Where do I even start!!!!

[I_am_a_rookie]

Hello all,
I bought a starter wine kit and I now have 4 lbs of freshly picked blackberries to start a 1 gallon test run. I've ready what seems to be a million recipes on line but the steps in the process all seem a little different. Can any of you point me to an easy to follow step by step article for making my first batch? I would like to make a semi sweet blackberry wine.

One example of differences I've found is that that some of the writes ups call for racking the wine over as much as a six month period; while other's have you drinking the wine within that same time frame. While I know this isn't as complicated as I'm making it out to be I also want to do it right. Any help is appreciated.

BTW...I'm trying to get my steps down now so I can make 5 gallons of muscadine wine when the grapes come available for picking this September.

 

[seth8530]

Go read some of our intro to winemaking tutorials. They should be helpful. You are a little bit light on fruit.. But, perhaps for, just getting a grip of what you are doing it might work.

Do you have all the tools you might need? Hydrometer, racking cane, tubing, carboy, fermentation bucket, acid test kit, Fermaid O/K Potassium metabisulfite/kmeta/campden, sorbate, acid blend, calcium bicarbonate? Most homewine/brew stores should have ALL of these. If no, their are plenty of online vendors who will sell to you.

It is a really hard process to summarize in one post.. Talk to me over PM if you want some point by point advice after reading some tutorials.

 

[NorCal]

I'm only a few months ahead of you, in the learning stages.

I would separate the two; do the kit and follow the Dragon Blood process and recipe and reduce the amounts to the limiting factor, which is your fruit. But you would have the added volume with the water, lemon and sugar. Or perhaps it might be better to add some frozen fruit to your 4 pounds and make a full 5 gallon batch.

 

[salcoco]

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
go to this web page all kinds of winemaking info and recipes which include step by step instructions. Your specific question seems to be about aging your black berry wine, that is up to the winemaker. if successful in making your wine test it yourself. drink a bottle in two month ,three moths etc and see what you like. aging wine does improve the taste of all wines especially red grape wines.

 

[Turock]

Yes, 4 lbs. of any fruit will not get you very far. The hardest thing about making fruit wines is that to have a good result on most of them, you need about 10# per gallon and use no water. Freezing the fruit first will yield lots of juice for testing. You should be prepared to learn the correct techniques right from the start--buying a PH meter and getting used to taking PH readins pre-ferment and adjusting as needed. You get better results without having to fix flaws in the secondary.

I know there is lots to learn and a high hill ahead of you. As Seth said--if you ever want more personal help, don't hesitate to ask for someone to take you under their wing so you can get your feet on the ground. Always ask questions when you need to--many of us are willing to help the new winemakers.

 

[I_am_a_rookie]

Thank you to everyone for the replies. It didn't realize I would need more fruit, so many of the recipes I've read call for only about 3 lbs for a gallon of wine. I can see I have much to learn!

 

[Turock]

A recipe doesn't make the best-tasting wine. However, it's a good way to get your feet on the ground and become familiar with how to do a ferment. High quantities of fruit can be expensive, but there are ways around that. The biggest problem with recipes is the water they want you to add---it only dilutes the flavor and then you have all that water to acidify, too. However, there are some fruits that need the water and those recipes work the best--they include blueberry, cranberry,red raspberry, black raspberry. So if you try one of those recipes, you'll have a good result for your first wine.

 

[kpcrane]

I don't mean to highjack the thread here or anything but i am also new to the site & very new to wine making and Blackberry wine is also my main interest...Turock, are you saying just using straight blackberries with no water added should turn out the better end result?....Thanks,..kp

 

[Turock]

kpcrane--On blackberry, there are optional ways to make it depending on how you're going to use it. Some people don't like the full-on blackberry made with no water. So they use 6-8 pounds per gallon and use a moderate amount of water. However, we do a lot of blending with blackberry so we want an intense flavor that will hold up against other strong-tasting wines like elderberry. So we use 10# per gallon and no water. We DO bottle some straight without blending and it has very big blackberry flavor. It depends on what you want and what you like the best.

As a side note--blackberry has lots of malic acid in it which will come off harsh in the finished wine. So always use 71B yeast on it which metabolizes some of the malic, making a much smoother result.