Blackberry juice concentrate from homewinery.com

[ffemt128]

Julie & FFemt, I regularly blend my Dundee Blackberry with their Cab & with another Merlot I have made. Only use 5-10% blackberry, but we really like the difference it makes!! Going to try a weaker blend than that on a Pino Noir we made. Roy

Roy,

Are you keeping this as a dry or blending after sweetening the Blackberry? Thanks for the starting point for the blends. Wasn't sure where to start with that one.

 

[FTC Wines]

Well, as I type this I/we are enjoying a Dundee Blackberry 2010. It is a little sweeter than I like NOW. Probably SG 1.018ish. We also have 25 bottles of 2012 blackberry & 5 gals in secondary fermentation. Only 2-3 bottles of 2010 left. So to answer your ?? I have back sweetened then blended, & blended setting up the must. Also I started ordering a extra 1/2 gallon from Dundee & using their concentrate to "F PAC" a stabilized wine. (Both Cab & Blackberry) Their prices are SO LOW it's very easy to experiment! I make juice wines from scratch, high end kits & Dundee wines for every day consumption. Just found a source for fresh Calif grapes here in Fl so next year I'll be doing grape wines again from GRAPES. Roy

 

[ffemt128]

Well, as I type this I/we are enjoying a Dundee Blackberry 2010. It is a little sweeter than I like NOW. Probably SG 1.018ish. We also have 25 bottles of 2012 blackberry & 5 gals in secondary fermentation. Only 2-3 bottles of 2010 left. So to answer your ?? I have back sweetened then blended, & blended setting up the must. Also I started ordering a extra 1/2 gallon from Dundee & using their concentrate to "F PAC" a stabilized wine. (Both Cab & Blackberry) Their prices are SO LOW it's very easy to experiment! I make juice wines from scratch, high end kits & Dundee wines for every day consumption. Just found a source for fresh Calif grapes here in Fl so next year I'll be doing grape wines again from GRAPES. Roy

Their prices and shipping is very reasonable. Looking forward to doing some blending.

 

[joeswine]

Blackberry pino noir

Blackberry pino noir,this is a blended wine consisting of blackberry wine from walkers and a california pino noir fresh juice i produced in 2007,and its still holding,deep taste and great texture the blend is 35% blackberry 65% pino.................

 

[jswordy]

Also I started ordering a extra 1/2 gallon from Dundee & using their concentrate to "F PAC" a stabilized wine.

This is an excellent technique I have used myself.

 

[FTC Wines]

Thanks Joe, I was thinking of a 20% Blackberry/80% Pino Noir. Well play with different blends. My favorite part of Wine Making!! Roy

 

[ffemt128]

After several bench tests, I sweetened the black and blueberry wines to 1.010. They both have good flavor, but still taste the 3 months kld that they are. Will continue to age and sampme again in 3 months and make any necessary adjustments at that point. I'm wondering how this would turn out if you doubled the concentrate amount and adjusted the acid accordingly. I'm thinking it would be pretty darn good.

 

[FTC Wines]

FF, I have added a pint of their concentrate to the normal 1/2 gal at the start. Kicks up the "boldness". I have done this with their Blackberry & Cab, but not with their Chianti, we like that as our mild pizza wine. Roy

 

[joeswine]

Balance

The key to those concentrates in my opinion, is to not make a full 5 gallons , if you can take you down lower for a half gallon batch I know this sounds a bit out of place it makes a much better finish line truer flavor than having to add anything at the end so far from my experiments on the pineapple will be ready to bottle that label soon and by producing a smaller batch this concentrate I've got a better tasting wine with a good wine finished taste, does that make sense?

 

[Polarhug]

My recent blueberry was a homewinery.com concentrate. To kick it up a notch I also added 5lbs frozen blueberries in the primary, and used 5lbs in the secondary as an F-Pac. Heavily oaked it and it turned out amazing in aroma and flavor. My advice is don't be afraid to add extra goodies to bling it out!

My Sauternes from homewinery.com is happily in secondary. Also added 4lbs of bananas to it in addition to the sugar. Lovely body at 1.00.

Trying to decide what my next concentrate will be!

 

[Jamie]

I was reading the instructions that were on the website and one thing that confused me was the suggestions for the amount of sugar added to control the sweetness. Wouldnt this only change the final alcohol content if its added prior to stabilizing?

 

[dralarms]

As stated before, the instructions are foolproof. If you want my opinion, 4 gallons of water, 1/2 gallon juice, sugar to 1.100 and you can add the acid before or after, it doesn't matter. If you do it this way then you can control the final products sweetness better. I've made 15 batches of their juice so far and have 12 or13 in the freezer waiting on carboys.

 

[dralarms]

Oh, and welcome to WMT.

 

[Julie]

Hi Jamie, I would do as dralarms said but I won't go that high for an sg, go about 1.080 - 1.090. Sorry dralarms but you boys seem to want to push the alcohol level to high!

 

[Jamie]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty new at this but from what I've read the addition of sugar prior to stabilizing will result in more alcohol, not more sweetness. Or are the assuming your going to stop the fermentation early to conserve some of the added sugar?

Just trying to get my bearings

 

[dralarms]

Hi Jamie, I would do as dralarms said but I won't go that high for an sg, go about 1.080 - 1.090. Sorry dralarms but you boys seem to want to push the alcohol level to high!

I'm always pushing the limits.

 

[Julie]

I'm always pushing the limits.

Lol, I know.

 

[Julie]

Jamie don't try to stop fermentation, it is difficult to do. Add enough sugar to bring your must up to the sg that you want and let it ferment to dry.

 

[FTC Wines]

Jamie, I agree with Julie, I always ferment their wines dry! then back sweeten if necessary. I have 2 batches in priomaries as I type this. I never put their concentrate directly into a carboy. (Personnel choice) I ferment 4-5 days in a open/covered fermentor, when SG is around1.020-1.010 I transfer to secondary, leave it for 6-8 weeks, rack, then add acid, and stabilize it. Age for another 4-6 months, bottle & ENJOY! Their wines have taken over as my "early" drinkers, used to be Skeeter Pee. Roy

 

[Jamie]

Thanks guys.

So I guess everyone is in agreement that adding sugar prior to stabilization will result in more alcohol and not a sweeter wine as the instructions would lead you to believe?

I just like to get an understanding of how things work so I know how to tweak things in the future to get the results that I would like. I thought I had a handle on the sugar thing until I read those instructions and it made me question what I thought I knew