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Tom

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Blackberry Wine 6 gallon recipe
36 lbs of previously frozen and thawed Blackberries
10 1/2 lbs – White Table Sugar
1 – Red Grape Concentrate
1/4 tsp – Liquid Pectic Enzyme or 3tsp powdered
2 tsp – Acid Blend
6 tsp – Yeast Nutrient
1/4 tsp – K-Meta
3 tsp – Yeast Energizer
5 3/4 Gallons – Water
1 Sachet – Lalvin 71B 1122
Pour 1 gallon of warm water in a 7.9 gallon primary bucket or bigger.
Add K-meta, Yeast Nutrient, Yeast Energizer, Grape Concentrate, and stir well. Put all fruit in fermenting bag and squeeze over primary to extract most of juices and then put bag in primary. Pour the 1 gallon of boiling water with all dissolved sugar over fruit. Fill the rest of the way with remainder of room temp water and check SG, it should have a SG of around 1.085 give or take a little, if more then add a little more water, if less then add a little more dissolved sugar in small amount of water as sugars from fruit can vary a little. Let sit for 12 hours with lid loose or with a cloth covering bucket with elastic band or string tied around so as that not to sag in must. After those 12 hours add your Pectic Enzyme and wait another 12 hours while also adjusting your must temp to around 75 degrees. After those twelve hours, pitch your yeast either by sprinkling yeast, dehydrating yeast per instructions on back of yeast Sachet, or by making a yeast starter a few hours prior to the 12 hour mark. At this point either leave primary lid off with the cloth again, place lid on loose or snap the lid shut with airlock. Punch down cap twice daily to get all fruit under the liquid level. When SG reaches 1.015, rack to 6 gallon carboy and let finish fermenting with bung and airlock attached. When wine is done fermenting, (check a few days in a row to make sure SG does not change and SG should be around .998 or less) you can stabilize by adding another ¼ tsp of k-meta and 3 tsps of Potassium Sorbate and degas your wine thoroughly. You can now sweeten your wine if you like by using simple syrup which consists of 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of boiling water or by using a juice or frozen concentrate. I typically take 2 quarts of an alike juice and simmer on stove at medium heat with lid off until its 1/3 its original size and let it cool to room temp and then add slowly to taste. Be careful not to over sweeten. At this point you can use a fining agent or let it clear naturally. Once clear, rack into clean vessel and bulk age more adding another ¼ tsp of k-meta at 3 month intervals or add ¼ tsp k-meta and bottle age for at least 3 months and enjoy. Longer aging will give you a better wine so save a few bottles till at least 1 year mark so you can truly see what this wine can aspire to.
 
Ok I dont need to type it out, I used 40 pounds of Berries and 8 pound of sugar. Everything else is close as hell to same
 
Good!
any plans on f-pac or back sweeten?
 
I have 3/4 Gallon of must left in fridge, If I think it needs it I will use it. I am hoping to add it to a Cab Sav or Merlot
 
OK keep the thread open so you can follow up and let us know
 
is 1/4 tsp k meta the same as one campden tab?
this may just be the recipe i need for the blackberries...i'm not sure how many pounds i'm up to, but the freezer is getting full, AND a local truck patch just started advertising fresh blackberries. i think i'll make sure and get enough and do this BIG batch after all...tom, i'm telling my hubby you twisted my, uh, battery charge cord, lol
 
No 1/4tsp of powdered meta is enough for 6 gallons. You neet 1 campton tab per gallon.
 
i've seen the little wooden measurers for the powdered kmeta, but i will remember the 1 tab per gallon. thanks!
 
any update on this mike? this will be my next batch...just trying to get enough berries in the freezer. may have to use storebought frozen berries to make up my poundage:(
 
I started a 2 gallon batch of Blackberry/Blueberry this morning. Had frozen fruit that we picked at a local berry farm in June. It's my second homemade wine, my first is a Pinot Grigio from a box juice kit that is probably about a week from bottling. Other than quantities and mix of fruit, recipe looks similar. I hope it turns out as good as some of the recipes I've seen here.
 
Reading this recipe... "5 3/4 Gallons – Water"

is that correct for a 6g batch?
 
Yea. You may even go to 5 1/2 gal, Remember the fruit will add juice and you want to start with over 6 gal because there is alot of sediment.
 
Tom,
I'm interested in using your recipe for blackberry wine. I plan to use Wal-Mart frozen blackberries. Several questions:
1. How much red grape concentrate to use?
2. Would you consider this recipe to be dry, off-dry, or sweet?
3. If I make it for 3 gallons, do I assume correctly that everything except the yeast, its nutrients and enzymes should be cut in half?

Thanks
NS
 
Tom,
I'm interested in using your recipe for blackberry wine. I plan to use Wal-Mart frozen blackberries. Several questions:
1. How much red grape concentrate to use?
2. Would you consider this recipe to be dry, off-dry, or sweet?
3. If I make it for 3 gallons, do I assume correctly that everything except the yeast, its nutrients and enzymes should be cut in half?

Thanks
NS

1 One can frozen Welch's

2 Yeast will make it dry. then you can add f-pac or backsweeten to your taste

3 Yes

NOTE; add sugar to get starting gravity of 1.085 using http://mpesgens.home.xs4all.nl/thwp/winecalc.html
 
Problems With Blackberry Recipe

This is my first venture in making wine from fruit. I'm using Tom's blackberry wine recipe. My first SG, after berries, enzyme, sugar, etc. were added, was 1.132, which seems way too high. I added about a gallon of water, taking it to within 1" of the very top of my 7.9 gal fermenting pail. The SG was essentially unchanged. I think I may be confused about what the reference to higher and lower SG actually means.

- Does higher mean a higher number (therefore a more dense solution)?
- Is 1.132 too high to continue? My level is already too high to add anything else.

I am really afraid that after the yeast is pitched, this thing will take off big time, creating a big mess of overflow.

I have everything ready to proceed to the next step, but this SG seems out of whack. I have a second 7.9 primary I could use but would have difficulty in splitting the fruit in the bag into two equal parts
- What action is recommended here?
NS
 
To clarify here, I used all the ingredients exactly as specified. I used 10 lb of sugar, dissolved in 1 gallon of boiling water. I also used 34 lb. Wal-Mart frozen blackberries (the label says only blackberries, mentioning no sugar or preservatives), plus 2 lbs of fresh berries. All berries were frozen and thawed, but still cool. I added the berries to the bag over the fermenter, squeezing now and then and giving an occasional punch inside the bag with a potato masher. I followed the recipe closely, if not exactly. I would have used a larger fermenter, but my LHBS sells only 7.9 pails and 40 gal. beer fermenters.

I had my doubts going in that this recipe would tax a 7.9 pail and therefore should be cut in half, but I decided to go full tilt boogy! Tom, I value your opinion and hope you can advise me here. Thanks
NS
 
If you're that close to the top of your fermenter, the common wisdom is to divide the batch into two buckets. Blackberry must can get a little messy, but it's worth it.

Can you post your recipe in full? 36 pounds of blackberries should be wonderful for 5-6g of wine.

P.S. Next time you're out and about, go to Wal-Mart bakery. Ask them for used large frosting buckets (about 4g). They are food-safe (obviously) and have no residue that will cause you off-tastes. They typically give them away for free, especially if you're willing to wash them out. :)
 
Thanks Ken. I am using Tom's blackberry recipe, under which I posted the original thread. I like the idea of using a larger bucket but my LHBS store does not have one. I went to 3 different Wal-Marts yesterday to get the 35 lbs of frozen blackberries. Good suggestion about using their large frosting buckets; wish I had known!

Looks like I need to divide my large batch & add water to get SG down to 1.085 or so as recipe specifies. Tom may have some ideas about this too.

NS
 

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