DangerDave's Dragon Blood Wine

[M38A1]

Well crud..... Not sure what to do next but I probably have to do 'something' quickly. Got home late tonight, mixed up my 1118 and was ready to pitch. Pulled off both PF covers and the blueberry one had what appeared to be little spots of fuzz. I don't know if it's chemicals, but I DO know I pulled out some fuzzy blueberries from the batch I used. I washed them all under cool water before putting them in my nylon bag. I guess I'll pitch the yeast and see what happens. Totally bummed but I can understand with fruits this happens. I just don't know what steps to take.

 

[meadmaker1]

Did you mix campden tabs or k meta in your original mix. You see this step in many recipes. It stops wild yeast and helps preserve fruit while off gassing. Allowing all the elements of your mix to permeate each other.
Pick out the fuzz you can and get the yeast on it. I'd wipe down the exposed areas in your bucket with a rag soaked in starsan or equivalent sanitizer

 

[M38A1]

Did you mix campden tabs or k meta in your original mix. You see this step in many recipes. It stops wild yeast and helps preserve fruit while off gassing. Allowing all the elements of your mix to permeate each other.
Pick out the fuzz you can and get the yeast on it. I'd wipe down the exposed areas in your bucket with a rag soaked in starsan or equivalent sanitizer

No, the original post in this thread doesn't call for it in Step 1 and like a good boy, I follow directions. I 'did' wonder about the missing k-meta and sitting for 24hrs but there are people a lot smarter and more experienced than I so I ran with what's written.

I've picked out what I can. Today I checked on it and don't really see any. I'm not so naive to think I got it all, but I did pitch the yeast and dunk the must bag a bunch so maybe the yeasties took care of it? I dunno.....

So when it says "Stir vigorously", exactly what does that mean? I have a bit slotted spoon and this fancy plastic stick with weed-eater line on the end that said to be used for de-gassing. Do I just pull out the must bag into the clean/sanitized bowl then go to town for a minute with this gizmo and my cordless?

I just wish there was someone close to me I could watch throughout the entire process. Everyone has been so helpful here, but seeing it answers sooooooo many questions up front on things I don't even know to ask about.

 

[willie]

I believe Keith meant for you to put k- meta in your must because he thought you were using fresh fruit. You don't have to if using frozen fruit. And yes Dave does have in his recipe to wait for your Must to sit for 12-24 hours before adding yeast. The ferment goes so much better if you let it sit for a day.
I live in central ohio so if your near by your welcome to come and watch what ever of the process you want.
Take care and good luck with your wine making.

Will

 

[M38A1]

I believe Keith meant for you to put k- meta in your must because he thought you were using fresh fruit. You don't have to if using frozen fruit. And yes Dave does have in his recipe to wait for your Must to sit for 12-24 hours before adding yeast. The ferment goes so much better if you let it sit for a day.
I live in central ohio so if your near by your welcome to come and watch what ever of the process you want.
Take care and good luck with your wine making.

Will

Will, Thx for the invite but I'm down here in Texas so that'd be a hike!

I wound up splitting the batch pretty much half frozen triple blend and half fresh blueberries. Just another thing to learn along the way I suppose. Fresh Fruit = k-meta for 24 hrs prior to yeast pitch. Frozen fruit - still wait 24hrs but no k-meta required. We'll see how it runs as I've already pitched the yeast.

Again, thanks.

 

[willie]

Yep it's a learning curve just as every thing we touch is.

Will

 

[meadmaker1]

I must admit, i read a lot of posts and forget sometimes the thread or even category that i am in. And at 220 posts in, the recipe is a ways back there.
I personally have only been able to follow 1 recipe exactly "joes ancient orange"
Every thing else has been more less a perponderance of the collective variations i am able to find. What is in common with all or most,what are the comments folks have regarding the fruit or picking a yeast, and what routine i am more likely to follow.
Dragons blood is easy to mostly follow because it simply follows good standard practices and nothing extra like mlf , you dont need to worry about ph or ta but you can if you choose
I make triple berry wine and my routine is so close i call it D B. I use more fruit and honey and 71b i always use frozen fruit but am mindful of temperatures if fruit gets warm it can fuzz fast. K meta should buy a little buffer time.

 

[dangerdave]

I did my best to include the answers to the most common questions in the OP recipe. The great people here are wonderful at following up on the rest. They helped me immensely in my first years as a wine maker, and many who made DB became the sounding board for refining the recipe.
But I digress...
I revised the recipe text several times in the first year just to cover common inquiries. I decided to stop revisions so there would not be ten versions on the internet (where nothing goes away), and make for confusion amongst the new wine makers.

 

[Bleedaggie]

Quick question. Completed step one. Adding yeast tomorrow. 6 gallon primary. When I added the fruit to the 6 gallons of water/juice/sugar, water displacement made a fool out of me. Siphoned off enough of the liquid to get the bag in tonight, but feel like I’m going to be awfully close to a mess when I add the yeast tomorrow. What do you think? Siphon it down to the 6 gallon mark to be sure, or let it ride?

 

[meadmaker1]

You should be ok depending on yeast and temperature, but i would put the whole thing in a bigger catch tub anyway. I use a cut 1/3 of a plastic barrel, a friend of mine uses a grout mixing tub that holds two buckets or car boys.
You could pull off a gallon and ferment that in another container so when you rack you still have 6 gallons after leaving lees behind.
That is an interesting jug should work well for dragons blood. But with a heavier fruit load i would start in a bucket.
This one is in a water bath with a wet canvas over it to keep it cool.

 

[Bleedaggie]

You should be ok depending on yeast and temperature, but i would put the whole thing in a bigger catch tub anyway. I use a cut 1/3 of a plastic barrel, a friend of mine uses a grout mixing tub that holds two buckets or car boys.
You could pull off a gallon and ferment that in another container so when you rack you still have 6 gallons after leaving lees behind.
That is an interesting jug should work well for dragons blood. But with a heavier fruit load i would start in a bucket.View attachment 50384
This one is in a water bath with a wet canvas over it to keep it cool.

Thanks. Would you just put 1/6 of the yeast in the other primary?

 

[meadmaker1]

I would pour it all together stir it up then split it

 

[dangerdave]

Following the steps in the OP recipe, you should have only had four gallons of liquid in the fermented before you added the fruit. Lemon juice and then “water to four gallons”. I made the same mistake as you early on. If you have six gallons in a seven gallon bucket then try to add your fruit, it will be nearly over the top. Makes a mess fermenting. Siphon some off to make room, or as has been said, dump it all in a bigger container.

 

[Bleedaggie]

Following the steps in the OP recipe, you should have only had four gallons of liquid in the fermented before you added the fruit. Lemon juice and then “water to four gallons”. I made the same mistake as you early on. If you have six gallons in a seven gallon bucket then try to add your fruit, it will be nearly over the top. Makes a mess fermenting. Siphon some off to make room, or as has been said, dump it all in a bigger container.

Thanks Dave. The recipe on page one has “bring water up to 6 gallons” before “add fruit.” No problem though. I should have used my brain instead of being a rule follower. Story of my life. Still going to be great. Thanks for the tip.

 

[dangerdave]

You are right! I believe that was corrected in a later version of the recipe. “Top up to six gallon mark” should be the last bullet in the first step. Unfortunately, the website won’t let us change old posts.

 

[M38A1]

Update on my first batch...

It's going swimmingly well I think!

I had to split the base stock into two primaries at about 3.5gal each with the fruit added since my 6.9 primary was not going to hold it all. That afforded me the opportunity to go straight fresh blueberry in one and the frozen mixed triple berry in the other. I learned along the way when using fresh fruit to use the Campden for 24hrs to prevent the fuzzies, and it's not needed for frozen fruit wines. BTW - the fuzzies are gone now. At day three or four now, things are still percolating along and SG's are about 1.2ish on both batches. It's a BEAUTIFUL color, smells wonderful and I can't wait!

Regarding the CO2 and releasing it..... I'm stirring it vigorously with a large spoon for about a minute. Is that sufficient or does it take more than that to release it properly? I can still see tiny tiny bubbles on the surface popping like gas being released. Is that the CO2? It's different than the 'rolling' action of the yeast rise and fall. Let me know on the big spoon/time to stir please. I also have a plastic rod with weed whacker line on it (bought at the wine making store) for my cordless if that's a better option.

Thanks!

 

[dangerdave]

The weed wacker tool is indeed the better option. The fizzing will continue until it’s dry. Wack it daily as the recipe instructs. Glad to hear it’s gojng well!

 

[loopline]

Update on my first batch...

It's going swimmingly well I think!

I had to split the base stock into two primaries at about 3.5gal each with the fruit added since my 6.9 primary was not going to hold it all. That afforded me the opportunity to go straight fresh blueberry in one and the frozen mixed triple berry in the other. I learned along the way when using fresh fruit to use the Campden for 24hrs to prevent the fuzzies, and it's not needed for frozen fruit wines. BTW - the fuzzies are gone now. At day three or four now, things are still percolating along and SG's are about 1.2ish on both batches. It's a BEAUTIFUL color, smells wonderful and I can't wait!

Regarding the CO2 and releasing it..... I'm stirring it vigorously with a large spoon for about a minute. Is that sufficient or does it take more than that to release it properly? I can still see tiny tiny bubbles on the surface popping like gas being released. Is that the CO2? It's different than the 'rolling' action of the yeast rise and fall. Let me know on the big spoon/time to stir please. I also have a plastic rod with weed whacker line on it (bought at the wine making store) for my cordless if that's a better option.

Thanks!

As noted, the weed whacker is better, but if your going to manually stir it a whisk, ideally a bakers whisk is best. It has a lot of tines and you can not only stir it but you can try spinning the bakers whisk back and forth. This has a unique effect because its got so many tines that it agitates the a lot.

The disadvantage of the weed whacker is that your not a really just agitating the liquid, your spinning all the liquid which can significantly lessen the effect because all the liquid is just moving with the "weed whacker string". It would be perfect if a drill were to spin one way then the reverse every second but thats of course not practical.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

~~~~~

On a different note, has anyone tried weighting the bag of fruit?

What I mean is take like a glass weight and put it in the bag of fruit so that its always 100% submerged under the water. I was thinking perhaps better exposure and the fruit not hitting the air also being good.

Not sure how heavy of a weight would be required Id have to test. Even a bunch of glass beads might work as they provide easy scale up when testing.

Thoughts?


Also think this would work in a 6.5 gallon wide mouthed car boy, used as a fermenter?

 

[meadmaker1]

The first few days to a week seem to me to be the most critical days in the process.
Punching the cap gives me the chance to monitor what is going on. I like to stagger feed yeast neutreants, so i measure sg , mix the fruit , look smell taste, ect.
A weight is one more thing to clean
I dont tie my fruit bags I drape them over the sides of the bucket and tie them off, so i can stir the business out of the fruit.
Then lift it out when i think its time.

 

[Venatorscribe]

As noted, the weed whacker is better, but if your going to manually stir it a whisk, ideally a bakers whisk is best. It has a lot of tines and you can not only stir it but you can try spinning the bakers whisk back and forth. This has a unique effect because its got so many tines that it agitates the a lot.

The disadvantage of the weed whacker is that your not a really just agitating the liquid, your spinning all the liquid which can significantly lessen the effect because all the liquid is just moving with the "weed whacker string". It would be perfect if a drill were to spin one way then the reverse every second but thats of course not practical.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

~~~~~

On a different note, has anyone tried weighting the bag of fruit?

What I mean is take like a glass weight and put it in the bag of fruit so that its always 100% submerged under the water. I was thinking perhaps better exposure and the fruit not hitting the air also being good.

Not sure how heavy of a weight would be required Id have to test. Even a bunch of glass beads might work as they provide easy scale up when testing.

Thoughts?


Also think this would work in a 6.5 gallon wide mouthed car boy, used as a fermenter?

Yes I weigh down my fruit bags. I normally use glass beads. But with larger bags and quantities I use a heavy glass paper weight. Giving it a spray with star san prior. I tie off my nylon bag with nylon gut.