1 lb per gallon = Flavored water ("Wine Cooler") Also prefer to have no more than two fruit flavors in a wine - other wise the description of 'Hawaiian Punch' is more fitting.
Yup, , sugar is 18 cents per pound in quantity, water was costed out as a free ingredient
crabjoe;
In putting a blend together I like to ask what is the purpose of adding X? In rhurbarb blush 95% rhurbarb contributes aroma, acid and dominant mouth feel adding 5% raspberry contributes an interesting color. In peach/rhurbarb 60% peach gave aroma and dominant flavor, the rhurbarb contributed acid level and mostly hid in the background. In putting together concord elderberry the grape was put in for foxy aroma and fruity flavor, the elderberry was to provide long tannic notes. When looking at a blend I try a few pies with different ratios to see how things balance.
How much? In the Vinters club most folks do 4 to 5 pounds per gallon. I garden and sometimes clean the freezer so to put 52 pounds of rhurbarb in a 6.5 gallon of blush was only making space for the next picking. ie what ie practical for you?
Wine cooler which is pleasing works, foods have to be hedonic and Hawaiian Punch has had a lot of taste panels tweaking the ingredients. This Year state fair gave my cherry/June berry/ raspberry a blue ribbon, , , and overall I would call it a punch. Oh, , flavors are hedonic, , it is easier to be pleasing by throwing unknowns as june berry into the mix, , , no one knows what good june berry should taste like.
A rigid flavor guideline: aim for a titratable acidity between 0.5 and 1.0, with the higher acid back sweetening will balance at a higher sugar and give you higher fruity flavor. ex my rhurbarb blush should be about 1.1 TA which gets back sweetened to 1.015 or higher. Low fruit in the club comes in at 0.6 TA which is sweetened to 1.000 or less and sometimes feels weak.
If you like the flavor now you will probably like the finished wine. At racking when it has CO
2 you will probably say yuck (blue ribbon above tasted like cough syrup coming out of primary).
And! back sweetening is the frosting on the cake that ties everything together.
Do you have TA, pH and gravity numbers on your current blend?