Need a little help

[Tomy]

Started a blackberry using Oregon fruit 11-29 yeast Cotes du Rhone (Lavin D47) was pitched 11-30. Today 12-5 the SG is 1000 and I want to wait till Saturday to test for acid & start a malolactic fermintation when the supplys will arrive from George. Can I leave in the primary for that long, or should I rack with out addeding any chemicals or what? We had a nice snow over night about 3" real pretty the 1st one of the year. Thanks Tomy

 

[grapeman]

You probably should rack to the secondary carboy and get an airlock on it. DO NOT ADD ANY K-META at this time. Wait until the MLF is completed. When you rack it, try to get a little bit of lees in with it. You want it off the gross lees at this point, but need some of the fine lees for feeding the malo bacteria. When you add the MLF culture, keep you wine where it will be about 75 degrees. Much colder and you might not get the MLF to start. You will see tiny bubbles rising and sound like rice crispies when it gets going. Should take about a month for it to complete. Good Luck with it.

 

[scotty]

Why is a malolactic dermentation being started.


I'm not dis agreeing. ii'm just trying to learn something about a thing that is not even close to being clear to me.

 

[Wade E]

Malolactic fermentation is being done to reduce the amount of malic acid as Blackberries are high in them which is not typical of most other fruit wines.

 

[scotty]

Malolactic fermentation is being done to reduce the amount of malic acid as Blackberries are high in them which is not typical of most other fruit wines.

Thanks for the reply
Im doing a blackberry now--from the canned fruit. The rexcipe does not call for it.. Like they really give a hoot..


Do you recomend MLF as a routine for blackberry wine?????

 

[grapeman]

Scotty, you seem to like your wines semi-sweet. You can counter the high Malic acid by sweetening and avoid the hastle and need to do an MLF. Tomy has been itching to try an MLF, so he chose the blackberry since it CAN benefit from it, but it certainly isn't needed-just ask Jobe or Waldo! They make super Blackberry wines without using MLF.

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

I made a blackberry back in July, turned out great without mlf. Tomy have you made one before to compare if mlf does anything or not on this batch? Can be hard to detect by taste on some fruits or grapes. I would definitely wait until you test the level of Malic in your wine before doing this, may end up not being able to tell if anything truly accomplished, or worse, change the good fruit flavor of the blackberry into something less appealing.

 

[scotty]

Scotty, you seem to like your wines semi-sweet. You can counter the high Malic acid by sweetening and avoid the hastle and need to do an MLF. Tomy has been itching to try an MLF, so he chose the blackberry since it CAN benefit from it, but it certainly isn't needed-just ask Jobe or Waldo! They make super Blackberry wines without using MLF.

I didn't know that Waldo made wine

 

[Dean]

I totally agree. I make blackberry wine from wild blackberries because they grow out here like weeds. We have some serious bramble problems out here due to them! This year, about 45#s were given to me, and I used the steam juicer. This years berries were very acidic and would benefit from MLF. Next time, I'll use 71B instead of RC212. I used RC212 because I wanted a very dry red with high phenolics. I'm going to wait until about March with a warmup to see if I'll innoculate it, after tasting trials. I'd like to keep it dry, so I'll see what the acids end up like. It actually just finished fermenting about a week to 2 weeks ago.

Edit: I should have clarified that 71B will eat up 30% of the malic acid in a wine, hence why it is recommended for blackberry wine.Edited by: Dean

 

[Tomy]

I have enough blackberry must to try the MLF on one jug and not on the other for side by side difference using the same yeast. thanks for all the responses.