# Dry Dragon’s Blood Recipe?



## jbo_c (Feb 25, 2019)

Anybody made a good dry Dragons Blood? Red or even rose? Seems like the original would be a little acidic without sweetening to balance it, but we don’t drink sweet wine. - not even off-dry.

Thoughts?

Thanks. 

Jbo


----------



## Pistol Bill (Feb 25, 2019)

jbo_c said:


> Anybody made a good dry Dragons Blood? Red or even rose? Seems like the original would be a little acidic without sweetening to balance it, but we don’t drink sweet wine. - not even off-dry.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> ...


Boy do I have a comment on dry DB! Mine reached around 16% and .938 SG. It is like drinking unleaded fuel. Today I will be blending it with a 5 gallon batch of DB that I made for a sweet desert wine (16.5% ABV and finished at 1.038 SG) with hopes of sweetening up the .938 and drying up the 1.038. Fingers crossed! By the way the 1.038 high ABV is fantastic, sweet as designed. The high ABV really made this wine shine


----------



## sour_grapes (Feb 25, 2019)

Pistol Bill said:


> Boy do I have a comment on dry DB! Mine reached around 16% and .938 SG. It is like drinking unleaded fuel. Today I will be blending it with a 5 gallon batch of DB that I made for a sweet desert wine (16.5% ABV and finished at 1.038 SG) with hopes of sweetening up the .938 and drying up the 1.038. Fingers crossed! By the way the 1.038 high ABV is fantastic, sweet as designed. The high ABV really made this wine shine



Are you sure your SG was 0.938? I don't think most general-purpose hydrometers even go that low. To wind up with "only" 16% ABV, you would have had to have started at 1.060, and fermented down to 0.938. Seems unlikely.


----------



## Pistol Bill (Feb 25, 2019)

sour_grapes said:


> Are you sure your SG was 0.938? I don't think most general-purpose hydrometers even go that low. To wind up with "only" 16% ABV, you would have had to have started at 1.060, and fermented down to 0.938. Seems unlikely.


You sure made me look at my hydrometer closer. Attached are a couple pictures I took of my reading. As I look these over, I believe I have found my error. When the SG gets below 1.00, the next lower gradient reads 90. So I took this literally with each line above 90 to represent 2. So looking at my photos I attached, I marked my last reading as not quite .940 (.938). The "90" that shows in my photo should really have shown "99". My final gravity is .99 + 38 (4 really) = .994. Never the less, very strong alcohol, very little berry flavor. Hence my need to blend. Thanks for pointing that out.
View attachment 53569


----------



## ThreeSheetsToTheWind (Feb 25, 2019)

Have you tried the original recipe dry? I seriously thought of bottling it dry. I only sweetened mine back to an sg of 1.000 and it's almost too sweet for my taste. But it did balance the tartness. Maybe half the sugar next time for me


----------



## jbo_c (Feb 25, 2019)

I haven’t tried it at all yet. Just reading through the original thread(backward). I love to play but I know I don’t want it sweet, maybe barely enough to take a sharp edge off - probably not even up to 1.000. I’m assuming that means I’ll be wanting far less lemon juice. I’m thinking maybe 1/4 at most, but was hoping somebody had already figured it out.

Thanks for the replies so far.

Jbo


----------



## Pistol Bill (Feb 25, 2019)

ThreeSheetsToTheWind said:


> Have you tried the original recipe dry? I seriously thought of bottling it dry. I only sweetened mine back to an sg of 1.000 and it's almost too sweet for my taste. But it did balance the tartness. Maybe half the sugar next time for me


Yes, tasted it dry, dry. Unlike my apple I made dry, this stuff was bad. I did most recently (today) blended it with 25% of my sweet DB. It seems about right now. Still quite a kick as both DB are sitting around 16%.


----------



## jbo_c (Feb 25, 2019)

I’d probably make at the intended 10-11% abc.


----------



## ThreeSheetsToTheWind (Feb 25, 2019)

I used one bottle of lemon, got about 11.5% abv and I like it that way. It might just be me but I felt the tartness was more from the raspberries.

But I drank quite a bit dry, it was pretty good, and i might bottle half dry next time to get a good feel for it. I should get another batch going because I could see us wanting more when it's gone.


----------

