Blackberry wine with straight juice?

[ratters]

Hi all,

I put a fair bit of effort into blackberry picking this year, and for my efforts I ended up with 9.5 liters of pure blackberry juice. I froze and thawed the berries and then pressed them with a screw press.

I have a made a few blackberry wines in the past but all with the addition of water and sugar, but this time around I would like to see what kind of wine is produced from fermenting the straight juice only, without water added. I like a medium bodied wine so I would add sugar if I needed to.

Has any tried this, with any success?

Cheers,
ratters

 

[Miraculix]

Nope, but I guess it will be great! Let us know!

 

[Yooper]

The reason for adding water is because of the very high acidity of blackberries. You can try just fermenting the juice, but the yeast may have difficulty with the acidity. I've never titrated the acidity of blackberry juice or taken the pH, but I will say that my blackberry wine leans towards the acidic even diluted with water and boosted with sugar. I use oaking to provide tannins to counteract this.

 

[ratters]

I was planning to use Lalvin 71-B due to its ability to metabolise some of the malic acid. I think what I might do is take a gravity reading, add sugar if necessary and then pitch the yeast. Worst case scenario I add water, and yeast again if necessary. If I could get the blackberry equivalent of a bold wine like a Nero D'Avola, or Shiraz, that would be fantastic.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Adding water isn’t always just for the yeasts health, though the ferment will prob be stressed and have a lot of funk. High acid at the end will make it very tart or even undrinkable without sweetening it.