Blackberry - up or down?

[Raptor99]

Here is an update on my blackberry wine.
I started it on 9/17 with 29 lbs. of blackberries, plus water with 4c sugar and 1/2 gal apple/white grape juice (Motts). My initial volume was 4.5 gals, with a goal of 3 gals. in secondary. After measuring Brix, I added 1065 g additional sugar. The initial Brix was then 20 (= SG 1.083) and pH was 3.32. Pitched K1-V1116 hydrated with GoFerm and made into a step starter with added must.

On 9/19 it was clearly fermenting, but I measured the Brix at 20, same as before. The SG measured with hydrometer was 1.082. So I concluded that on my initial measurement, there must have been some undissolved sugar. Since I am not sure of the initial Brix, I will measure SG rather than Brix from this point on. (The initial Brix is necessary to calculate the SG based on initial and current Brix.)

On 9/22 I removed the fruit bag. My procedure was to suspend it above the bucket for several hours to drain, and then squeeze by hand to remove as much liquid as possible

After draining and squeezing, the pulp bag weighed 6.3 lbs. giving me a 78% yield (by weight). I put the bag in a small fruit press and extracted some more wine. The weight was then 5 lbs. = 83% yield. BTW, when I was draining the pulp bag, the fragrance in the room was wonderful!

Then I racked it into a 3 gal. carboy + a 1 gal carboy, both with quite a bit of headroom at this point. On 9/22 the SG was 1.012 and the pH 3.17. It has become more acidic, possibly due to more acid released from the fruit during fermentation. I won't try to adjust the pH at this point, but will consider whether I need any adjustments before bottling. Or maybe just some additional backsweetening to offset the acid.

Today (9/24) the SG is 1.006, so it is still slowly finishing fermentation (dropped by 6 points in 2 days).

 

[back2it]

OMG, thats so much detail, wow. This is what I do. The volumes don't match up but that's a work in progress.

 

[back2it]

UPDATE

A few days ago, I removed the fruit and pressed it. SG 1.006 PH 3.2. When tasting, I found it reasonable easy to drink, not too tart and with good flavour. I was tempted to keep the pressed fruit and buy some ice cream to eat it with but it ended up on the compost pile.

I think I whipped the fruit too hard when punching down as it was very fine which meant that it took an age to remove and press and has left quite a lot of lees.



In the future I will not whip the fruit but either use a masher or press to crush but keep the skins reasonably solid. I will also try not using the bag in the press as it seemed to hinder the process.

I was surprised at how long the proccess took but think that was down to the fruits being so broken up. It looks like ending up as a reasonably good wine, so happy so far.

Going forward, I am unsure whether I should rack off the lees or not. If I take off the lees then I am not sure that I will have enough to fill a 5/6 gallon carboy. I suppose I could top it off with apple juice though. If I take the lees with it then I’m unsure how it will affect this wine in the aging process. I will ponder for a while longer and read around, no great rush, it's only 9 days old.