07-23-2022, 11:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-24-2022, 01:07 AM by Michigan Swamp Buck.
Edit Reason: For Clarity
)
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.
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.