Help needed

Is there sediment on the bottom of your jugs? How clear is your wine? The reason I ask, is that your wine is about 6 months old and it sounds like you've racked it maybe once or twice. The questions you need to ask yourself is the wine clear? has fermentation stopped? is the wine still dropping sediment? If the wine is not clear, I would rack it off the sediment and wait another couple of months or so before bottling. Has fermentation stopped (is it still bubbling in your airlock)? You need to wait until fermentation is over before bottling, so you don't have bottle bombs.

My suggestion is that you go to

wine making site and read up on making wine at home. I would also suggest going to Jack Keller's home wine site, but for some reason I can't get there this morning. Darlene

plastic air >locks. It fermented strong for a couple of weeks, and on July 30 when they >had slowed down some, I poured them.........

A nearly filled jar fermenting strongly would, I think, force gas AND liquid out through the air lock. That's why most instructions I've read say that the primary fermentation should be carried out in 1/2 to

2/3 filled container covered with a towel or gauze screen to keep the critters out. The air lock is used only later when the primary fermentation is complete. But that's only my number two concern. Choke Cherries can be found on any number of listings for poisonous plants. Are there species that are fit for human consumption ? I don't know. But why take the chance, when there are so many fruits that are perfectly good and perfectly safe for wine ?

Hi Bill. Thanks for your response. I have been eating chokecherry jelly since I was about 5 years old, that is 60 years now. I have drank chokecherry wine made by a friend of mine in Wyoming. So far we haven't found any that were a problem. Your first clue is when you see birds eating them off the tree, bush. If there isn't a lot of dead birds laying around, they are safe to eat.

Dwayne

I've read in a number of survival books that birds can get away with eating berries that would kill a human.

Don

If you've eaten them safely then that's proof enough. We have these berries in NE PA. The birds seem to love them, at first. Later, the ground is littered,- not with dead birds, but with clumps of berries they have vomited up. That's proof enough for me. I don't know anyone here who eats them, suggesting strongly that we are talking about two different varieties.

Good luck.

Birds and deer eat poison ivy berries also. Hmmmm - wander if there are any poison ivy recipes out there - how about it Jack?

Chokecherries, Pin Cherries, and wild or Black Cherries are al edible, make good wine, pies, and expensive jams and jellys if yo want to buy them

It is the leaves and green shoots of the bush or tree that is highl

toxic to both man and animals

Sort of like Rhubarb, you can eat the stalk but the leaves ar

highly toxic...

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Posted via MooTal

The kind I am talking about grows in bushes in the wild. In your yard, you will mow down the sprouts that come up volunteer and if left alone, turn it into a thicket.

The leaves are green, but turn a reddish brown in mid summer and fall. The berries grow in clumps of 10 to 20, and turn from green to nearly black. Around half of each berry is seed.

The birds will leave large blue spots of berries, but not from vomiting. These came from the other end of the bird.

I believe Chokecherry jelly is the best tasting jelly I have ever eaten, if made right. The trick is not to dilute the juice down too much before making the jelly.

Dwayne