How to Make Blackcurrant Wine in Just 2 Weeks

Making Blackcurrant wine is easy and with this recipe and method, it takes just two weeks from putting your blackcurrants into the fermenting bucket to bottling the wine.

Blackcurrant wine tastes amazing, think Ribena for adults!

Sometimes called Cassis, black wine has amazing flavours of dark fruits (obviously blackcurrants), blackberries, cherries, plum as well as hints of dark dark chocolate.

In the video I had quite a lot of blackcurrants, so you’ll see I have scaled up the quantities of water, sugar, etc

So if you want to make blackcurrant wine at home here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
1.5 kg blackcurrants 
1.25 kg sugar
2 pints of boiling water
4 pints cold water
Yeast - mangrove jacks R56
Pectolase
Fermentation stopper
Campden tablets 
Finings
Steriliser

Equipment:
Brewing Buckets x 2
Long spoon
Mashing & Sparging Bag
Syphon
Thermometer
Hydrometer
Trial Jar
Bottles
Corks
Corker

Method:
Put the blackcurrants into a fermenting bucket

Add the sugar

Add 2 pints if boiling water and stir until dissolved.

Add the 4 pints of cold water and stir

Add 1tsp pectolase and stir

Take a hydrometer reading and keep safe.

Add the yeast and stir

Put the lid loosely on the bucket and put in a warm place 18-22°C for 7-10 days

Check with a hydrometer that the fermentation has finished - it should be around 0.996

Place the sparging bag over the second bucket and then carefully pour the blackcurrant wine through the sparging bag to catch the fruit.

Take off the bag and gently massage it to extract any juice remaining in the fruit.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of fermentation stopper to a small amount of the wine to dissolve then add to the bucket of wine.

Crush 1 campden tablet and add this and stir.

Stir vigorously for 1 minute to knock any dissolve CO2 out of the wine. Then put on the lid securely.

Over the next 2 days, open the bucket and stir vigorously for 1 minute then replace the lid. Do this 3 times per day.

Now use the finings as directed, put in the required amount of bottle A, then 1 hour later, the required amount of bottle B.

Put the bucket somewhere cool where it will not be disturbed so the wine can clear.

Once clear, syphon the wine into the second bucket being careful not to disturb the sediment in the bottom of the first.

Prepare and sterilise your bottles and corks

Bottle your wine and put the corks in.

Now leave for the corks to set for 24 hours.

Now lay down the bottles and leave for 1-3 months before opening and enjoying.

The original SG of this wine will not be an accurate reading as there is lots of juice in the fruit and it is this juice that will make up the other 2 pints to make it up to the full gallon (4.5litres).
Blackcurrants have about 7g of sugar per 100g of fruit, so this will be added to the sugar we added and the yeast will eat that too and turn it to alcohol. So, with a quick calculation the original SG should be around 1.080. This will give a finished wine about 11.5%.

Cheers and Happy Brewing.

Let me know in the comments below how you get on and how your wine turns out.