Blackberry Wine

[silverbullet07]

I am starting a blackberry wine. Making a 3 gal batch.

I have 16 gal frozen blackberries, I heated 1.5 gal of water and 4 lbs of sugar and poured over the blackberries. let sit for about 5 hours to thaw.

then added the berries to a mesh bag inside primary and mashed and juiced them up good. The juice is at 38f right now.

Should I add Camden tablets now or wait until it warms up? should I add pectic enzyme now or later after it warms up?

 

[Bocochoco]

Late reply maybe but camden now. Enzyme is when you add your nutient before the pitch

 

[silverbullet07]

Thank You. I went ahead and added the Camden last night. It was at 48F. This morning it is up to 60F. I will let it sit all day today.

when it gets up to 70F I will test OG and PH. Adjust as needed.
then tomorrow I will pitch the Enzyme and nutrients before I pitch the yeast. The enzyme packet says one hour before.

 

[Yooper]

Thank You. I went ahead and added the Camden last night. It was at 48F. This morning it is up to 60F. I will let it sit all day today.

when it gets up to 70F I will test OG and PH. Adjust as needed.
then tomorrow I will pitch the Enzyme and nutrients before I pitch the yeast. The enzyme packet says one hour before.

Pectic enzyme does better when not used with yeast- I'd add it 12 hours after the campden (it doesn't like sulfite either), and 12 hours before the yeast.

 

[Beer666]

How much per gallon please?

 

[Yooper]

How much per gallon please?

Of pectic enzyme?

 

[Beer666]

Of pectic enzyme?

Yes pectic enzyme.

 

[Yooper]

Yes pectic enzyme.

The one I buy from LD Carlson tends to be 1-1 1/2 tsp per gallon (5-7 grams).

 

[silverbullet07]

Pectic enzyme does better when not used with yeast- I'd add it 12 hours after the campden (it doesn't like sulfite either), and 12 hours before the yeast.

Thanks. I read that the juice should be 80F for Pectic Enzyme to be effective. Should I heat up the juice to 80 before pitching or will mid 70's be OK?

 

[bernardsmith]

I guess I would be hesitant to add nutrients BEFORE you pitch the yeast. Nutrients are a great source of food for all kinds of bacteria and spoilage organisms. Even adding nutrients after you add K-meta (or Campden tabs) may not be sufficiently good practice. Allow the yeast to rehydrate and after they have begun to acclimatize to their new environment and, I would argue, if you are using lab cultured yeast, after they have begun to show some activity then is a good time to provide the yeast with nutrients. At that time the yeast will have begun to ensure that organisms competing for the fruit and sugars are hobbled and the nutrients will belong to the yeast. Prior to then you are as likely to be feeding bacteria.

 

[silverbullet07]

I added another gal of hot sugar water with 5lbs of sugar. Got the temps up to 91-92F and pitched the Pectic Enzyme.

The OG is 1.088 @ 91F corrected to 1.092

PH is 3.13 and my TA is 5.5

For Blackberry wine should I make any adjustments to the PH or TA?

 

[bernardsmith]

The action of fermentation will totally alter the pH and very likely the TA of your wine. Certainly, the CO2 produced by the yeast will push the pH lower so I would keep an eye on that. You really don't want it to fall below 3.00, in my opinion. But if the pH remains above 3.00 then that should not be a problem for the yeast and certainly for the wine, the lower the pH the longer the shelf life of your wine and the less likely it is to fall victim of oxidation and indeed, other kinds of spoilage.

TA is different story but that is a tale all about flavor and at 5.5 is a little low even for a red wine. a TA of about 6 or 6.5 will give you a brighter flavor... but I would wait until you are getting ready to bottle to tweak the TA. As I always remind folk - pH is all about the STRENGTH of the acids in the wine. TA is all about the QUANTITY or VOLUME of those acids and you can have a very strong acid but only a small volume of it and you can have a very large volume of a very weak acid. That said, I am not certain what acid is dominant in true blackberries (isocitric, I think) and I certainly don't know how strong the acids are in those berries except that I recall that I read that they are classified as an alkaline fruit (so I would expect the pH to be a lot higher than 3.13... but I don't know).

 

[Yooper]

Thanks. I read that the juice should be 80F for Pectic Enzyme to be effective. Should I heat up the juice to 80 before pitching or will mid 70's be OK?

No, you don't want the temperatures that hot.

 

[silverbullet07]

The action of fermentation will totally alter the pH and very likely the TA of your wine. Certainly, the CO2 produced by the yeast will push the pH lower so I would keep an eye on that. You really don't want it to fall below 3.00, in my opinion. But if the pH remains above 3.00 then that should not be a problem for the yeast and certainly for the wine, the lower the pH the longer the shelf life of your wine and the less likely it is to fall victim of oxidation and indeed, other kinds of spoilage.

TA is different story but that is a tale all about flavor and at 5.5 is a little low even for a red wine. a TA of about 6 or 6.5 will give you a brighter flavor... but I would wait until you are getting ready to bottle to tweak the TA. As I always remind folk - pH is all about the STRENGTH of the acids in the wine. TA is all about the QUANTITY or VOLUME of those acids and you can have a very strong acid but only a small volume of it and you can have a very large volume of a very weak acid. That said, I am not certain what acid is dominant in true blackberries (isocitric, I think) and I certainly don't know how strong the acids are in those berries except that I recall that I read that they are classified as an alkaline fruit (so I would expect the pH to be a lot higher than 3.13... but I don't know).

It suppose to be Malic acid. generally blackberries have ph 3.0 from what I’ve read. My water is ph 7.4. I added 2.5 gals of water and 16 lbs of blackberries.

I could go out and pick up some calcium carbonate and try to increase to ph 3.4. Would that be best?

right now it taste good. No tart bitter but the OG is 1.092

 

[silverbullet07]

The action of fermentation will totally alter the pH and very likely the TA of your wine. Certainly, the CO2 produced by the yeast will push the pH lower so I would keep an eye on that. You really don't want it to fall below 3.00, in my opinion. But if the pH remains above 3.00 then that should not be a problem for the yeast and certainly for the wine, the lower the pH the longer the shelf life of your wine and the less likely it is to fall victim of oxidation and indeed, other kinds of spoilage.

TA is different story but that is a tale all about flavor and at 5.5 is a little low even for a red wine. a TA of about 6 or 6.5 will give you a brighter flavor... but I would wait until you are getting ready to bottle to tweak the TA. As I always remind folk - pH is all about the STRENGTH of the acids in the wine. TA is all about the QUANTITY or VOLUME of those acids and you can have a very strong acid but only a small volume of it and you can have a very large volume of a very weak acid. That said, I am not certain what acid is dominant in true blackberries (isocitric, I think) and I certainly don't know how strong the acids are in those berries except that I recall that I read that they are classified as an alkaline fruit (so I would expect the pH to be a lot higher than 3.13... but I don't know).

I re-tested this morning. After adding the pectin enzyme yesterday and squeezing the mesh bag of blackberries last night. This morning the PH is 3.08 and the TA is 6.25

I'll add some Calcium Carbonate today and get he ph up to at least 3.4

 

[silverbullet07]

Went out this morning and picked up some Calcium Carbonate I ended up adding 1/4 tsp at a time watching the PH after each addition. I am down to PH 3.50 now and TA 5.75. Going to wait a few hours and check PH one more time before pitching yeast.

Lot of people seem to like 71B for Blackberry. Any other thoughts? I have 71B Lalvin, EC-1118 and red star Montrachet would 71B be the best choice?

 

[silverbullet07]

This is 13 hours in. Looks like the yeast is feeding. Now we wait and stir everyday and monitor hydrometer.
Do I need to keep squeezing the mesh bag with the blackberry pulp? I Squeezed it a few times the first couple days before the yeast went in.

 

[Bocochoco]

71b is my staple for my black and blueberry wine. When it comes to fruit I use it about 50% of the time because of how much of the fruits positive flavors are left behind.
Pectic enzyme might work better at higher temps but wild temp swings mess up your yeast and lead to off flavors.
I only let my whiskey bound corn wines to ferment wildly because...well, whiskey may as well be oaked vodka otherwise.

 

[silverbullet07]

Thanks. had people recommending the red star Montrachet so I went with it. They was afraid the 71b would take ph to low by removing to much acid we have to see how this goes now.

So far it has a nice cap at 22 hrs. squeezed the mesh bag good again and stirred it up good.

 

[Bocochoco]

Pectic enzyme does better when not used with yeast- I'd add it 12 hours after the campden (it doesn't like sulfite either), and 12 hours before the yeast.

I seem to have learned something. I will modify adding nutrient until after I see signs of active fermentation.
Regarding pectic enzyme doing better when not used with yeast, I was always under the assumption based on "expert" vintners that it will do a better job breaking down pectin during an active fermentation.

 

[Raptor99]

I guess I would be hesitant to add nutrients BEFORE you pitch the yeast. Nutrients are a great source of food for all kinds of bacteria and spoilage organisms. Even adding nutrients after you add K-meta (or Campden tabs) may not be sufficiently good practice. Allow the yeast to rehydrate and after they have begun to acclimatize to their new environment and, I would argue, if you are using lab cultured yeast, after they have begun to show some activity then is a good time to provide the yeast with nutrients. At that time the yeast will have begun to ensure that organisms competing for the fruit and sugars are hobbled and the nutrients will belong to the yeast. Prior to then you are as likely to be feeding bacteria.

That is an interesting point. I will need to keep this in mind when I do my next batch of fruit wine.

 

[silverbullet07]

After 96 hrs SG down to 1.020. Just gave it a little bite of yeast enegizer.

 

[silverbullet07]

I checked SG and it hit .990. I will rack it off the lees tomorrow. Let it settle a little more overnight.

My thoughts on the taste of the wine, it is dry and little sour. You can really smell the alcohol. You can get a hint of blackberry. The abv is 13%. But it is drinkable.

I don’t think I add Camden tabs this next racking do I? I think I wait until it is clear and right before bottling?

 

[Bocochoco]

Most people add it every other. I've read its to keep the target at 50ppm but I personally dont know how to test this. The #1 reason after primary is to prevent oxydation.