DangerDave's Dragon Blood Wine

Whitehrs said:

I plan to treat with Sorbate, k-meta and sparkliod. just to see how it does. Any suggestions. if nothing else after treating, I will leave it for a month, rack and treat and bulk age for a month and see what happens. any ideas?

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Make sure your wine is degassed well. That will keep it from clearing much.

Also, If you look at the instructions, DangerDave has you adding the spakaloid when you first move it into the secondary. So I would add now and see what happens. Following that order I was clear and able to bottle in 3 weeks from pitching yeast.

Whitehrs said:

Why does my DDB not clear like everyone else. I follow instructions and no it's 3 weeks in and it's 5 days in the secondary at sg 0.099 and it is cloudy as anything. It is made from 100% juice concentrate and it just does not clear. I plan to treat with Sorbate, k-meta and sparkliod. just to see how it does. Any suggestions. if nothing else after treating, I will leave it for a month, rack and treat and bulk age for a month and see what happens. any ideas?

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Make sure it is thoroughly degassed. Also, if you haven't bought a clearing agent yet, get Super Clear. It works better than sparkloid. With Super Clear, when you add the second part and stir. It will start to clear so quickly it will look like a snow globe.

Danger Daves dragon bloodwine

I noted that in the primary fermentation the temperature range is instructed to be from 68° to 80°F. What temperature range should we keep the secondary fermentation?

MarcAndr said:

I noted that in the primary fermentation the temperature range is instructed to be from 68° to 80°F. What temperature range should we keep the secondary fermentation?

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Same temperature range applies when you have transferred to glass. The lower you are on the scale, the longer it will take to finish, the higher, the faster.

The lower the temperature the harder it is to remove CO2, as well. The fermentation temperature also affects the flavor too.

I'm so excited... Monday I ordered my all in one pump. It should be here (in Alaska) by Friday. My wine will be degassed and then bottled. I don't get excited by much but this is it. WOO HOO!

My Dragon blood is about one month old now I tried a glass last night with a little sugar very good but a bit young. Today I Racked and added a cup and a half of sugar to my 3 gallons, stirred vigorously. Now it is quite cloudy! Is that normal? Will it clear in week or so? It was very clear before adding the sugar.

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Stevelaz said:

My Dragon blood is about one month old now I tried a glass last night with a little sugar very good but a bit young. Today I Racked and added a cup and a half of sugar to my 3 gallons, stirred vigorously. Now it is quite cloudy! Is that normal? Will it clear in week or so? It was very clear before adding the sugar.

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That's normal! Give it a lil time and it will clear again.

Ok. Today is does look clearer. However, i see what appears to be sugar at the bottom of the carboy! I stirred the crap out of it after adding the sugar!

Has anyone ever tried anything else besides sugar to back sweeten like wine conditioner? I used the vintners wine conditioner before and liked the results and have half bottle left. Was thinking of trying it if it need to be sweetened any further.

Triple berry heavy on Blackberry dragons blood turned out great. Need to get more going don't think it will last long.

Rampage4all said:

Triple berry heavy on Blackberry dragons blood turned out great. Need to get more going don't think it will last long.

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How long did you wait before bottling? How much sugar?

Stevelaz said:

How long did you wait before bottling? How much sugar?

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You can bottle once it is clear & degassed.
Or you can let it bulk age 1-3 months.
The original recipe calls for 4-5 cups of sugar.
I prefer 1/2 as much.
I use about 2 cups per 5 gallon.

Stevelaz said:

How long did you wait before bottling? How much sugar?

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I let it bulk age for about 10 months. Had 8 pounds of sugar for fermenting. I back sweetened with oceanspray 100% juice raspberry blackberry 2 bottles 32oz I believe and one bottle 375ml of Blackberry liqueur. Just a hint of sweetness to it super berry flavor. Think that's all right don't have my notes with me

Dragon Blood wine

I like this recipe and I am in the process of making my first dragon blood. I see the fermentation temp for the primary is 68-70 deg F. What is the temp reccomendation for the secondary fermentations??

MarcAndr said:

I like this recipe and I am in the process of making my first dragon blood. I see the fermentation temp for the primary is 68-70 deg F. What is the temp reccomendation for the secondary fermentations??

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If possible keep it in that temperature range throughout the entire process.

It also depends on the yeast used, as each strain has different temperature ranges. I've fermented at higher Temp's, just under 80*F. For reds, I stay between 75-78 with 1118 yeast.

Stevelaz said:

Ok. Today is does look clearer. However, i see what appears to be sugar at the bottom of the carboy! I stirred the crap out of it after adding the sugar!

Has anyone ever tried anything else besides sugar to back sweeten like wine conditioner? I used the vintners wine conditioner before and liked the results and have half bottle left. Was thinking of trying it if it need to be sweetened any further.

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Few things.

1. I always use table sugar to backsweeten. Sometimes it takes more stirring than others to dissolve.
2. Yes, you can use simple syrup to backsweeten, then the "dissolving" won't be an issue.
3. Another option for backsweetening is honey.

Made my first DB last month. I was shooting for a 3 gallon batch, but after getting things adjusted in the beginning I ended up with a little extra. I took the opportunity to go ahead and sweeten the extra 1.5 L a bit more than I thought was necessary (I figured most of it would go to topping off the carboy anyhow). My wife sampled the "extra" last night and was hooked. Tonight we will taste test to decide the right amount of sugar to add back to the full batch.

I find that making a simple syrup and using that as the sweetener avoids the issue of the sugar not fully blending back in to the wine. However, it does require some rather precise measuring while you're conducting your taste tests, and a little math afterwards to extrapolate the syrup volume to the carboy volume. I usually give the wine a week or 2 after sweetening to allow everything to blend together and ensure there's no further fermentation going on. For recordkeeping and labeling I note how many ML of sweetener was added back per 100ml wine. That makes it easy to replicate if I somehow make a fabulous batch.

Tim

Took a large bottle (1500 ?) over to a dinner. They had some commercial berry wine they were working on. It had a little better body than my DB, but was also much sweeter. Needsless to say, I brought home a couple of empties