# Blackberry questions.... Dry Vs. Sweet



## Zexsir (Jul 28, 2013)

Hello all!

First I would like to thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read my post. As I am a new wine maker and new member. I'm sure there are a bunch of post over this topic as well, it will be alot easier to reference in my own thread though.

Last year I found blackberries and I mean tons by tons of wild blackberries. Due to my odd working hours I was unable to pick any. Well this year so far I have 20 pounds. I found a recipe for 6 gallons that Tom posted. I want a semi sweet wine but i'm curious 

What makes it dry, What makes it sweeter? (naturally without adding sugar. or is it possible)
What does adding oak do? Or is it not suggested with blackberries
What exactly is a "F pac" and will it drastically change the flavor?

Being my first wild fruit wine and the hasstle of picking 30+ pounds of wild, throny, chigger infested Kansas blackberries I keep freaking out I'm going to loose the fruit in primary due to my work hours on some days. (working on wind turbines you could have an 8 or 18 hr day.) What exactly makes the fruit ??turn?? or go bad???

Thanks everyone for the help

Scott


----------



## jamesngalveston (Jul 28, 2013)

scott: 20 lbs of berries will make a real good 3 gallon batch.
the less water you use the better.
fermentation makes a wine dry, meaning all sugar has been eaten up by the yeast. meaning it will not taste sweet, there is no sugar left.
you can sweeten it after it ferments completely and after you stabilize it.
you can find good guide lines here: 
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/blackbr2.asp


----------



## Zexsir (Jul 28, 2013)

I'm still in the process of a 6 gallon batch. Thanks the quick reply My magic number is 35 pounds of blackberries


----------



## Rampage4all (Jul 29, 2013)

The oak adds oak flavor to your wine. And Fpac is a flavor Pack yes it will change the flavor of the wine depending in how much you add as to the severity.

Long as you can get to you wine to stir it in primary once a day you'll probably be ok.


----------



## Deezil (Jul 31, 2013)

Zexsir said:


> What makes it dry, What makes it sweeter? (naturally without adding sugar. or is it possible)
> What does adding oak do? Or is it not suggested with blackberries
> What exactly is a "F pac" and will it drastically change the flavor?
> 
> ...



Welcome to WMT!

The dry/sweet question, is something that comes into play after the alcohol has already been made. It takes sugar to make alcohol, and when the fermentation is complete, ideally, there is practically no sugar left. All of the sugar in the must (liquid, before it becomes wine) is converted to alcohol to ensure that finished product is 'safe'. Not safe as in, 'not make you sick', but safe as in 'not gonna blow up (bottle bomb) for any reason'. If theres leftover/residual sugar, and its not approached right, when bottled & under the right/wrong conditions, catastrophic things can happen. 

So you want to start with a Specific Gravity around 1.085 - 1.090, and we'll want to get it to ferment down to 1.000 or lower. This will give you:

(Starting SG - Final SG) / .735 = .####
.#### = ##.## % ABV

1.090 - 1 = 0.090
0.090 / .735 = 0.1224
0.1224 = 12.24 % ABV

So say theoretically, it started at 1.090 and fermened to 1.000. That gives you 12.24 % ABV & a dry wine. But what if you want it sweet, right? Potassium Sulfite is added to protect the wine from the atmosphere (it escapes as gas, displacing oxygen/air), as well as 'shocking' the yeast; a sort of stunning procedure, to keep them from being as active. 

When that is introduced, you can then add another product, Potassium Sorbate, which is effectively yeast birth control. It binds to the yeast cells and keeps them from budding out a new generation to continue the feast.

When the Sulfite + Sorbate are both added (separately) and mixed thoroughly (I recommend giving it a day or three), you can then add sugar to sweeten the wine without large worries of refermentation / making more alcohol instead. 

You'll find that your berries will only have an SG by themselves of something between 1.020 - 1.040 (maybe 1.050 if they're extra sweet), but in any case it's not enough, to produce enough alcohol that it will keep your wine infection-free. Wine is fermented to above 10-11% ABV because human pathogens cant survive in those conditions, unlike beer (which can get 'sick' enough that it gets dumped out). There's practically no way around adding some sort of sugar to make fruit wines. 

Oak is a great compliment to blackberry. Or so I hear. Oak is a relatively subjective/personal touch people put on their wine so what works for one person may not be so pleasing to another. It's something I would recommend learning more about either after you've finished a successful fermentation, or on another batch later down the road. When this batch is done fermenting, it will need to sit for some months, so you'll have plenty of time to learn. One step at a time; dont overwhelm yourself. 

An F-Pac is basically, in the case of blackberry, another 10-15lbs of blackberries, kept in the freezer until fermentation is done, and the wine is stabilized (Sulfite + Sorbate, made safe for sweetening). After the wine is stablized, these blackberries would be thawed, mashed and hit with Sulfite & Pectic Enzyme (which should be used in the original wine as well, dissolves pectin which is what holds fruit together), then allowed to sit for 12-24hrs while the Enzyme does its work. After that time, the solids are separated from the juice, and the juice is added to the wine, giving both original fruit flavor as well as sweetness.


----------



## Turock (Jul 31, 2013)

The way we handle all the fruit is to freeze them in freezer bags as we pick. They spoil fast, so freezing is a good idea until you get as many picked as you want. Freezing also releases lots of juice so is a good way to handle fruit.

Always allow the ferment to go to dry. Backsweeten to your taste when it's time to bottle.

We always use 10# per gallon and no water. But if you don't want it that intense, use 6 or 7# per gallon. You have to PH test and adjust pre-ferment or else you'll end up with a very acidic wine that you can't adjust post ferment. We adjust the PH to 3.4 using calcium carbonate. Because this is a malic fruit that has a lot of harshness in the resulting wine, we always use 71B culture because it metabolizes some of that malic. Be sure to use GO-Ferm with 71B.

Questions? Now is the time BEFORE you start the ferment. So many people jump right into making blackberry then have acid issues and harshness later on that they're trying to resolve. Blackberry can be a tough little wine for biginners because they don't understand the acid issues on this fruit, and end up with a wine that can't be repaired--important to get it right on the front end. Most beginners don't own a PH meter--pretty important for THIS fruit! If you freeze the fruit, you can take your time asking questions to be sure you know how to do this, and time to buy a PH meter.


----------



## Turock (Jul 31, 2013)

Use enough fruit and reduce your water additions, then there is no need for a f-pack on this fruit.


----------



## Corrybrown3 (Aug 2, 2013)

I always freeze mine till I'm ready to start I use ten pounds of fruit with ten pounds of honey and ec1118 and nutreint . Strain through a screen after one week let it ferment all the way out transferring one more time to get rid of settlement then add two pions of lactose to sweeten sometime I'll bottle adding a blackbeerie flavoring kit and a 1/2 cup honey to carbonate Hope this helps


----------



## Zexsir (Aug 4, 2013)

Turock said:


> The way we handle all the fruit is to freeze them in freezer bags as we pick. They spoil fast, so freezing is a good idea until you get as many picked as you want. Freezing also releases lots of juice so is a good way to handle fruit.
> 
> Always allow the ferment to go to dry. Backsweeten to your taste when it's time to bottle.
> 
> ...




Thanks for this information! Very very helpful, I'm going with 6# per gallon due to getting 10 would be many more scratches and thorns in the legs since I'm picking completely wild berries, pretty cool how nature can work through birds. High in acid, Would the acid strips be sufficient? I found a cheaper acid tester for around 40$ I plan on purchasing these. Heck I even bought a small deep freeze since my fridge freezer was getting full! I want to wow people with this wine.


----------



## Turock (Aug 5, 2013)

No, acid strips are worthless because they only give a ballpark reading with lots of room for error. You're smart to start off the correct way--by getting a PH meter.

I've been talking to my winemaking buddy about buying a small chest freezer just to use during fruit season. So that was a good call to get yourself a freezer. 

Your initial PH reading will probably be around 2.8 or 2.9 So be sure to buy some calcium carbonate for acid adjustment. You'll bring the PH up to 3.4 by adding 1/4 tsp of calcium carb at a time, stirring VERY well, then retesting and adding more. As you get close to the target PH, start reducing the amount of calcium carb because you don't want to over-shoot. 

Our blackberry tastes just like a blackberry pie. So doing the ferment with no water will yield a very delicious result that you'll be proud of. You'll learn alot too by doing a good job with this wine--knowledge you can use on future ferments. 

So, how many pounds of blackberries do you have? Important to know so I can help you thru the ferment, if you want.


----------



## Zexsir (Aug 5, 2013)

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/checker-1-economical-ph-tester.html

I'm thinking something like that will be in the price range. Right now I have 37 pounds of blackberries. My target was 36 (6# per gallon)

Being my first fruit wine I will have tons of questions. My main ones are just when to use which chemicals, Taking hydrometer test, how often and target levels and keeping the wine safe while testing, Racking? should I do it quite often?


----------



## Turock (Aug 6, 2013)

I'm not the best one to ask about the PH meters sold for home winemakers because I've never used one. I have a professional PH meter that was used in a water treatment facility.

As you get ready to do the ferment, we can walk you thru it. What yeast are you using?

You will only need to rack this one or 2 times. Excessive racking is a mistake because every time you do this, you expose the wine to oxygen. You only manipulate wine as much as you need to.


----------



## Zexsir (Aug 7, 2013)

Sounds good. It won't be for a month or more, I'm brewing a stout for my dads birthday.


----------



## Payazo (Oct 29, 2013)

I am located in Ecuador were calcium carbonate is a controlled substance because of the cocaine labs. So my question is can I replace it with baking soda to balance the PH of my Blackberry juice?


----------

