Question about berries and adding water

[silverbullet07]

I was wondering how do you normally decide how much water to add to the blueberries to give you an exact amount of liquid.

Example, if I plan on 4 gals of blueberry wine, 3 gal for carboy with an extra gal to use for top ups. I wanted to use 7lbs per gal of blueberries. If I crush 28 lbs of thawed blueberries, and place in fermentation bucket, not all the juices have been extracted. How do I know how much water to add to give me that 4 gals? Does that eventually just come with trial and error and taking good notes or is there a technical way to calculate it?

Seems if I just fill to 4 gals, When I pull my mesh bag with skins the volume would drop quite a bit. If I pull the berries out before to add water, I may add to much. So just wondering how the proper way to determine the addition of water.

Also would using a refractor be the correct way to measure the brix when you have a bunch of berries to determine how much sugar to add. Since the berry sugar has really not all been extracted, I am thinking I would get a few berries and crush them up and measure the brix from the berry and somehow calculate how much water I'm adding and then what I want it to be and come up with amount of sugar to add? Am I off base?

 

[bernardsmith]

Not perhaps the answer that you are looking for but if the berries are all harvested from the same patch and at the same time they are likely to have about the same amount of sugar so , yes, I would use a refractometer to sample one or two berries from different parts of the patch and that will give you the SG or brix of the berries (my guess would be that they are not likely to have more sugar than a reading of about 1.040 - 1.045. So basically that's the juice. If you add any water you will be diluting the total volume of juice by the volume of water and so diluting the sugar content.
That said, I wonder if you might get about half a gallon of juice from 7 lbs of berries, and so, 2 gallons from 28 lbs. Ball park here. So to make 4 gallons you would need to add 2 gallons of water and that would half the gravity (to let's say 1.020).

Let me assume that you are aiming for a starting gravity of 1.090 so (again - this is all guesstimating and ball parking) you will need to add about 70 points of sugar. If 16 oz of sugar increases the gravity of water to 1.040 for every gallon of water + sugar solution, then to raise that same total volume by another 30 points means that you will need about 28 oz of sugar... BUT I would press the berries so that you know the total volume of juice you are working with - and so you know how much water to add to begin with 4 gallons... BUT is it 4 gallons you want to make - or 4 gallons you want to bottle? To bottle 4 gallons you may need to begin with about 4.5 gallons of must

 

[silverbullet07]

That is a lot of good information. Thank you.

I’ve been reading and trying to learn. Does this chart look correct to use for sugar correction and to calculate what you need to add.
https://www.beer-wine.com/adjusting-specific-gravity
so based on that chart, If my berries tested to 1.040 and I had two gallons juice and I was to raise the two gallons to 1.090 then I would need to raise 50 point per gal. Would I add 32.4 oz sugar? Since I would dissolve that in water I would have to account for that. So if I dissolve using a gallon of water I would need to add an additional 29.3 oz sugar to the 32.4 oz. so to raise the two gallons 1.040 juice and 1 gal water to 1.090 I would need to add 61.7 oz sugar. does this look pretty correct?

So berries you should press first to determine how much juice you have. Then add your water level if you plan to add it. Then throw the berry skins in a mesh bag to include them during fermentation. since I don’t have a true press, then I press and squeeze as well as I can. Then any extra juice that comes out is a ”extra“ on top of what I adjust to.

I pressed my black berries and then added water that way. Seemed to do alright. But I pressed my pears and the pulp got all in the juice. Trying to clean that up now. I was told I should not have squeezed all the pulp out of the mesh bag. I thought I was squeezing the juice out. not sure how to handle the pulp not getting into the juice. Seems if you press them the pulp would still get out.

so with berries we press before fermentation to determine how much juice we have, if we are going to add water? Do I have to worry about pulp in berries.
With grapes I read you normally do not add water or sugar so you can press Them after fermentation?

 

[Bocochoco]

Ingredients I used for a recent batch. Had a bit leftover I just used to flavor tea.
24 oz raspberries
240 oz blueberries
4 cups sugar
1 cambden tablet
1 tsp tartaric acid
Pectic enzyme
Nutrient blend
Red Star Premier Classique
1 1/2 gallons purified water