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CowboyRam

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I was told by the wife that my next batch of wine will be blackberry. She just ordered about 45# of blackberries from bountiful basket. Does anyone have a good recipe for fore blackberry wine?

Thanks,

Jay
 
There is tons of recipes for blackberry wine, most are very light on the fruit, and few use 100 percent juice. I am not sure how much blackberry I made last year , it was a lot. I will pm you a recipe, that I use, using both the fruit and the juice...
First thing...dont rinse them, and put in big freezer bags and freeze it.
 
Problem with recipes is the guy who wrote them didnt taste YOUR berries. Before you freeze them if they are fresh, give them a taste. If they are sweet and not to acidic then you can use all of them in a 5 gallon batch, just crush, add pectinase overnight and go from there. But if they pucker you up before they start to give a good blackberry taste you might need to dilute a bit. Do you have a acid testing kit yet? I always make the wifes favorite, then she lets me experiment. This would be a good time to get some tools and goodies so you can make sure HER batch of wine turns out perfectly.

WVMJ

I was told by the wife that my next batch of wine will be blackberry. She just ordered about 45# of blackberries from bountiful basket. Does anyone have a good recipe for fore blackberry wine?

Thanks,

Jay
 
The best blackberry wine is made with no water. Use all of the berries. I would freeze them so that you'll have more juice. Be sure to check the PH on them before you begin the ferment because if they have a low PH and you ferment them that way, you'll never be able to adjust it post ferment. Set the PH at about 3.4 If the berries are too acidic, use calcium carbonate to raise the PH. Be sure to use 71B yeast to metabolize some of the malic acid, or else this wine can be a little harsh. Be sure to bulk age 9 months to 1 year. Questions?
 
I followed turocks suggestion last year, and it was dead on.
the first harvest of berries were way to acidic...the last was not.
adjust ph before you ferment.
I knew Turock would chime in, he is a blackberry wine maker, and he knows what he is talking about.
 
First thing...dont rinse them, and put in big freezer bags and freeze it.

Why not rinse them?
PH test kits. I still have my test kit from when I had tropical fish, but it has been about 5 years ago that I shut down my aquarium. I am not sure how accurate it may be; I may need to get a new test kit.
 
Don't rinse them if you're going to let them sit around because that will make them spoil easy. But if you want to wash them and then freeze them, that would be OK.

The best way to test PH is with a PH meter. They aren't too expensive. The color change tests are hard to read on reds. If you think you'll stay with this hobby, a PH meter is an invaluable tool. Even if you never have to acid adjust your musts very much, you should still know what the PH is so that you know how much free SO2 your wine needs for preservation.
 
I think i asked this before, not sure.
Turock when you crush your blackberries how much juice do you think you get out of say, 100 pounds.
 
We don't really crush them. When they get all thawed out, they are really macerated. I don't know that I can estimate HOW much juice is there---but it is ALOT!! It is MORE than enough for testing.

Which reminds me----Cowboy, be sure to bag this fruit or strain it as it comes out of the primary. You don't want any of the seeds getting over into the secondary and aging it on seeds because they can make the wine bitter.
 
About how much wine will 45# make?

James, that recipe would be great.
 
I do not think a press is really needed, but if you have one or want to build a simple one I doubt it would hurt. Also, it is really hard to judge how many lb/Gal your blackberries will give you since some blackberries are a little juicier than others.. Perhaps someone could give you a rough estimate.
 
I just need a rough estimate on how much juice I might get out of my 45# of berries.
 
About 10 pounds of berries gives about a gallon of juice or so. Lots of ways to do it. We freeze ours, thaw them overnight, crush them in a grape crusher, toss in some pectinase overnight then strain out the pulp and seeds and gently twist the strainer bags to get more juice, but not king kong them. We dont like ferenting on the seeds as they can impart a bitterness that doesnt bother most poeple as they sweeten in the end a lot but we try to keep the backsweetening to 1.015 so it complements the taste without being overly sweet. We replace the lost tannins with oak which makes it turn out really nice. WVMJ
 
I couldnt get that much juice last year, but they were picked early..
I should picked later, when they were a little riper and fuller.
 
With no water addition, and after racking, you should have 4 gallons of wine.
 
I got my blackberries today. They tasted a little tart, but then it has been a long time sense I have tasted blackberries. Looks like tomorrow I will be busy washing and freezing some berries. I am going to have to wait for a few weeks before I start the fermenting process due to a small remodel job we have going on in the basement; still have a fair amount of dust to contend with. Maybe this will be some motivation to get finished with the new steps down into the basement done.
 
I just got to play with my Refractometer my wife got me for Christmas, and my blackberries have a Brix of 9. Now what can I do with this new found information?
 
First figure out about how much alcohol you want in the end and calculate how much sugar you are going to possibly need (or better yet honey). After you pulp your berries and get some just remeasure and then you will have another reading plus you will know the volume of juice you have which will help you to know how much sugar to add. I suggest to add like 80% of it and then measure again to see how close you are to your target, then keep adding it. You can add the sugar directly to the juice and stir it in, if you have a drill mounted stirrer this makes it much easier, only your trigger finger gets tired not your arms from stirring. Have you got your hydrometer yet? You can use your refractometer at the start while mixing up your juice but once the yeast starts making alcohol the refractometer needs complicated tables to recalculate the sugar, while your hydrometer just sits and spins and gives you your reading immediately in the mush. GOOD LUCK, WVMJ
 
A brix of 9 will give you a potential alcohol content of 5.2% So that means there's SOME sugars in the berries. We always take our potential alcohol to 12-12.5% But you could also do anything from 11-12.5% potential alcohol and you do this determined on how much sugar you add to the must.

A refractometer is a handy tool, especially out in the field when testing grapes to see how ripe they are. As the brix goes up, acids come down. So a low brix grape is not fully ripe and has retained acids in it. Sometimes--depending on variety--this can be a good thing. But you need to know your grapes and their characteristics to help guide you on when to pick.

It also comes in handy when setting the brix of your must because it only takes a drop. But as Jack said, you can't use it after alcohol production unless you use a Pearson Square calculation.
 

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