pounds verses juice

[jamesngalveston]

why do must of these recipes call for pounds, not juice.
most people will have measuring cups but not a scale.
4 lbs of black berries will not give me 64 oz of juice.

Its the juice we want anyhow, not the fruit.
Is there a special reason for using the crap we are going to throw away anyhow..
Seems like a waste of space to use the fruit .

Just asking:

 

[JohnT]

why do must of these recipes call for pounds, not juice.
most people will have measuring cups but not a scale.
4 lbs of black berries will not give me 64 oz of juice.

Its the juice we want anyhow, not the fruit.
Is there a special reason for using the crap we are going to throw away anyhow..
Seems like a waste of space to use the fruit .

Just asking:

Pounds will make up for the fact that sometimes fruit can be juicy and other times not so much. Volume of whole fruit does not give an exact amount.

 

[seth8530]

I think the point he was trying to make was that maybe we should be using volume of juice instead of lbs of fruit? In which case I would agree. However, like you just said volume of fruit is pretty meaningless...

 

[jamesngalveston]

i made two recipes calling for 4 lbs of blackberries...
after remove the crushed berries and the bag, (after letting it drain and squeeze the juice out i had no where near the amount of juice that i got when using 4 lbs (64 oz) juice.

 

[seth8530]

That is to be expected. Blackberries and blackberry juice have very different densities. Try to think of it this way. Blackberries are not made completely of juice probably only 35% of a blackberry is juice (just a guess) so you should not be surprised that 64 ozs by volume of blackberries or 4 lbs of blackberries by weight does not yield the same amount of juice as does 64 oz of volume of black berries juice or 4 lbs by weight of blackberry juice.

 

[MNwino]

i made two recipes calling for 4 lbs of blackberries...
after remove the crushed berries and the bag, (after letting it drain and squeeze the juice out i had no where near the amount of juice that i got when using 4 lbs (64 oz) juice.

Most people don't use pure juice when making fruit wines. You know how many pounds of blackberries you would need to make 5 gallons of pure blackberry juice? I don't know but it would be a hell of a lot of blackberries and would be very expensive

 

[jamesngalveston]

it helps to have 10 full acres of wild blackberries in your backyard.
I had 48 gallon bags from last year froze.
But this year it was the biggest crop ever. I have offered to let anyone come pick some, but no one has.
To be honest..I have more blackberries then i know what to do with.
You can only make so much jam/jelly,cobbler,pie,etc.
That is why I decided on wine making....to use them up.
Im starting a 10 gallon batch this weekend.

 

[seth8530]

Sounds very impessive. I wish I had as many blackberries as you did. One thing to add to MNwino's post is that some fruit wines do better being all juice. Think apple and peach. I would not be surprised if an all juice blackberry wine turned out great. Just watch your acid.

 

[jamesngalveston]

how do check the acid

 

[seth8530]

With either PH strips or a PH meter. I think it is fine as long as it is not lower than the 3 range. Their is also another acid known as TA which needs to be titrated to be determined. I am not sure what the accepted values for that tend to me. If it sounds too painfull for you I would not worry too much.. But it is something to keep in mind

 

[loumik]

i made two recipes calling for 4 lbs of blackberries...
after remove the crushed berries and the bag, (after letting it drain and squeeze the juice out i had no where near the amount of juice that i got when using 4 lbs (64 oz) juice.

I think you may be confusing liquid volume and weight. If you go out to your 10 acres you may pick enough berries to get 64 oz of juice but this a 1/2 gallon of juice, not 4 lbs. of juice. Each year the amount of juice squeezed from a given weight of any fruit will probably vary. If you are going to make wine from all juice you will have to juice however many berries it takes to reach the volume you want. My understanding of blackberry wine is that water is generally added to reduce the acid levels so what difference does it make if a recipe suggests an amount of berries by weight or not. You will probably be testing and adjusting the acid levels and the starting SG anyway by adding water or berries or sugar.

LOUMIK

 

[Julie]

I think loumik explained this very well. And to add to that you do need to worry about your TA. If your acid is too high it will hamper fermentation plus a high acid wine is just not a pleasant wine to drink, it will be very harsh. It is best to adjust your acid prior to fermentation.

 

[Duster]

Not sure if my two cents is worth much anymore or just adding another level of confusion but here goes.
If a Recipe calls for 4lbs of berries then use 4 lbs of berries, crush them and add then to the primary. The "waste" will add things to the wine other than just juice, like tannins for example. Sometimes depending on the fruit pure juice will throw your TA way off. For this reason 4lbs of fruit may be all is needed for the recipe which may equal only ounces of juice.
Press the "waste" after fermentation is complete. The Pectic enzyme and yeast will do a good job extracting everything it can from the crushed berries.

 

[jamesngalveston]

thanks for input

 

[jamesngalveston]

I vision a bunch of monks sitting around a vat of grape juice, bubbling like hell and hardly waiting to drink the stuff.
Where did all the chemicals come from, and the ph testing, the acid testing
the degassing, the sorbates, bannanas,raisins, vacum pump, filters, finning,etc.
Is there not an old fashion way to make wine with out the chemicals, etc.

 

[Duster]

I vision a bunch of monks sitting around a vat of grape juice, bubbling like hell and hardly waiting to drink the stuff.
Where did all the chemicals come from, and the ph testing, the acid testing
the degassing, the sorbates, bannanas,raisins, vacum pump, filters, finning,etc.
Is there not an old fashion way to make wine with out the chemicals, etc.

Sure, many still do it, I'm just not one of them. It comes down to making what you like and enjoying what you make. If your happy with the results then its the right way for you.

 

[novalou]

I vision a bunch of monks sitting around a vat of grape juice, bubbling like hell and hardly waiting to drink the stuff.
Where did all the chemicals come from, and the ph testing, the acid testing
the degassing, the sorbates, bannanas,raisins, vacum pump, filters, finning,etc.
Is there not an old fashion way to make wine with out the chemicals, etc.

If you look through history, wines were made from grapes because it was easy. Crush, let ferment: presto, you have good drinkable wine. Grapes are one fruit that have the right balance of sugar and acid.

It wasn't until acid was discovered and wine making changed to add the tests to make wines balanced. So now if we have a highly acidic fruit like blackberries, the right volume of water can be added to bring the acid down to pleasant, drinkable levels.