Wild Berry Wine

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I have what I consider to be a problem with noxious plants growing around the edges of my yard. The area around the garden is the worse, and without these thorny nuisances, I'd have a lot more room to expand the garden. I refer to raspberry, dewberry and the dreaded thimble berry plants.

Those areas might as well have been covered with razor and barbed wire, not to mention attracting tick carrying wildlife. This prickly perimeter is practically impenetrable (say that 5 times quickly). However, all of those plants are in total abundance of berries this season. What to do with all that? Let the birds and tick infected critters eat that up? Just let it go and let it spread more and take over?

No, I am making wine from it.

I started this about five days ago. My rock garden is covered in dewberry vines, something I transplanted with native prickly pears from a nearby prairie remnant. They are a complete menace and make Day of the Triffids seem like a field of sunflowers. So I'm hacking away with some hedge trimmers, trying to avoid the cactus and yucca plants, and just underneath the new over growth was an entire hidden world of big juicy black berries! I had to collect them, they were peak. So on to the raspberry bushes. A little past peak, but loaded. The thimble berries are about a week until ripe.

So I started about a gallon to ferment by mashing up the berries and adding two cups of water and one of pure cane sugar to each cup of berries in the hopes of having some good natural yeast getting a start. It smelled pretty funky, like grass or hay that has just dried out, I suspected it wouldn't take a ferment and go bad.

The following day when I went to add more berry mash, water and sugar, it smelled worse and had some mold spots on the surface (that I scooped out). I figured it was going to be a complete failure, but I keep at it until day four when it was smelling GREAT! It got a good start and I though it was actually going to work. I wanted to save the yeast before it worked out, that's all I really wanted, some natural yeast to brew with. The wine, eh, I might drink that or more likely distill it.

So today, day five, the same process. Pick more berries, mash them up and add water and sugar to the strange brew I was making. I popped the lid on my brewing bucket and took a good deep whiff and holy shit! The alcohol was so strong, I could have lit it on fire with a match. I never had a batch work that well. I could have put a hose on the vapors and just breathed in a good buzz.

I plan on making as many gallons as possible with this method. I could get as much as eight gallons when the thimble berries ripen. That's my goal anyway, I have two four gallon food grade buckets I'm hoping to fill.

I think I will try this same sort of process with maple syrup sugar from my own syrup and see if I can get an all natural wine to brew. If I can do that then I can be assured of alcoholic beverages when there is nothing else available. At least vinegar, that is very useful.

[Snarl]

Have you ever noticed that deer trails are relatively free of of thorny growth? The stuff can grow thick everywhere (reminiscent of Uncle Remus' old tale), but the deer seem to be able to keep it down and keep it from coming back.

Cool practice you're into here, MSB. Do keep us up-to-speed on your progress!!

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Have you ever noticed that deer trails are relatively free of of thorny growth? The stuff can grow thick everywhere (reminiscent of Uncle Remus' old tale), but the deer seem to be able to keep it down and keep it from coming back.

Cool practice you're into here, MSB. Do keep us up-to-speed on your progress!!

The deer will come by and eat the new greens at the tips, they're one of the tick infested critters I mentioned. The deer trails are mostly under the tree canopy and don't support these plants. Everywhere else, the deer use the driveway, two tracks and the main road out front. No matter what happens with the landscape (as in trees coming down or getting logged out), generation after generation of deer use the same deer paths. The basic lay of the land has them travel the traditional routes me thinks.

I'll be back as this project moves along. Hell I might take some pictures along the way.

[ChiefD]

That's awesome that you were able to take those berries and make some nice wine from them! I had some home made dandelion wine once, thought I wasn't going to like it. I really enjoyed it. I think the dandelion is the state flower in Wisconsin, LOL! I've thought of trying to make a batch of it from the hundreds of dandelions we have growing around here.

[rickymouse]

Well, if things do get rough out there, fermented berries and apples do attract deer from miles around.  People are not the only beings that like to get drunk, and the deer mate during the time apples are fermenting on the ground...drunken deer like to get laid.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Yesterday I went to the dewberry patch covering my rock garden and picked the last of those. When this all began, I was hell bent on tearing out that thorny mess, it's covering and chocking off everything else in there. I did a similar thing last season and it came back worse this year, so my destruction is temporary. However, yesterday, I didn't feel like hacking, chopping and raking up the trimmings as I picked the berries, so I brought my walking stick that I have been using lately.

Now, before this I was using heavy leather gloves to dig around in the tangles to find berries, but I would have to remove one glove to pick with. So, I found that with my four foot walking stick I could part the tangles quite easily and provide support as I bent down to pick. I was kind of surprised that a simple walking stick was so helpful picking berries and it did little damage to the plants to use it that way. It worked as well with the 5ft tall thimble berries and raspberries, even better perhaps as I could part the brush and even bring berries within reach, no need for gloves if I were careful. Also, I could beat and break down a path through the brush without chopping and hacking and pulling the thorny branches away into a pile someplace.

It seems so simple and I feel so dumb for not picking these berries this way. If I pick berries on public land, I will use this method as it does little damage to the plants. Also, my interest in self defense with a walking stick or cane is combining with this other interest, as are some of the other things I've been doing. Even my antique bottle collecting has contributed in an off hand way. I was doing research on a 19th century medicine bottle that came from an apothecary that used to be in a nearby town. That had lead me to lists of ingredients and products they made. This ties into the wild berry wine as I intended to distill it and use the alcohol to make essential oils and extracts from the wild medicinal plants growing right near these berry bushes.

Very strange how all my interests seem to combine in my endeavors in regards to prepping and survival. It certainly makes me feel I'm on the right track to be better prepared when the SHTF.

[Snarl]

Very strange how all my interests seem to combine in my endeavors in regards to prepping and survival. It certainly makes me feel I'm on the right track to be better prepared when the SHTF.

You're lucky to be getting outdoors (the common denominator).

I've been working (sweating) my butt off outdoors for weeks. Not looking forward to August.  Hunting season can't get here fast enough.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

[wtbengineer]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I bought 8 lbs of barley seed from Amazon, the local co-op (the one that is left) didn't carry the seed for planting. It was organic seed that is meant to be sprouted and eaten, so seemed appropriate. I tried to plant a row of it last year and it grew to about mid season and died off. But it sprouted great to make the malt.

The hops did poorly due to dry weather and matured early this year, so when I picked it, it was a little passed prime and I air dried it over about a week, that was a mistake (so I thought). I added about a pound to the wort (4 gallons) when I was brewing it and it smelled like Satan's potpourri, I thought I just destroyed the brew. After a half hour it smelled spicy, but pretty sick and nasty.

Ah, but after getting it into the fermentation bucket with some yeast, within 5 hours it began fermenting. I have had to add sugar to keep it going, but I believe that it was because I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

After a few days, it was smelling like beer. It's been almost a week now and it's smelling like a good IPA! I believe it will be OK, esp. for my first try at brewing some beer, esp. from scratch.

[Snarl]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

Curious: what was the malted barley's origin?

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

Curious: what was the malted barley's origin?

Bought the barley on Amazon, here's their description . . .

Currently unavailable.
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
Product details
Brand - PowerGrow Systems
Material Feature - Natural
Special Feature  - All natural barley seed
Item Weight - 5 Pounds
Sunlight Exposure - Full Sun
Unit Count
80.0 Ounce

• All Natural Barley Seeds - USA Grown
  
• Bulk 5 pound bag of Barley Seed
  
• Whole Barley - hulls intact
  
• Perfect for growing barley grass for juicing
  
• Barley can also be used for Malt Brewing and Beer Making
  

Here is a link to the company in Utah . . .
www.powergrowsystems.com

PowerGrow Systems & Utah Hydroponics
151 E 1750 N SUITE F
VINEYARD, UT 84057

[wtbengineer]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I bought 8 lbs of barley seed from Amazon, the local co-op (the one that is left) didn't carry the seed for planting. It was organic seed that is meant to be sprouted and eaten, so seemed appropriate. I tried to plant a row of it last year and it grew to about mid season and died off. But it sprouted great to make the malt.

The hops did poorly due to dry weather and matured early this year, so when I picked it, it was a little passed prime and I air dried it over about a week, that was a mistake (so I thought). I added about a pound to the wort (4 gallons) when I was brewing it and it smelled like Satan's potpourri, I thought I just destroyed the brew. After a half hour it smelled spicy, but pretty sick and nasty.

Ah, but after getting it into the fermentation bucket with some yeast, within 5 hours it began fermenting. I have had to add sugar to keep it going, but I believe that it was because I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

After a few days, it was smelling like beer. It's been almost a week now and it's smelling like a good IPA! I believe it will be OK, esp. for my first try at brewing some beer, esp. from scratch.

You added a pound of hops???  To how much wort?  I'd think that much would be appropriate for about a half barrel batch.  Anyway, keep us posted on how it comes out.

[Snarl]

I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself

I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.

I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

Curious: what was the malted barley's origin?

Bought the barley on Amazon, here's their description . . .

80.0 Ounce

• All Natural Barley Seeds - USA Grown
  

Most of the barley used in Bourbon making is imported. I 'might' be able to get you some ... 'might'. Lemme know if you need.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I bought 8 lbs of barley seed from Amazon, the local co-op (the one that is left) didn't carry the seed for planting. It was organic seed that is meant to be sprouted and eaten, so seemed appropriate. I tried to plant a row of it last year and it grew to about mid season and died off. But it sprouted great to make the malt.

The hops did poorly due to dry weather and matured early this year, so when I picked it, it was a little passed prime and I air dried it over about a week, that was a mistake (so I thought). I added about a pound to the wort (4 gallons) when I was brewing it and it smelled like Satan's potpourri, I thought I just destroyed the brew. After a half hour it smelled spicy, but pretty sick and nasty.

Ah, but after getting it into the fermentation bucket with some yeast, within 5 hours it began fermenting. I have had to add sugar to keep it going, but I believe that it was because I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

After a few days, it was smelling like beer. It's been almost a week now and it's smelling like a good IPA! I believe it will be OK, esp. for my first try at brewing some beer, esp. from scratch.

You added a pound of hops???  To how much wort?  I'd think that much would be appropriate for about a half barrel batch.  Anyway, keep us posted on how it comes out.

I had 4 1/2 gallons of wort, I used about 7 lbs of malted and dried barley I chopped up in a blender, I guessed on the hops as I couldn't locate my digital scale. It was dried hops off the vine, it may not have been a whole pound I was eyeballing, but I was going by recipes that use between 8 and 16 oz of hops for 5 gallons. The hops had over matured a little and this year's hops were mild in their aroma, so I dumped a bunch in there. The malted barley and hops were in a muslin bag during the brewing process.

[wtbengineer]

Update:

Well, it stop working a while ago and I never got out to find blueberries to add to it. It should have been bottled by now, but I still have to filter out the chunks and let it settle in a big jug first. The alcohol level is great, I should used the hydrometer to check it.

I do have an excuse though. I got some beer brewing from barley I malted myself and hops from this season. My first attempt since buying a 5 gal kit last year. It smells like it will be a nice IPA when it is ready to bottle.

Nice!  I've been growing my own hops since about 2005 and I thought about trying to grow and malt barley but read that it required more land than I had to grow enough to be useful.  I don't know.

I bought 8 lbs of barley seed from Amazon, the local co-op (the one that is left) didn't carry the seed for planting. It was organic seed that is meant to be sprouted and eaten, so seemed appropriate. I tried to plant a row of it last year and it grew to about mid season and died off. But it sprouted great to make the malt.

The hops did poorly due to dry weather and matured early this year, so when I picked it, it was a little passed prime and I air dried it over about a week, that was a mistake (so I thought). I added about a pound to the wort (4 gallons) when I was brewing it and it smelled like Satan's potpourri, I thought I just destroyed the brew. After a half hour it smelled spicy, but pretty sick and nasty.

Ah, but after getting it into the fermentation bucket with some yeast, within 5 hours it began fermenting. I have had to add sugar to keep it going, but I believe that it was because I had saved the dried malted barley since last season.

After a few days, it was smelling like beer. It's been almost a week now and it's smelling like a good IPA! I believe it will be OK, esp. for my first try at brewing some beer, esp. from scratch.

You added a pound of hops???  To how much wort?  I'd think that much would be appropriate for about a half barrel batch.  Anyway, keep us posted on how it comes out.

I had 4 1/2 gallons of wort, I used about 7 lbs of malted and dried barley I chopped up in a blender, I guessed on the hops as I couldn't locate my digital scale. It was dried hops off the vine, it may not have been a whole pound I was eyeballing, but I was going by recipes that use between 8 and 16 oz of hops for 5 gallons. The hops had over matured a little and this year's hops were mild in their aroma, so I dumped a bunch in there. The malted barley and hops were in a muslin bag during the brewing process.

Gotcha, I've brewed a lot of batches that way too.  Some of them very good.   The only problem is when you get a very good batch it's hard if not impossible to repeat.  Anyway, let us know how it tastes!

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

This beer is just my first attempt and I wanted to be as basic and primitive as I could be. Even how I grow my hops is minimal and Old World in that I use 20ft poles and string the hops in a Maypole fashion, like a Tee-Pee. I give them the least care I can to test the limit of their ability to grow in my swamp that can be too shaded, too wet, or too dry. I think of it as my R&D farm for sustainable intensive farming to produce SHTF products like tobacco, beer and wine. How do you produce these things when your working with almost nothing? This is my reasoning and process for learning things like this.

So if this primitive batch of evil brew looks like beer, smells like beer, tastes like beer and gives me a buzz, I have success. I have learned a lot from this and have been keeping notes, so the amount of hops (Chinook) isn't that important right now IMO as I've learned the basics.

Now, the big test will be bottling this "Swamp Gut" without it exploding or going bad.

[wtbengineer]

This beer is just my first attempt and I wanted to be as basic and primitive as I could be. Even how I grow my hops is minimal and Old World in that I use 20ft poles and string the hops in a Maypole fashion, like a Tee-Pee. I give them the least care I can to test the limit of their ability to grow in my swamp that can be too shaded, too wet, or too dry. I think of it as my R&D farm for sustainable intensive farming to produce SHTF products like tobacco, beer and wine. How do you produce these things when your working with almost nothing? This is my reasoning and process for learning things like this.

So if this primitive batch of evil brew looks like beer, smells like beer, tastes like beer and gives me a buzz, I have success. I have learned a lot from this and have been keeping notes, so the amount of hops (Chinook) isn't that important right now IMO as I've learned the basics.

Now, the big test will be bottling this "Swamp Gut" without it exploding or going bad.

I get that, it's good thinking.  I know if TSHTF I would want to be able to produce some beer still.  I couldn't do it with my current setup, I'd have to build a fire to get my kettle boiling instead of flipping a switch.  Then I'd have to figure out how to control my mash temperature somehow too.  I force carbonate with CO2 now, but if things went south I'd have to figure out how to naturally carbonate with my equipment.  Lots of problems to figure out.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I guess the next step is playing with the hydrometer and seeing when I should bottle it. Any advice at this point?

As for fire brewing, my maple syrup experience and outdoor cooking has helped me in this area. Plus the maple sugar is valuable as well, I use it when I process my homegrown tobacco. I'm growing herbs like fennel and mints for menthol to process the tobacco as well. At some point all this begins to tie together, wine making, beer brewing, alcohol distilling, extracts and essential oils, tobacco, cannabis, all the big cash crops and products you'd need for the black market, er, I mean personal use of course.

[wtbengineer]

I guess the next step is playing with the hydrometer and seeing when I should bottle it. Any advice at this point?

As for fire brewing, my maple syrup experience and outdoor cooking has helped me in this area. Plus the maple sugar is valuable as well, I use it when I process my homegrown tobacco. I'm growing herbs like fennel and mints for menthol to process the tobacco as well. At some point all this begins to tie together, wine making, beer brewing, alcohol distilling, extracts and essential oils, tobacco, cannabis, all the big cash crops and products you'd need for the black market, er, I mean personal use of course.

Speaking from experience, I'd wait until the bubbling has slowed to a rate of maybe a bubble every few seconds.  If you're using one of those bubbler things that you put in a cork to shove in the mouth of a carboy.  If you're going all the way in a bucket, I'd just give it 10 days.  I've never had any batch go beyond that.  The biggest thing to worry about if you're bottling is bottling too early and having them explode.