Would it be possible to make cherry wine from Wild Black Cherry Trees? My
concern would be the development of Prussic Acid. Any advice here would be
helpful. Thanks!

Also, anyone with a good recipe for blackberry wine? I recently moved to a
new home, and found that I am going to have hundreds of wild blackberries to
harvest...

J

See below.......


"J" wrote in message
...
Would it be possible to make cherry wine from Wild Black Cherry Trees?

Yes. But.....The usual caution about "wild things" is: If you ain't
absolutely,
positutely, sure of what it is, _don't_ use it !! Fruit is used to provide
flavor
in the wine. If it tastes good (and ain't poison), use it. If the flavor
is
mediocre or bad, that is how your wine will turn out. We reap what we
sow.

My
concern would be the development of Prussic Acid. Any advice here would
be helpful. Thanks!

When fully ripe, the Prussic acid and other nasties are concentrated mostly
in
the pit. Don't_ever_allow cherry pits to get into your must/wine. Stem and
pit the cherries before you start !!


Also, anyone with a good recipe for blackberry wine? I recently moved to
a new home, and found that I am going to have hundreds of wild
blackberries to harvest...

Jack Keller's site has more recipes than you could ever need. ;o) HTH

Frederick

When fully ripe, the Prussic acid and other nasties are concentrated mostly
in the pit. Don't_ever_allow cherry pits to get into your must/wine.
Stem and pit the cherries before you start !!

Hmmm... my grandmother and, more recently, I have made jelly from wild
black cherries and I'm still here... are the "poisons" stable enough to
stay in the pit even tho' the whole fruit (pit and all) are boiled to
make the jelly, then squeezed out? Or is it just too dilute to matter?
The jelly *is* astringent, which I'd assumed was from the pits...

(What would be an easy way to de-pit a whole batch of wild cherries?)

Just wondering...

Derric

"Derric" wrote in message
...

(What would be an easy way to de-pit a whole batch of wild cherries?)

Just wondering...

Derric


A cherry pitter/stoner?

http://tinyurl.com/2ceqkw

Quixote

(What would be an easy way to de-pit a whole batch of wild cherries?)

A cherry pitter/stoner?
http://tinyurl.com/2ceqkw

Interesting ... perhaps some of those "wheel" types would work with the
black cherries (which are very small). Those "single cherry" types either
wouldn't work or would be a whole lot of trouble for the tiny cherries.

Thanks.

Also, I looked around a lot today and confirmed that the seeds do have
the hydrocyanic acid... but also all the jelly recipes I found just cook
the whole thing, pit and all. Perhaps the heat doesn't release the
acid?

Derric

Derric wrote:
(What would be an easy way to de-pit a whole batch of wild cherries?)
A cherry pitter/stoner?
http://tinyurl.com/2ceqkw

Interesting ... perhaps some of those "wheel" types would work with the
black cherries (which are very small). Those "single cherry" types either
wouldn't work or would be a whole lot of trouble for the tiny cherries.

Thanks.

Also, I looked around a lot today and confirmed that the seeds do have
the hydrocyanic acid... but also all the jelly recipes I found just cook
the whole thing, pit and all. Perhaps the heat doesn't release the
acid?

Derric

Cooking is reported to drive off or neutralize hydrocyanic (prussic) acid.

"J" wrote in message
...
Would it be possible to make cherry wine from Wild Black Cherry Trees? My
concern would be the development of Prussic Acid. Any advice here would
be helpful. Thanks!

Also, anyone with a good recipe for blackberry wine? I recently moved to
a new home, and found that I am going to have hundreds of wild
blackberries to harvest...

I personally would discourage making wine from wild cherry trees. But I
would not hesitate for a min. in using wild cherries. ;o) If you pit them,
as you should with any stone fruit, they will be fine. I wish I could get
wild cherries. As mentioned above, you can get a cherry pitter for a
resonable price and it goes pretty quick

As far as blackberries, dewberry and black berry wines are my favorite
country wines. They make delightful dry red wines. Light on body as a
french wine, hence they go great with almost any food. Use 5 to 7 lbs of
berries per gallon of wine. That is a lot and a lot of work to pick but
less will give a wine with no body. Incidentlally, both cherry and berry
wine blend very well with a strong grape wine such as Cab. Sauv. or they
blend well together. Make them seperately and then experiment. Great fun.

If picking 7 lbs of berries per gallon seems to honerous, consider making a
black berry mead. Delightful!. Use 3 lbs of berries per gallon and enough
honey to give an 11-12% wine. No higher. The honey will add the body the
berries need and the taste blend is wonderful. Make it semi dry or semi
sweet. Really good and refreshing.

Ray