duh!

[Brewgrrrl]

I just thought I'd share this little revelation I had today. We have three little mulberry trees in our backyard! We have lived here for FIVE YEARS (although I wasn't making wine when we moved in) - DUH! The yard is just a typical city plot so it's not like I have acres to investigate.

In my defense, you can't really see the fruit from our side but my neighbor was pretty happy to let me clean off her side today (and the must is being sterilized as I type this). I had been in her yard talking with her when suddenly I noticed those distinctive berries over the dividing fence - !!!

Free stuff! And also - duh!

 

[Wade E]

It makes a very nice wine but go high on the amount of fruit per gallon.

 

[Joanie]

How high is high?

 

[gaudet]

5 pounds per gallon or more if you have it. I use about 5 and it came out very nice the first time I made it. It will motivate you to pick more fruit

 

[Joanie]

That be a lota pickin'!!

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Wow - did you make a sweeter wine? The batch I made a couple years ago (from a friend's mulberries) used 4lbs per gallon and I think about two and a half lbs of sugar - that seemed really perfect to me.

 

[Wade E]

I would have said more then that actually, the last one I made was 6 1/2 per gallon and I thought more like 8 lbs per gallon would have been much better. The typical ratio for making wine is 6 lbs per gallon but that fluctuates per fruit with weaker fruits needing more and stronger fruits needing less. All the Mulberries around here seem weak in flavor compared to like a Blackbery or Elderberry. Strawberries need more also due to the higher amount of water in the fruit.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Aha - I was curious about this so I dug up the recipe I used last year. It has only 3lbs of mulberries BUT also a pound of raisins. I'm sure that's why it turned out so nicely.

 

[xanxer82]

I've been harvesting mulberries from the bush in our yard and so far we have close to 3-4 pounds. I'm thinking to add some raisins for body. Brewgrrrl what recipe did you use?

 

[Brewgrrrl]

The one from "Making Wild Wines and Meads" (I love that book - every recipe I've made from it has come out just perfectly). I looked at it again though and I mis-spoke - there are two recipes in the book; a semi-sweet and a dry mulberry wine. The one I made was the semi-sweet which takes a few more berries (I think 4lbs but I am typing from work so this is from my teflon memory - sorry!). I don't remember how many raisins were in that recipe. The dry recipe was 3lbs mulberries and 1lb raisins but I don't know how that one compares to the semi-sweet.