Black Berry ??????

[Plato]

Hey guys Im back after what seemed like an eternity from not making wine. In any case I got my peach going and was about to start my black berry. I had froze my goodies over the winter just due to not having time and selling my house or trying.....well enough boring stuff and now to the point.

I have a recipe book taken from EC Krauss. The poundage they call for is considerably less than what I see in the recipes here on this site. I wanting to make the best wine for my efforts always follow the good peoples recipies on this site. so my question is two parts.

Part 1. would it be a good assumption from here on out to always use 6 lbs of fruit per gallon of wine being made? It seems thats waht most do.

Part 2 would the 6 lbs per gallon be considered a full bodied wine or medium. My guess it everything EC Krauss shows would be a light bodied wine then up to the 6lbs per gallon being medium to full?


I currently have 24.5 lbs of frozen black berries and plan on buying enough to make my 5 gallon batch to be 30 lbs total or 6# per gallon.

by the way the Peach was right at 31# for 5 gallon....

 

[fabrictodyefor]

I don't remember where I read this within this forum, but it was suggested to use 45 lbs. of blackberries for a 6 gallon batch of wine. I have this figure in my head for the time I find blackberries on sale!!

 

[Plato]

ok so that puts it at 7 1/2 # per gallon. now is that whats considered full bodied or still in the medium body?

 

[CowboyRam]

I used Tom's recipe and it calls for 6lbs per gallons. I had to split my batch between two fermenting buckets; I ended up with almost 8 gallons of wine. I just racked mine to the secondary a week ago.

 

[Turock]

Plato--On another forum, one of the guys there always talks about using 6# and how the wine turns out just how he likes it. So I think that would be a good plan.

 

[Plato]

thank you all for your responses. Im set at 6# pergallon. cant wait....

 

[thinman56]

I took Tom's recipe (I think it was his) and tried to follow it, made a couple adjustments along the way, and here's my log, for what it's worth:

Blackberry
November 2013:
Blackberry Wine 3 gallon recipe (about, will adjust)
18 lbs of previously frozen and thawed Blackberries
5 1/2 lbs – White Table Sugar (from 1.03 to 1.085)
2 cans – Red Grape Concentrate
1/4 tsp – Liquid Pectic Enzyme or 3tsp powdered
2 tsp to start, check, then one more – Acid Blend to get to ~6.5
2 tsp – Yeast Nutrient
1/4 tsp – K-Meta
3 tsp – Yeast Energizer (did not do this in 2013)
1.25 Gallons – hot water over mostly thawed berries
Another gallon or so hot water added with sugar
1 Sachet – Lalvin RC212
11/8/13 - Put frozen berries into bag a few lbs at a time, put bag in bucket with elastic over the rim and layer in K-meta. Thaw, about 24 hours. Then pour 1 gallon of hot water over berries, Add Pectic enzyme, wait 24 hours. Mash up the berries, close and tie off the bag, squeeze and set aside.
11/11 - Add yeast nutrient, grape juice, the sugar and the rest of the water, and stir well. Put all fruit in fermenting bag and squeeze over primary to extract most of juices and then put bag in primary. Check SG, 1.085. Adjust temp to 75-80F, make yeast starter, pitch, leave cover loose until it really gets going.
Added 1 tsp of nutrient at SG=~1.050
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 (bag in my case) twice daily to get all fruit under the liquid level.
11/20/13, SG=.998, racked to 6 gallon carboy and let finish fermenting with bung and airlock attached. Squeeze fruit bag and strain through funnel into carboy. Made about 4.5 gallons.
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 2 tsps of Potassium Sorbate and degas your wine thoroughly.
Racked 12/8, tastes tart, a little acidy still.
Racked 12/25, split into one 3 -gal and one 1.5 gal batch, sweetened 3-gal batch with 28 oz blackberry syrup w/one cup sugar added. SG went from .996 to ~1.006. Tastes a little better sweetened. Also degassed and added 1/8 tsp Meta and 2 tsp Sorbate to the sweetened batch.
Racked 2/16/14, I like the dry a little better than the sweet, but both are a little 'thin'. Racked some of the dry into the sweet batch to top off 3-gals, left with less than 1 gal dry.
Racked 3/12/14, mostly to clear a 3-gal carboy, not bad, a little tart now, ready to bottle soon.
Bottled 3/22/14, 14 sweet, 4 dry and one blended, all taste pretty good, need to compare before next batch. Not as thin as before, but next year will either up the fruit or reduce initial water to get closer to 3 gals.

Good luck!