Wild Fermented Wine & Mead- Help?

[mishmo]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone can help me..

I've started two small bottles of a elder berry wine (about 1 L) and another one which is a hibiscus mead (about 1 L).


For the hibiscus wine i'm trying to make it with wild yeasts, so how I made it was:
I basically just filled the bottle with water, hibiscus, maple syrup, grapefruit juice and put a about a quater
cup of raisins in it aswell (for the wild yeasts on the skin) and checked the SG and then on the top of the bottle
I put a clean piece of cloth over it with a rubber band to help incorporate the yeasts into it.

Does this have potential to work do you think? Should I get an airlock? would that let wild yeasts in?

For the elderberry wine:
Overnight I soaked the elderberries in warm water and then then next day discarded the berries, checked the SG
and I put the liquid into a clean jar. I added raisins to the jar and also added some liquid of a apple mead
i've currently been fermenting (I made the apple mead with commerical wine yeast)...so I'm wondering
whether the liquid I added from the apple mead could act as a starter to ferment the elderberry wine?

Any help would be much appreciated (i'm just a beginner)!

Thanks,

Michelle.

 

[Infinitee]

I'm still novice with wines (with whines though, I do quite well)

But I do know there are various microorganisms living on hibiscus flowers...
Most likely some wild yeasts of their own (bees tend to spread them while collecting nectar)
& also the tempeh fungus - Rhizopus oligosporus

I've had some pretty funky smelling failures when trying to use hibiscus for bean-curd ferments.
Going to try a hibiscus wine soon myself, being the amount of flowers out - apparently there's variability in the tastiness of flowers in different species.

Just to note, you'll have wild yeasts in raisins, non-pasteurised honey and on most flowers
I think wild yeasts are a good thing, but they can be unpredictable.

The other option would be flash boiling the ingredients to remove wild yeasts
And make up a 'yeast-starter' to inoculate the wine with your commercial wine yeast.
The yeast/lees from a few bottles of homemade wine or from the bottom of fermenting-vessel, in a sterile container, with sterile water, some boiled raisins (nutrient), sugar/malt will get a starter going quicksmart.
Then you can whack that in your pre-boiled juice/flower/syrup concoction and your off.
Best to have an airlock in - it won't let wild yeasts in (it keeps a constant pressure and water barrier to prevent this)
And you need to know when fermenting has slowed/stopped depending on how much you want to rack the wine (or not - its up to you).

Have fun and best of luck

 

[Infinitee]

Just thought I'd add a link to a recipe for hibiscus flower wine ...
(Slight pasteurisation of flowers with boiling sugar-water)

Hibiscus Wine Recipe

Great site there too, with a few hundred tested recipes for wines/meads and good articles on brewing stuffs.
No affiliation, just posting some relevant info.