Blackberry color question

[OilnH2O]

My daughter picked some wonderful blackberries over the weekend and I started a batch yesterday that had beautiful ruby-red color. Waiting 24 hours to pitch the yeast, per the recipe, I note this morning that the color has started to lose that rich red and become more brownish red.
How do you maintain the color? Or, am I already doomed to brown wine!

 

[grapeman]

If memory serves me correctly, ascorbic acid helps prevent oxidation and color change in fruit type wines. Try a search on that here or elsewhere and you can probably get the correct amount to apply. Also you need to make sure SO2 levels are high enough, or the ascorbic acid will make the oxidation worse instead of better.

 

[Funky Fish]

OilnH20,


Did the recipe call for any k-meta or campden tablets at the beginning? It sounds like you didn't add any sulfites, and so while you waited the 24 hours to pitch your yeast, your juice started to oxidize.


For this batch, you may be doomed to brownish wine. But you probably won't have to age it as long. Next time, I would add sulfites to protect the wine for the 24 hours (and wouldn't worry about ascorbic acid).

 

[OilnH2O]

I think that's it... I got caught up in end-of-day chores and did NOT put in the campden -- I got up first thing because I remembered it in the middle of the night -- and saw the color change! I also left out the acid blend, which may have contributed -- but that all went in around 6am this morning!


Thanks -- I've got 4 more pounds of blackberrys so will do this again, and will "follow the directions, leaving out no detail, however slight" as we've heard so many times before on the kits!


(I'm learning!

)


Dave