Hi all, I have an abundance of blackberries this year and would like a good recipe please. I would like to make the wine with as much flavour as possible but not tart. I read an article I a local paper which said " country wines" should have a grape concentrate added to give body!!" Is this true or would it help? All help is much appreciated.
Blackberry wine
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LoveTheWine
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Turock or jamesngalveston could help the most here... they both use an all blackberry juice and back-sweeten.
Hopefully one of them chime in to help you out.
Hopefully one of them chime in to help you out.
LOL--well, I couldn't resist looking at this thread. Blackberry can be a tough little wine to handle for a beginner but if you do it the way I describe, you'll get a good result.
We freeze the fruit first--after it thaws, you'll have tons of juice. Do not dilute with water if you want big flavor--it will taste just like a blackberry pie. But if you want a lighter style, add some water to it but be conservative so you don't kill the flavor.
You HAVE to have a PH meter to successfully adjust the PH on this fruit. If you don't get the PH in line, you'll NEVER be able to adjust it post-ferment with potassium carbonate because you don't dare use that much potassium carbonate to move the PH so much. You use CALCIUM carbonate to adjust your PH PRE-FERMENT. We are using wild blackberries and the PH comes in at 2.8 or 2.9 We use calcium carbonate to bring the PH to 3.4 When you use calcium carbonate, add only 1/4 tsp at a time--stir VERY well, and then retest. As you come close to the target PH, use less---and walk away from it for 15 or 20 minutes so it all integrates before final testing. You don't want to over-dose and over-shoot the target by a whole lot.
If you have a big batch of berries, 100# or so, you need to layer in a proper dose of metabisulfite into the thawing fruit so you don't get biological growth---it can take 2 or 3 days for this much must to thaw and come to room temp and you don't want any bacteria to get a head start or your ferment will be sluggish or become stuck.
This is a malic acid fruit. You should use 71B as your culture because it metabolizes about 20% of the malic and makes the wine nice and smooth. Blackberry done without 71B is very harsh at the end and then you have to resort to other tactics to smooth it out. When you use 71B, Scott Labs recommends hydrating it with Go-Ferm. 71B is sensitive to competitive factors and dominate wild yeast, which is why you should rehydrate it. The Go-Ferm provides micro-nutrient and doesn't contain ammonia salts, that can be toxic to some yeast, like other nutrients do.
I'm sure there are more questions, and I didn't touch on dose of meta, etc. and some other typical winemaking technique because I don't know how experienced you are at winemaking. But if you have more questions or are totally confused--let us know.
Another important thing---you don't want the seeds from the fruit to get over in the secondary. Aging on seeds will make the wine bitter. We bag this fruit---but if you don't, you'll have to run the wine thru a fine screen or paint strainer, etc when you rack off the primary in order to catch the seeds.
We freeze the fruit first--after it thaws, you'll have tons of juice. Do not dilute with water if you want big flavor--it will taste just like a blackberry pie. But if you want a lighter style, add some water to it but be conservative so you don't kill the flavor.
You HAVE to have a PH meter to successfully adjust the PH on this fruit. If you don't get the PH in line, you'll NEVER be able to adjust it post-ferment with potassium carbonate because you don't dare use that much potassium carbonate to move the PH so much. You use CALCIUM carbonate to adjust your PH PRE-FERMENT. We are using wild blackberries and the PH comes in at 2.8 or 2.9 We use calcium carbonate to bring the PH to 3.4 When you use calcium carbonate, add only 1/4 tsp at a time--stir VERY well, and then retest. As you come close to the target PH, use less---and walk away from it for 15 or 20 minutes so it all integrates before final testing. You don't want to over-dose and over-shoot the target by a whole lot.
If you have a big batch of berries, 100# or so, you need to layer in a proper dose of metabisulfite into the thawing fruit so you don't get biological growth---it can take 2 or 3 days for this much must to thaw and come to room temp and you don't want any bacteria to get a head start or your ferment will be sluggish or become stuck.
This is a malic acid fruit. You should use 71B as your culture because it metabolizes about 20% of the malic and makes the wine nice and smooth. Blackberry done without 71B is very harsh at the end and then you have to resort to other tactics to smooth it out. When you use 71B, Scott Labs recommends hydrating it with Go-Ferm. 71B is sensitive to competitive factors and dominate wild yeast, which is why you should rehydrate it. The Go-Ferm provides micro-nutrient and doesn't contain ammonia salts, that can be toxic to some yeast, like other nutrients do.
I'm sure there are more questions, and I didn't touch on dose of meta, etc. and some other typical winemaking technique because I don't know how experienced you are at winemaking. But if you have more questions or are totally confused--let us know.
Another important thing---you don't want the seeds from the fruit to get over in the secondary. Aging on seeds will make the wine bitter. We bag this fruit---but if you don't, you'll have to run the wine thru a fine screen or paint strainer, etc when you rack off the primary in order to catch the seeds.
CWayman
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I used the recipes here, but there is a good one in the recipe section on the forums here too:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/blackbr2.asp
I had 10Kgs (22Lbs or a full bucket full to overflowing) so I did two batches one with 8Lbs for 2 Gallons and 14Lbs for 2 Gallons (Turned out to be 3 with all the extra juice). They were exactly the same apart from the quantities of the fruit. That way I can work out which one I prefer rather than making it all the same if you have lots.
This is what was recommended to me (on my first thread - one month ago today!)
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/looking-start-making-but-going-holiday-few-days-39986/
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/blackbr2.asp
I had 10Kgs (22Lbs or a full bucket full to overflowing) so I did two batches one with 8Lbs for 2 Gallons and 14Lbs for 2 Gallons (Turned out to be 3 with all the extra juice). They were exactly the same apart from the quantities of the fruit. That way I can work out which one I prefer rather than making it all the same if you have lots.
This is what was recommended to me (on my first thread - one month ago today!)
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/looking-start-making-but-going-holiday-few-days-39986/
CWayman
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We always consider 10# per gallon. But this is without water addition. Some people don't like it that intense. Water dilution is fine if you want to tone it down. Get the water addition in it first---then PH test because the water will modify the PH to some degree. Whatever you do tho, don't add a ton of water---let others tell you how THEY like it, and follow their directions on HOW much water to add.
CWayman--There's lots of blackberry posts on this forum if you search for them in fruit winemaking, where we discuss how to work with this fruit. That's why it's good to belong to these wine forums---we're full of good advice--LOL.
Thanks, luckily I had frozen the bulk of the berries while I was working out what todo with them. How much sugar will I need per gallon or do you just back sweeten at the end? I will probably have more questions when it's underway, so thanks again.
I have been wine making for about a year now and have just bottled a pear wine which I started last October , it took far longer than I thought but has a good flavour.
I have been wine making for about a year now and have just bottled a pear wine which I started last October , it took far longer than I thought but has a good flavour.
Turock, out of your fruit wines which one is the most popular taking the flavor as big consideration?
I haven't made one specific fruit as I always make a triple berry; is Blackberry wine redish or 'black'? lol
I haven't made one specific fruit as I always make a triple berry; is Blackberry wine redish or 'black'? lol
Our blackberry is deep, deep red. As for favorite---and this is what our friends like the best---is our sour cherry and strawberry. My dad always LOVED our blackberry. But then blackberry was always his favorite wine. My brother really likes our blackberry too, but it doesn't seem to be a favorite of a lot of our friends.
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