DangerDave's Dragon Blood Wine

[Trick]

I was saying that it probably didn't matter if he re-hydrated the yeast using a cup of water, per the recipe, or with 2 oz of water per the yeast packet directions.

agree.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Got my first batch of this recipe ready to bottle today, but oversweetened a bit.
I have 5 gallons of coronation grapes that I don't plan on actually bottling on their own, so mixed in 1.5g of it into the danger daves. Seems to taste good initially, will see how it turns out.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Interestingly, my notes and measurements say it should only be about 10%, but my head it telling me otherwise after having one glass. I wonder if more sugar came out of the fruit after the last time I took a reading, and then by the time I checked again and had fermented down below.

Edit: Reread my notes. I had originally made a mixture of water/sugar/lemon and measured it at 1.07 SG, so would be around 10%. However then added in 5lbs of strawberries, 1.5 lbs blueberries, 1lb raisins. While I never saw SG go higher (fermentation started in 24hrs), I'm sure there was a good deal of sugar in the fruit that brought it higher. No idea what it actually is at, but feels like 14 or 15%.
I'm guessing anyone following the directions will end up with more than 10% if they do the initial water mix to 1.075, or does this type fruit not add much sugar?

 

[Chris Scott]

My wine label thoughts ???

 

[Jasper24]

My wine label thoughts ???View attachment 45857

Great label and cool dragon

 

[sour_grapes]

I rather like the dragon.

Nits to pick:
(1) The accent on the "e" of rosé is the wrong one. You used an accent grave when you meant to use an accent aigu.
(2) I wouldn't cite my ABV to 2 decimal places. You really don't know it that well. I would round to nearest 0.5%, so, 13% in your case.
(3) No apostrophe for Dragon's?
(4) No period for Mr.? Serious question: are you British?
(5) Seems like there is an extra space between "made" and "by."

 

[peepmom]

I asked a couple of my kids to draw me a dragon. I'm in love with how they turned out!!

 

[gitmo234]

Does someone have a good bottle they'd be willing to part with? I wanna to give it a try before I buy everything to try experiment on my own with it? I live in the northern virginia area and can pick up or I will pm my address to mail me a bottle of "olive oil".

Happy to fairly compensate

 

[HarrysHomeBrew]

Got my first batch of this recipe ready to bottle today, but oversweetened a bit.
I have 5 gallons of coronation grapes that I don't plan on actually bottling on their own, so mixed in 1.5g of it into the danger daves. Seems to taste good initially, will see how it turns out.

How much sugar did you use? I want to come close to over sweeten but not do it. Thanks.

 

[tyfattori]

How long would you recommend aging this DD's Dragon Blood or what's the longest someone has aged it so far?

 

[jumby]

How long would you recommend aging this DD's Dragon Blood or what's the longest someone has aged it so far?

The flavor peaks after a few months. I have bottes that are well over a year old and still good.

 

[willie]

Heck we haven't been able to save a bottle for more than 9 months. We thought that bottle had lost some flavor. But as a general rule we like to start drinking DB when it 2-3 months old and if we have any left from that batch by the 4th or 5th month we are lucky. Friends and family really like it. Have 2 batches fermenting now a Cherry and a Triple Berry. It's our 1st time doing a Cherry so we are hoping it will be good. It sure smells good in the bucket.

Will

 

[tyfattori]

That’s great to hear, I really look forward to making my first batch!

 

[danr]

Having made Original receipe DB(1/2 the lemon,though)I tried a batch with antioxadent blend that also is very good.Now I'm going to try a batch using Welches frozen blend of grape-strawberry-tartcherry&diced carrots.Probobly no lemon.Any thoughts?I have 1118&cote de blank yeasts on hand but I'm wondering...

 

[roboto65]

Mine is sitting waiting on the sugars I added to stabilize but it looks and tastes great mine was a Blackberry,Raspberry,Blueberry and Cherry blend my wife likes it so I did good.
My wife and Daughter also created the label here I love it will be bottling next time off the boat in about 2 weeks cannot wait.

 

[HarrysHomeBrew]

i should be adding sugar to mine next week. I think I want to make it pretty sweet. I guess I will mix my sugar and test it until it is almost sweet enough and that should be good. I am excited.

 

[DrJeff]

Quick question,

I almost to the letter followed the directions outlined on the first page, and have a very active ferment going at the moment. No issue there, and all seems to be going well.

The thing is, after having added about 24 cups of sugar to a 6.5 gallon carboy, the SG only seemed to make it up to approximately 1.062 (spectrometer and hydrometer reading). Being that that I had already added slightly more than the recipe called for and knowing it would be somewhat sweet on the backend, I was really hesitant to keep dumping sugar in to hit that 1.075 target. As a result, I think the final ABV% might be a little less than I was looking for.

So, I also have a still and do neutrals. Using an alcohol calculator, it looks like I could conceivably pull some 2 litres of fermented must out, and add around 2 litres of 40% ABV neutral. So my question is, can you add a nuetral spirit to the wine, bring up the ABV a touch, w/o rreally compromising the quality of the wine? New to wine making, so sort of assume this would be o.k., but given the care and feeding to get to this point, don't want to botch something unecessarily. I can live with a lower ABV, but was hoping to kick it up to around 10:12% if possible.

Thx in advance,
jeff

 

[willie]

Quick question,

I almost to the letter followed the directions outlined on the first page, and have a very active ferment going at the moment. No issue there, and all seems to be going well.

The thing is, after having added about 24 cups of sugar to a 6.5 gallon carboy, the SG only seemed to make it up to approximately 1.062 (spectrometer and hydrometer reading). Being that that I had already added slightly more than the recipe called for and knowing it would be somewhat sweet on the backend, I was really hesitant to keep dumping sugar in to hit that 1.075 target. As a result, I think the final ABV% might be a little less than I was looking for.

So, I also have a still and do neutrals. Using an alcohol calculator, it looks like I could conceivably pull some 2 litres of fermented must out, and add around 2 litres of 40% ABV neutral. So my question is, can you add a nuetral spirit to the wine, bring up the ABV a touch, w/o rreally compromising the quality of the wine? New to wine making, so sort of assume this would be o.k., but given the care and feeding to get to this point, don't want to botch something unecessarily. I can live with a lower ABV, but was hoping to kick it up to around 10:12% if possible.

Thx in advance,
jeff

Hello and welcome to the DB Thread. Yes you could have put in more sugar in the fermenter when you started to reach your desired final ABV. I usually start with a 10lb. bag of cane sugar and then add a few more cups to get the SG up to 1.080-1.090. If your ferment goes to dry at .990 then your ABV will be 9.45 %. Now if you want any time after your ferment you can add a 80-100 proof vodka to kick up the alcohol percentage. I have done that before and didn't notice any difference in taste. Dave's SG number of 1.075 is so you get the idea of a good starting point I guess. Which will give an ABV of 11.16%. All the sugar in the fermenter will be made into alcohol and will not add any sweetness to the wine when you ferment to dry. The sweetness comes later on when the wine is clear and you do the back sweetening. To me dry fruit wine is kind of nasty. But I am sure some folks may like it that way. One last thing. Veteran wine makers will tell you that too high of an ABV will hurt the fruitiness of the wine. Say 15-20 % range I never take our DB above 13%.

Will

 

[sour_grapes]

Quick question,

I almost to the letter followed the directions outlined on the first page, and have a very active ferment going at the moment. No issue there, and all seems to be going well.

The thing is, after having added about 24 cups of sugar to a 6.5 gallon carboy, the SG only seemed to make it up to approximately 1.062 (spectrometer and hydrometer reading). Being that that I had already added slightly more than the recipe called for and knowing it would be somewhat sweet on the backend, I was really hesitant to keep dumping sugar in to hit that 1.075 target. As a result, I think the final ABV% might be a little less than I was looking for.

Jeff, Sugar is pretty slow to dissolve, especially in cool water. Are you sure it was all dissolved when you took your measurements?

BTW, we do not discuss distillation at all on this forum.

 

[wildhair]

[QUOTE="willie, post: 683034, member: 30227" I usually start with a 10lb. bag of cane sugar and then add a few more cups to get the SG up to 1.080-1.090. If your ferment goes to dry at .990 then your ABV will be 9.45 %. .......... Dave's SG number of 1.075 is so you get the idea of a good starting point I guess. Which will give an ABV of 11.16%.
Will[/QUOTE]

Ummmm ---------- isn't that backwards? At a starting ABV of 1.090 and and ending SG of .990 you get an a ABV of 13.58%, not 9.45%.

And at 1.075 SG start and .990 SG ending - you get 11.5% ABV. More sugar = higher SG # = higher alcohol content.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Calculating Alcohol by Volume (% ABV )

Drop the decimel points to do this calculation.

Original SG reading – Finished SG reading = X

Divide X by 7.36 = Alcohol by Volume %

EX – 1.090 starting SG reading and .990 finished SG reading (before sweetening)

1090 – 990 = 100 /7.36 = 13.58 %
1075 - 990 = 85 / 7.36 = 11.54%