Wild Berry Wine

[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.