Blackberry Wine

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IXVolt

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Made my second batch of wine yesterday. Just thought I would throw some pictures up.

24lbs of blackberry's.

Used SWMBO's squeezo (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015QH3L2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20)

Which worked AWESOME.

I got 2 gallons of pure blackberry juice/syrup. Measured gravity with ratio to get my 5 gallons. Added 10lbs of sugar, mixed and measured gravity again.

I forgot to compensate for the mass of the sugar (second time I've done this) so I ended up with closer to 6 gallons of must. (Is it wine when I add the yeast or is it still must?)

Added nutrient, pectic enzyme, acid blend, campden tablets and let it sit for about 24 hours.

Pitched the yeast and now we wait and hope I don't have to clean up a mess.

Question, why do so many recipes say to wait 24 hours before pitching? Is this temperature related, letting the must cool down? Or does the campden tablets need time to sulfate?

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Question, why do so many recipes say to wait 24 hours before pitching? Is this temperature related, letting the must cool down? Or does the campden tablets need time to sulfate?

If you add campden, you generally wait 24 hours before adding the yeast as to not "stun" the yeast. Wine yeast is very tolerant of sulfites (not sulfate) but giving it 24 hours to dissipate a bit is commonly done just to make sure the yeast are not going to be stunned by the sulfites (campden).

Another weird addition is pectic enzyme. It works best when not added with yeast, and not added with the sulfites. So when I make blackberry wine, I add the sulfites when I mix up the must. Twelve hours later, I add the pectic enzyme. Twelve hours after that, I add the yeast. Once you add the yeast, it's considered 'wine' and not 'must' any more.
 
If you add campden, you generally wait 24 hours before adding the yeast as to not "stun" the yeast. Wine yeast is very tolerant of sulfites (not sulfate) but giving it 24 hours to dissipate a bit is commonly done just to make sure the yeast are not going to be stunned by the sulfites (campden).

Another weird addition is pectic enzyme. It works best when not added with yeast, and not added with the sulfites. So when I make blackberry wine, I add the sulfites when I mix up the must. Twelve hours later, I add the pectic enzyme. Twelve hours after that, I add the yeast. Once you add the yeast, it's considered 'wine' and not 'must' any more.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I guess next time I'll space the additions out more. The yeast is happy and going to town now.

Another question, when you oak, does it change the flavor much? I'm going to be making this a dry wine, I'm not a big fan of sweet wines. So wondering how well this blends with oak.
 
Thanks for clearing that up.

I guess next time I'll space the additions out more. The yeast is happy and going to town now.

Another question, when you oak, does it change the flavor much? I'm going to be making this a dry wine, I'm not a big fan of sweet wines. So wondering how well this blends with oak.

I like my blackberry wine oaked. I always make mine dry. The key is to make a medium bodied or heavier wine- the lighter fruit wines can't hold up well to the tannins in oak. I use medium toast chips, and oak for about 1 month. I usually don't use too much oak- and instead just add more if it's not enough as you can always add more but you can't take it out! Usually 2 ounces for 5 gallons is enough.

Oak brings great flavors to wine- not just "oaky" flavors but hints of vanilla and tannins along with it. It makes the wine richer and deeper.
 
In that case I'll try 1 oz for this 5 gal. If I like it, next year I might up it a bit more. I didn't know other flavors could be imparted from oak. Cool!
 
In that case I'll try 1 oz for this 5 gal. If I like it, next year I might up it a bit more. I didn't know other flavors could be imparted from oak. Cool!

If you want more "vanilla" hints, you could use light toast oak. If you want more tannin, you could use dark toast. I tend to use medium for most wines, but for my big bold dark chokecherry wine, I use Hungarian oak, and it's really dark and heavy. Even oaking has some options!
 
We don't get blackberries up here, I sure do miss them. Lot and Lots of raspberries and other sorts. Right now we have a major load of highbush cranberries and wild red currants.
 
I just finished fermenting my first batch of blackberry wine. Excited for these two gallons although not entirely sure what to expect.
 
I just racked my blackberry out of the secondary. I'm still debating if I should throw in a lightly toasted oak spiral in it??
 
Here in Winston-Salem N.C. it April in went down to 26 deg. for about one hour just enough to wipeout 80% of the blackberry crop. Quess we will get it down next year.
 
Update:

This wine has been bottled for a few months now. I opened a bottle a few days ago and it turned out better that I expected. I'm sure it will just improve over the next year as well. This wine is quite complex in flavors, almost like 2 wines mixed. It definitely has a lot of blackberry smell. The flavor is almost like a blackberry merlot. Very smooth.

Thank you all for your help and input along the way. I'm going to try and make this every year, maybe this next year I'll oak it!

Cheers!

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I make a really nice blackberry out of blackberry jam. We just started drinking this week.
 
Jam wine is great. It needs minimal sugar addition and every batch has been ready to consume as early as 90 days but ages so well.
 
I've got 5 gallons of heavy bodied blackberry in secondary right now. When is the best time to add oak? And if I get my oak the natural way, can I just shave pieces off a branch, bark and all? (I'll clean and sanitize it... boil it maybe? or just go to the LBHS :D )
 
My BB Jam is almost gone, down to the last 3 bottles and it is around 9 months old. We did age for 6 months before opening a bottle.
 
I'm new to wine making and oaking, but I'm pretty sure you need to toast/bake the oak. The chips you get from your LHBS would be toasted to different degree's.
 
Blackberry Jam Wine :
7-18 oz jars Walmart seedless blackberry jam (I used Smuckers) It was on sale
2 lb of sugar or until SG is 1.090
2.5 gallons of water
2 tsp Acid Blend
1/4 tsp tannin
2.5 tsp nutrient
2.5 tsp pectic enzyme
1 premier cuvee, or K1V-1116 wine yeast

This is for 3 gallon.

Scoop Jelly or Jam into your primary fermentor.

Dissolve sugar in 2.5 gallons of boiling water, remove from heat and add 3 pints of cool water to sugar water to cool,
then add to primary with the jam. (Do not pour the boiling water directly into the jam, be sure to mix with cool water first)

Stir in enough Cool Water to make one full US Gallon in primary - make sure all lumps are dissolved.

Stir in Acid Blend, Tannin, Nutrient and Pectic Enzyme.

Check that the temperature is near 70 degrees, if not allow to cool.

Test to confirm Starting SG of 1.085 - 1.090 Adjust if necessary.

It is important to let must sit in primary for a full 24 hours before adding yeast for the Pectic Enzyme to work.

Add yeast.

Ferment for 3-5 days at 70* to 75*. When SG reaches 1.010 transfer/siphon into glass carboy (secondary), attach bung
and airlock. Leave for approx. 3 weeks, SG should be at or below 1.000, transfer again racking off the heavy lees and add 1 crushed campden.
Leave for approx. 2 months, transfer. Rack off sediment every 2 months until very clear (usually about 6-8 months. If it is not
clearing after 6 months use sparkelloid to help clear it. Bottle when wine is very clear.

Many folks would find these wines better if sweetened. The wine can be sweetened to taste at bottling by adding 1/2 tsp
Potassium Sorbate stabilizer and about 1/4 lb dissolved Sugar per gallon. I like the blackberry dry, but the other flavors of
jams I like sweetened back up to about 1.010, but either leave dry or sweeten to your personal taste.
 
For fruit wines I almost always use Lavlin 71B but when I did the BB, I was out of 71B.
Fruit wines is what I always make except muscadine from our own vines.
 
Last year, I used 1118, per the recommendation of the homebrew shop owner. I think it's just a champagne yeast, and it tasted really good. This year, I used Red Star Côte de Blancs per the recommendation of another LHBS owner (I moved).

I had to back sweeten last year, and Côte doesn't ferment to dryness, so maybe it will help there.

I haven't done a tasting yet, racking to secondary this week. The Côte put of a ton of sulfur though. It filled my apartment with egg smells for a long time.
 
I love BB wine. It is probably the best/easiest fruit wines one can make. The best thing about BB wine is that you can use 1/2 the BB as water and still have a very rich, bold wine. Which mean less fruit to pick. I recommend adding in some raisins and don't forget some oak. I also recommend letting it age. It is amazing at 3 months, but give it a year and it will blow you away! Oh and if you get a chance, make some cherry. Also an amazing wine fruit.
 
yeah I'm super jealous. blackberries are my all time favorite fruit. dont see them a lot in my area though.
 
So what is the OG of Blackberry must prior to diluting with water?

In my case BB are probably <$ than sugar...
 
I just made a batch and I didn't end up adding any water. I used a little under 4lbs/gallon. Granted I also had a bunch of loss during racking, but I like my blackberry wine really flavorful. I'm not sure what the OG of the must was, but we added 12 pounds of sugar to 6 gallons to get to somewhere between 1.110 and 1.120 (it was really thick).
 
I just made a batch and I didn't end up adding any water. I used a little under 4lbs/gallon. Granted I also had a bunch of loss during racking, but I like my blackberry wine really flavorful. I'm not sure what the OG of the must was, but we added 12 pounds of sugar to 6 gallons to get to somewhere between 1.110 and 1.120 (it was really thick).

So you're saying A) 4lbs of blackberries = 1 gallon of juice
and B) the SG of the juice was ~30?

Just clarifying.

Table sugar is ~45 pppg, so if we can assume that all your sugar was in solution - then 90 points of your 110-120 came from sugar leaving 20 or 30 to be from blackberries. If you have any other details, I'd be glad to have them! I'm not quite following you with the 4lbs of berries per gallon. You said you didn't add any water, but a gallon weighs double that.

I would have assumed it's something like 12-15lb of berries per gallon, and the SG of the resultant juice would be 45-55 points. Again, any info for those of us who haven't done this yet would be great!
 
I checked with SWMBO and she reminded me that we added water to the blender. Guessing around a gallon total, maybe a little more.

We used 56 6oz containers of blackberries, which works out to 21 lbs. We added them to a blender (4-5 packs at a time) and added water to the blender so that it wouldn't just spin freely. Ended up with 5.5 gallons including the pulp. After racking it ended up at or just below 4 gallons, so maybe 5lbs/gal depending which volume you use.

I agree with your math, all I know is what happened. The juice of these berries was a lot more red than what I used last year, and maybe they had less sugar too. I was expecting to only use 8lbs of sugar, but was under gravity. I probably should have only used 10.

Last year we did 4lbs/gal and had to add a few gallons of water, definitely more than this time. Last year's turned out really well, just the right amount of body, but it was a 15% wine, not a port.
 
Sorry, got threads mixed up, this isn't about port. I think you'd be working magic to get 10lbs of berries per gallon. Definitely not 12-15. Like you said, water is around 8lbs, so a gallon of juice is close to that. Actually more like 8.5 of you factor in the sugar, the pulp is neutrally buoyant until fermentation starts, so I'm assuming it weighs about the same.

From my experience, I'd say 6lbs would be the most you could do if you didn't use a mesh bag (which I didn't) or MAYBE 8 if you strain out the pulp. But I think that would end up feeling pretty thick, in my opinion. I'm definitely no expert, this is just based on my observations having finished one batch and halfway through a second.
 
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