basket and will have to wait for my son-in-law to fix it before I can use it.

BOB

 

[fivebk]

I pitched the yeast tonight in the mulberry must ( with a little helper ).

Here are a couple pics.

My little helper is my granddaughter ( Caydence ) She has to be everywhere and do everything PaPa does. ( and that's just fine by me )

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

Ain't them helpers a gas! Hope she helps you cut a little birthday cake today!

 

[fivebk]

Yeast was pitched about 8 last night and is going like gangbusters this morning

Thanks JW

BOB

 

[fivebk]

Racked the mulberry to secondary today with the SG at 1.015 I used D-47 yeast and it fermented just as fast as it did in the dandelion wine I just started.I tasted just a bit of the wine and BOY!!!!!!! is it gonna have some great flavor

BOB

 

[Wade E]

Due to the windstorm I was only able to reteive about 11 lbs all said and done.

 

[grapeman]

You are just going to have to get some mulberry's planted so you can monitor them better Wade.!

 

[Wade E]

Hack no I dont want that tree in my yard as its the messiest tree out there and my yard is bad enough with my 2 hickory trees dropping nuts and long green streamers and this year its doing something even more and misting tons of sap all over our cars. When the sunlight hits it just right you can actually see a mist coming off the 2 trees and its making our cars all sticky.

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

Wade, if your dissatisfied with the amount for wine, you could always make a cream ale (or other flavor beer)and replace the hops with mulberry's. Hops (humulus lupulus) is from the same family as Mulberry.

 

[gaudet]

Hack no I dont want that tree in my yard as its the messiest tree out there and my yard is bad enough with my 2 hickory trees dropping nuts and long green streamers and this year its doing something even more and misting tons of sap all over our cars. When the sunlight hits it just right you can actually see a mist coming off the 2 trees and its making our cars all sticky.

Mark Wahlberg isn't walking around and the towns people aren't all committing mass suicide are they???