Topping off a fruit wine

I am in the midst of a blackberry wine fermentation. It's a one gallon batch, however, the first racking into secondary fermentation shows about 2 1/2 cups of headroom in the 1 gallon carboy. It's not an issue now that it's still fermenting, however, when fermentation is completed I am going to need to top it off. I know I can displace it with marbles or move it into a smaller jug, but I am interested in suggestions on what I can use to top it off. So, my question is what should I top it off with? If it was less headroom, I would use distilled water, but 2 1/2 cups is a lot on a one-gallon batch to use water, right? If I use a store-bought blackberry juice, should it be from concentrate or not from concentrate? Anything else about using a store-bought juice I should look out for? Any recommendations on what to use overall? I would prefer to keep it a pure blackberry flavor, so topping with a red or white wine is not my preference. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks very much!!

I would not add any concentration just yet unless you are completely done fermenting and added sorbate.

You can use the headspace eliminator until you are completely done fermenting,

http://www.allinonewinepump.com/product/headspace-eliminator/

This was a frequent issue for me early on. I know you didn't ask, but a couple of notes on prevention...

One thing is that you will learn how to adjust your initial volume so that this doesn't happen. For 1 gallon batches I aim for 1 gallon + ~375ml which goes into a separate bottle when moving to secondary. Then I use that for topping off.

On other prevention note, I put what is left at the bottom of a carboy after racking in a small bottle or jar with as little airspace as possible, and I put it in the fridge. After a couple of days this settles down and I will often have between several ounces of additional wine that I can use to top off later.

Later you will have built up enough of a stock of wine that you can use one of your own finished wines to top off.

Back to your OP...if you wait, sorbate it and then add concentrate, you are basically backsweetening. You may very well still want to do this, but I would prefer to backsweeten according to taste instead of according to the volume of head space I'm trying to eliminate. I think 2.5 cups of concentrate would be way too much sugar for my liking.

I don't see the problem with using a concentrate now. If it were me, and I had access to preservative free blackberry concentrate, I think my approach would be to dilute it with water to get the SG close to 1.080 or so (so that it doesn't affect your final ABV) then add it before fermentation is done so that those sugars get chewed up as well.

Juice could work in the same manner but you would be diluting your ABV a little bit if you add it now because there won't be as much sugar in the straight juice.

If I didn't have access to blackberry concentrate I'd probably just top with a merlot.

Topping up with concentrate which contains sugar is not a good idea because of the inability to use sorbate right now. And more sugar could get the alcohol content too high and kill the culture, depending on which culture you used. Merlot is not a good idea if it's been MLF'd.

The best way to go is to have marbles and smaller glassware on hand. You can even use wine bottles for the last little bit. We never top up anything--nor have we EVER done that. Don't adulterate your wine just to manage the top up.

Turock,

Good point on the merlot and MLF but what's wrong with using concentrate now? The fermentation is still going...the sugars in the concentrate will just get fermented, it is just like a staged sugar addition. The alcohol won't get any higher than whatever he has not assuming you dilute the concentrate to something close to his OG. S/he wouldn't need or want the sorbate at this point.

Thanks very much - I think topping with concentrate is what I will do unless Turock thinks there is an issue with it. Also, I know this is probably dumb, but why concentrated juice instead of not-from-concentrate juice?

ny3299 said:

Also, I know this is probably dumb, but why concentrated juice instead of not-from-concentrate juice?

Click to expand...

My two cents (and it is worth probably less than that!):

Assuming you want these sugars to ferment, you can dilute the concentrate less than you normally would for drinking, and thereby get the SG of the topping off juice in line with your desired ABV.

I'm generalizing here, but in terms of sugar concentrations, I find it helpful to think of most drinking juice as roughly 1/2 strength must and most concentrates as 2-3x strength must.

Most juice is in the range of 30-35g sugar per serving. I believe if you check the SG you get around 1.050. So that 2.5 cups of juice, assuming it ferments dry, is going to give you 2.5 cups of 6.5% alcohol. Add this to your gallon, and the ABV is going to drop a little bit. Flavor might be diluted a similar amount. Enough to make a difference to you? Can't say.

Just curious, where are you getting blackberry juice concentrate? It's pretty hard to come by around here.

As I said--it depends where the brix was adjusted to and what culture you're using so that you don't exceed the potential alcohol content for the culture. I don't think any of those details were posted. If this is early stage of the ferment and the brix is not an issue, then go for it. Concentrated juices are usually better to use because they are 100% juice. It can be hard to find 100% juice in a non-concentrated form. But if you DO find it, then that is OK too.

Gents - thanks very much for the input. I am not certain I will find blackberry juice or concentrate, but I was hoping Whole Food would have it. If I can't find it, I will go with displacing with marbles. Just ordered 5 pounds of clear glass marbles. Thanks again for all of the help - you guys are great!!

Marbleking.com has foodsafe USA made marbles, no lead. You could just make a sugar solution that matches your original SG and add it to your fermenting juice. When the ferment is done you are still going to have the same problem after you rack. You wont be able to top off perfectly this year, but next years batch you can top off in the secondary with some of this years batch Blackberry brandy might also be a flavorfull topper.

Another topping technique is to dilute some everclear down to the same alcohol content as your wine, you can even add some acidblend to this if you dont want to dilute the acid level in your wine and use that to top off with.

WVMJ

Like WV MJ said, I would use Blackberry Brandy.thats what I use all the time for my Blackberry wines. Other red fruit wines I use our house Cab, which didn't have an MLF. Most of my red fruit wines have up to 20% Cab in them anyway. IE Blueberry, Elderberry, Blackberry, etc. Roy

Thank you. If I use blackberry brandy, can I just add it now during the secondary fermentation? Do I add it full strength?

ny3299 said:

Thank you. If I use blackberry brandy, can I just add it now during the secondary fermentation? Do I add it full strength?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't add the brandy until fermentation is completed; the reason is that adding the brandy might raise the ABV too high for the yeast to continue their work. The result would be a sweetened, fortified wine.