Be still my heart. I found some blackberry concentrate here in Costa Rica today. It says mix 3 to one and has sugar added but no sorbates. This sure beats smashing up all those blackberries (Mora in Spanish.) I can't find any recipes using the concentrate. Anyone have a 5 gallon recipe?
I'm still experimenting with berries, VH base and juice. This isn't my experience, it's my thinking ....
Recipes typically call for 4# of blackberries/gallon of must. My experience has been that juicing (steam) produces just under a pint of juice per pound of berries.
I would use 4 pints of reconstituted juice per gallon, 20 pints in your case. I would also add 4 or 5# of berries for good measure - if you can get them. This is 50/50, juice and water.
VH blackberry base is 3 qts of juice with maybe a pound of berries. Most that have used this for 3 gallons have said it was 'OK'. This is 25/75, juice and water.
The above should give you even more body/flavor than the VH base.
