5 Gallon Blackberry Attempt

[FluxD]

Hey all, first post . Well, this will be my third and largest batch to date (first was apple, then banana) and I'm following one of Jack Keller's recipes for the medium bodied sweet. I picked 21lbs of blackberries that grow wild across my parent's property casually for about a month and froze them. Well I'm home from college (3rd year mechanical engineering student) and I decided to start this while I'm here

I've got about 5.5 gallons of must going right now. I was in a little hurry preparing this and kinda missed a step since I was following Keller's directions. I crushed the berries by hand, then poured boiling water over them in the primary. I then let it sit until it was about 70 degrees and then added the yeast (Lalvin dry strain with a bunch of numbers, forgot which) and it's been going for about 19 hours now.

Problem is, I forgot to add Campden tablets to the must haha. I know if I add them now it will kill the yeast. Should I add these (at a diluted amount, maybe 2-3 tablets for my 5 gallon batch) when I transfer to airlock? What should I do here haha

EDIT: I'll be adding the sugar when I put it into secondary fermentation. This is how the recipe is written, so I'm following that

Thanks in advance

 

[Turnerdude1]

I did this with a 50 gal batch two summers ago. Since you usd boiling water you most likely killed off any infected yeast. Follow Jack's instruction and when you rack use the campden....This is a great wine and it plays well if you mix it with other reds....

 

[FluxD]

So I should be fine after transferring to my secondary, then use the campden when I rack it the first time?


I've read that blackberry wine degrades in light, but my secondary (5 gallon better bottle) is clear. Would placing a large box or putting the container in a dark closet adequately block it from light?

 

[Turnerdude1]

Yes and yes...you do not want light hitting the better bottle. could wrap the bottle in brown paper if nothint else. Follow Jack's instructions the man has never led me wrong....This year will bottle around 100 gal of blackberry wine. Nest year looking into making a Blackberry Brandy and Port...

 

[pkeeler]

I would think the point of the boiling water was to kill everything. Then adding billions of yeast would crowd out anything that got back in. I've also read that all these cultured wine yeasts are immune to SO2. When the yeast are done, moving to a secondary and adding SO2 seems pretty standard procedure.

 

[FluxD]

Thanks, you've all been really helpful!

Another question: I'll be adding the sugar (Day 5 in primary stoneware jug) sometime tomorrow, however I'm not sure what starting SG I should shoot for with this wine. The yeast have been in there for 4.5 days now and I'm not sure how much alcohol/sugar is in the wine right now. Suggestions?

 

[Turnerdude1]

SG of 1.090 or there abouts...it will get down to 0.090 and then I back sweeten to 0.999..

 

[Reaver]

I'm by no means an expert but I believe the method for this is to determine what you want for an FG. Then you have to back out the numbers to figure out where you are at now. That will give you the amount of sugar to add. http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/hydrom.asp

Use Jack's chart at the bottom. Figure out how much you want to increase your SG look at the chart. Every increase in SG of .005 is equivalent to 1.5 - 2oz's of sugar PER GALLON. Since you are doing a 5 gallon batch you need to add 5 times that amount of sugar. I am using the "Sugar in Gal" column.

So if you want to bring the gravity to .060 from .040... (22.5oz/gal - 14oz/gal)*5gal = 42.5oz total.

But that is how I believe I read it on Jack Keller's tutorials.

 

[pkeeler]

SG of 1.090 or there abouts...it will get down to 0.090 and then I back sweeten to 0.999..

I think Turner meant it will get down to -0.99 and then you can back sweeten to 1.009 or to taste.

 

[Turnerdude1]

Yes..I just use a wine cal I downloaded on line. Put in your desired FSG and the amount of wine ie 5 gal and it tells you how much sugar to add. It will bump up a point or two in the bottle over a years time....

 

[FluxD]

Alrighty, I'll probably shoot for an SG just under 1.090 (maybe 1.086 or 1.088). <-- In fear of oversweetening the must haha.

Another question (I'm full of these, aren't I?): The recipe says to pour must over sugar into the secondary. Any suggestions on how to dissolve sugar into room temperature must haha? I thought about heating up about a half gallon of must and adding sugar to that, but it seems like a terrible idea due to increased oxidation. Or will I just have to stir the living crap outta the must to dissolve everything?

 

[Turnerdude1]

I have paddle that goes on my drill. I stirl it once a day for about five days then into secondary...