Mulberry wine questions

[e-wine]

My wife and I are heading over to a friend's house on Saturday to pick some Mulberries. The friend has two trees, one with the dark Mulberries and one with white Mulberries. I looked up recipes for Mulberry wines. Wade E has one post using frozen Mulberries and Keller has a couple of recipes. I've also read that Mulberries have a weak flavor. I don't know how many Mulberries we'll get but my initial plans are to pick, wash and freeze the Mulberries then go back a few more time to see how many berries we can collect. Per one site, mulberries are 88% water. Keller made a statement "Mulberries by themselves make a poor wine unless you go all out and use 100% juice with no water." but he did not provide a recipe. I want to use the "all out" method to make the wine. Does anybody have a mulberry wine recipe they have made without adding water? I've made up a recipe (basically a grape recipe) but I wanted to tap into some actual experience to ID possible issues. Also, I did read that besides providing the main food source for silk worms, white mulberries are used for fruit production. Is there any reason to make a wine with all white mulberries. Thank you.

e-wine

Additional note, I am doing this instead of a white clover wine.

 

[Wade E]

You dont need recipe, just get as many as you can and freeze them like you said and then thaw them out and crush them up good so that you extract a lot of juices and check the acid level and adjust from there.

 

[e-wine]

Wade E,

I'm glad you responded since you have made mulberry wine before. My plans were to test for total acid and s.g. and go from there. Pectin, nutrient and yeast are based on the fruit type and the amount of juice. By the way, how was your mulberry wine?

e-wine

 

[Wade E]

It came out very nice, If I had enough of these berries I would try the all juice method but Im lucky I got any at all last year as we had a big wind storm just as they were ripe and most of them were blown off the tree! The birds also love these berries also so dont park your car near one of these trees!

 

[e-wine]

I found out last night, we have a third tree to visit that is also "loaded". The owner wants a bottle of wine in return. I'll have to see what they have but I would really like to get enough mulberries to make the wine without adding water.

e-wine

 

[lloyd]

You mentioned acid level and adjusting. this is an area I don't fully understand. I do two tests 1 is a narrow ph litmus test between 2.8 and 4.4 ph on my apple it read 3.6 ph. 2 I do a tartaric test using standard sodium hydroxide solution calibrated syringe and acid indicator solution. on my apple the point of color change was at 3.75 ml on a 3 ml quantity of must. 3.75 ml X.25 =.9375 acid content in percent tartaric. 3.75 ml X 1.6=6 gives acid as ppt sulfuric based on this info which way should I adjust add more acid or use a use a acid neutralizer like calcium carbonate?

 

[e-wine]

We picked about 17.5 pints of mulberries and we decided to start a batch to see how it works out. After testing we added some sugar, acid and yeast nutrient, staying on the conservative side since we do not know how much juice we have. I will test again tomorrow morning. The one thing we did not do was remove the stem. My assistant was not too keen on the idea since they don't come off easily but since she is also my boss, we did it her way. We plan to go back on Monday and we will remove the stems on all future berries before we freeze them. I will give a final gallon recipe as it relates to the number of pints of mulberries required as well as the other additions.

e-wine

 

[Wade E]

Lloyd, that is a pretty high acidity level. If I were you Id try and cold stablize this wine after its done fermenting but if you dont have the means then Potassium Bicarbonate would be better, Calcium carbonate is a better adjuster used prefermentation.

 

[manicorganicgal]

I have made mulberry wine that turned out quite well. I didn't use a recipe, just the old fashioned way. I will say that I have NEVER taken the stems off. They are edible. I even put the berries, stems and all, into pancakes and they are very good. I always use what's left after pressing out the juice for the wine regardless of what fruit I'm using. I put it in muffin or pancake batter. This year I may try mulberry jam as well as wine. I'm looking to use a recipe this year though. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[e-wine]

The total acid was 1.01% so last night, I adjusted to bring the acid level down. I want the total acid around 0.70% before I transfer into the secondary. I'm glad I started this preliminary batch so I could develop a plan for the larger batch.

e-wine

 

[e-wine]

I did get the total acid down to 0.70% before transferring into the secondary. It's been in the secondary for about ten days now. The specific gravity was just about 1.010. The secondary is covered with a paper bag to help protect it from the light. The airlock extends through a hole in the bottom of the bag. This wine is opaque! I'm almost afraid to contemplate the upcoming racking losses.

e-wine

 

[Minnesotamaker]

I've made it and liked it. My suggestion is to use as much fruit in the batch as you can. This way, the flavor holds up and the body and color in incredible.

 

[e-wine]

I had to use halogen light to see through the one gallon carboy but I was able to see it is clearing up nicely. I am trying to figure out how I am going to see the sediment on the bottom when I do rack it. A light table would probably help.

Also, I do plan to top up with mulberry juice unless I have to dilute the acid. I can't wait test this wine when I do rack it.

e-wine

 

[e-wine]

We racked the mulberry and added a campden tablet 10 days ago. We plan on bottling in about a week. We wanted to give it some time for any yeast to settle. We really haven't seen much activity in over a month and the wine looks clear, although very dark. We'll try to get a picture later today.

e-wine

 

[JohnandTina]

Mulberry wine

We made some Mulberry wine and we used some 550 mg Active potassium metabisulphite and it is still has bubble ? can anyone tell us why??

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

First welcome to the forum. Next, 550 mg in how many gallons? What does Active mean? And the real questions are what was your starting and finishing gravities and what yeast did you use? A little recipe review would also help people help you. WVMJ

We made some Mulberry wine and we used some 550 mg Active potassium metabisulphite and it is still has bubble ? can anyone tell us why??