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Berry hooch blend
I thought I would share this as a few of us are interested in making a form of berry ale.
In the past few years I've been making a form of mulberry wine from the trees on my property. I take a few pounds of ripe berries (they are similar to raspberry but without seeds) and put them in a 1.5 gallon sun tea jar with some water and sugar and let it sit in the sun for a few weeks to ferment. When it’s done I put the resulting wine (minus the fruit) into a growler to about 3/4 full and top off with vodka. I let it sit till the holidays and drink in a whisky glass. It’s an excellent drink, very thick. A friend of mine from Germany taught me this years ago but she used a variety of berries and they kept the fruit and would eat it as a fruit salad...adult style.
Last night I had Pale Ale from the keggerator and mixed in a bit of this hooch to a light blend and man was I surprised? I really don't think I could have gotten anywhere near the flavor profile of the berries if I had just added them as I normally would into secondary. So then I pulled a draught of my Dunkelhefeweisen and added the hooch......just incredible!! And then I pulled off from the Chocolate Stout and that was really something as well.
I think I've stumbled onto something.....but others have probably done this. So what I am going to do now is to take the 10lbs of blueberries I bought last week and do the same......make a blueberry 'sun wine' with its powerful flavors and blend that to my next mildly hopped pale ale at kegging. Probably no need to add the vodka.
I've got a gallon left of last years mulberry hooch so I can blend that as well to a few more beers this year. The trees are almost ready for another crop so this may force me to do another batch of mulberry as well.
I'm wondering if any here have done anything like this in the past and what the results are.
Thanks
Andre
I never thought about how much alcohol was in it. The stuff I blended had the vodka mixed in but if I do it in the future I will just make the base berry wine and blend it to the beer to taste.
I think just using the hydrometer and reading the 'alcohol' measurement would do it, but I've never done that since I don't really make wine (from grapes).
Yeah, it really is easy to make......I've never made a bad batch. They always turn out unique. I have a lot of wild black raspberry on my property and a few years ago and since they come out during the first crop of mulberries I mixed them and it was the best hooch I've ever tasted.
I remember a few years back I was in Milan, Italy for a meeting with our company and McCLaren Racing and we had this rooftop terrace party and they were serving champagne with a thick, sweet berry liquor poured in by the waiter just before you pick up the glass. Maybe I could keep a jug of this around and do the same thing...add to taste for whatever beer you have. Would go well at parties or club events I think.
I brought a jug of this hooch to a club event last year and it was an absolute hit...but nobody put any in their beer. I'll bring some along to our Club's 10th anis party in two weeks and see what others think.
Thanks
Andy
I just leave the lid on loose so that the gasses can escape or rig up something with a bubbler. There isn't going to be anything in there to harm you as far as I know. This is how the Germans were making fruit wine (they have a specific word for it but it escapes me) for centuries. What hasn't killed them made them stronger and I've never gotten more than a buzz off of it. There will be a hefty amount of alcohol created during the process to kill off most bacteria.
Thanks
Asher
I was thinking about trying this in berry season this summer. I haven't seen Andre/Andy/Asher around since this was posted, so has anyone tried this? I'm hoping for a more concrete recipe giving proportions of berries and sugar.
Well the alcohol is coming mostly from the sugar. The fruit is mainly for flavor and what little sugar it has converts to alcohol. Normally with wine you add about 2 to 3 pounds of sugar per gallon for 11% wine. So you can use that as a target. Depending on what fruit you use. Elderberries and chokecherries don't have any natural sugar so you use more to compensate. Sweeter fruits would take less. You could use two or three jusgs and add different amounts of sugar and see and in the end blend them or add more sugar or fruit juice whatever your goal is for each jug. I'm suprised it doesn't come out sour letting wild yeast ferment the muleberries unless he adds yeast and never mentioned it.
DC
Interesting, I've got a lot of wild raspberries & blackberries. I made a Wild Berry Wiezen last summer & it was ok, but too much to the berry side. Maybe make this & blend when bottling or kegging.
Any thoughts out there?
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