Help building a recipe?

[mgonbrewlab]

I am looking to make a medium bodied dry "red" country fruit wine - I have lots of latitude here. For reds, my wife most prefers a merlot or dry red blend, and I prefer a malbec or zinfandel (especially the spicy/peppery varieties). A little sweetness or lighter body is OK if I settle for a dark rose vs a "red".

I was thinking of using 2 lbs of blueberries, 1-2 lbs of blackberries, and 2-3 cans of Welch's red per gallon. Any other fruit I should use for better flavor/body, or are my proportions off? I have ready access to canned plum, prunes, raisins, and frozen blueberries/blackberries, but that is about all that I would trust from the store and our farmer's market isn't into full swing yet.

This is my first time working without a recipe reference, and my first time making anything darker/deeper than a blush, so any help or insight is much appreciated.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I think you would really like an addition of Aronia berry juice in this wine. It's got plenty of tannins & a subtle flavor when blended. It will give you much better structure than raisins.
http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/just-juice/just-aronia-berry
Regards, GF.

EDIT: I did some blending/taste tests with concorde grape juice & aronia berry juice.
Concord SG: 1.064
Aronia SG: 1.046
50/50 blend SG: 1.054
Regards, GF.

 

[mgonbrewlab]

Cool - thanks for the suggestion.

 

[sawman1y]

I have done a blackberry and strawberry that came out great 7lbs of blackberry and 7lbs of strawberry for 5 gallons

 

[mgonbrewlab]

So, what I have on hand is 3 lbs of blackberries and 4 of blueberries. I would like to use these + juice for a 3-5 gal batch of wine. I am open to additional fruit - strawberry blackberry sounds really good.

I am bulk aging 2-3 gallons of my pineapple/apple wine (taste test on that was pretty darn good), so if I start darker with this wine I can blend them for a tart rose.

 

[mgonbrewlab]

So, I hit the store this morning and found mangos that were ripe and fragrent at $.49 each. So I picked up 6.5 lbs and added that to 4 lbs blueberries, 2 lbs blackberries, 2 cans red grape concentrate, 1 cranberry juice concentrate, and 3 gallons of water. I also have a gallon of red grape juice and all the sugar on hand I will need to get 5 gal of liquid at 1.09. I am hoping to get a dark rose that I can split 3 ways - 1/3 sweet, 1/3 dry, and 1/3 mixed with pineapple wine to get a lighter tart-ish blush.

 

[stella_tigre]

This intrigued me, so at our visit to the store today, I got a gallon of Welch's red, some concord grape concentrate, and a sweet cherry-sour cherry- blueberry-strawberry frozen fruit blend. Think about 1 1/2 lbs of that and some tannins and maybe acid blend?
On another note, how did you make the apple-pineapple?

 

[mgonbrewlab]

When I do mixed wines, I plan my fruit content like I am doing multiple wines. So today I did 2 gallons of mango, two gallons of blueberry/blackberry, and a gallon of juice wine.

If you are only making a gallon of wine, I would use 2 lbs of fruit, 1-2 cans of concentrate, and some of the gallon of grape juice. Plan on needing sugar yet since not all those fruit will give you the sugar you need. Otherwise 3-4 lbs of mixed fruit + 1 gallon of juice + a can of concentrate + 1 gallon of water should get you 2 gallons of wine after you rack to secondary.

Apple/pineapple was 80 oz of canned crushed pineapple, 24 oz of pineapple concentrate, 60 oz of apple juice concentrate, 11 lbs of sugar, tannin, and acid. It is deceptively light, dry, and tart with a good amount of the pineapple still coming through. It is sitting in my fridge right now in gallon jugs and growlers - my plan is to bottle most of it, but save a gallon or two for blending.

 

[stella_tigre]

"When I do mixed wines, I plan my fruit content like I am doing multiple wines. So today I did 2 gallons of mango, two gallons of blueberry/blackberry, and a gallon of juice wine."

So you mean you make the wine then blend? I'm still trying to work out the methods here

Well, in the spirit of winging it, I ended up with:
1 1/2 lb of the fruit blend thawed and gently smooshed
1 gal Welch's red juice
1 12 oz can Concord grape concentrate
Only about 14 or 16 oz water
1 1/4 c sugar
A bit of tannin and acid blend
Brix 23 or so
Like I've said on a different thread, if it isn't too bad, great! Otherwise Sangria! The other 1 1/2 lb of fruit blend is destined for a melomel...
Going to keep the pineapple-apple thing in mind, sounds so interesting.

 

[mgonbrewlab]

Sorry, I didn't explain well. I meant that because I am still relatively new to this, too, I will look at and combine multiple recipes in my primary, rather than try to figure out my "per gallon" composition.

I will be pitching later today. Hoping the fermenter doesn't bubble over!

 

[mgonbrewlab]

I pitched with a sachet of pasteur red (rehydrated) about 3 hours ago. I did pectic enzyme this morning about 13 hours ago, and 5 crushed campden tablets last night before bed. Just waiting for things to kick off, but the must smells so damn good. I will post the recipe later

With the pinepple wine - it was dirt cheap. Dirt cheap. If I repeat I will either up the pineapple or switch some of the apple concentrate for legit cider, but right now it is tart and yummy, and hopefully after a few months it will be a respectable table or social wine. It is already better than boxed "crisp white"; so a win in my and the wife's book :

 

[stella_tigre]

I pitched yesterday, did not do the pectic enzyme or campden as my ciders with frozen fruit never have had a problem clearing. {Knocking on wood} I also used Pasteur red, that was in my stash. It's foaming in the bucket happily. I love playing with this stuff!

 

[mgonbrewlab]

Pectic enzyme is probably a good idea to add at your first racking or when your wine ferments out - but that is up to you.

I must have had bad/old yeast as I still didn't have any signs of activity this morning. I pitched another pack of Pasteur Red and now it is foaming along happily

 

[mgonbrewlab]

I guess happily was an understatement. I checked this after work today and instead of the usual inch of foam I had like 5-6, and it started rising as I was stirring. Don't know if I have ever had this violent of a fermentation with wine - is that normal with grape based wines?

I am considering trying to get another gallon out of the second runnings + a 2 quart bottle of red grape juice I have on hand.

 

[mgonbrewlab]

Just got home from work, and the foam and air buildup had actualy lifted/shifted my bucket cover. I am stirring/aerating three times a day to deal with the foam, and putting 2-5 lbs of weight (disks from an unused weight machine) on top of the lid of my bucket. The thermometer on the side of my bucket is reading 79 - do I need to try to cool it down?

 

[stella_tigre]

Well I don't know what my fermenter temp was but ambient was 70 or less. It did gurgle up through the airlock but settled back down. I already hit less than 1.000 so racked with pectic enzyme, as suggested, plus topped off with enough h2o and a bit more sugar, as I decided that the extra grape concentrate made it too fruity.
It was back to burbling away again when I left...

 

[jensmith]

Just got home from work, and the foam and air buildup had actualy lifted/shifted my bucket cover. I am stirring/aerating three times a day to deal with the foam, and putting 2-5 lbs of weight (disks from an unused weight machine) on top of the lid of my bucket. The thermometer on the side of my bucket is reading 79 - do I need to try to cool it down?

No need to cool it down. It will cool off as it finishes fermenting.


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[mgonbrewlab]

So, this is already crystal clear. I lost about a half gallon at last racking and topped it off with grape juice, thinking it would restart fermentation and it did not. So either I hit alcohol toxicity for Pasteur Red or I am missing something.

Anyway, this is now a sweet red wine (dark dark rose) with nice hits of blackberry and blueberry. I think I am going to seperate a couple gallons and rack them onto ginger root pulp or dried chiles to get another dimension, but even in its infancy my wife has declared this our best product yet.

Success!

 

[stella_tigre]

I checked today, seems like the pectic enz has done the trick, cleared nicely. It's in the cool storage room for aging. Rack another time or two... It does seem to be a promising concoction!