Dragon Blood: Triple Berry Skeeter Pee

[Pumpkinman]

By Champagne, do you mean dry, instead of a sweet sparkling wine? Good question, I'm fairly certain that if you didn't stabilize with sorbate, and cleared the wine, then back sweetened and put it in champagne bottles, it would start a second fermentation in the bottle, just like regular sparkling wine, or beer for that matter.
It might be worth trying a bottle or two like that.

 

[jrvernon]

Pumpkin,

Yes, sparkling sweet wine. Like a commercial moscato. I was actually trying to avoid champagne bottles, corks and cages.

 

[Pumpkinman]

If you are going to create a sparkling type wine, there is pressure involved, you will need to use Champagne bottles to avoid exploding caps, corks or bottles.
maybe someone else can suggest a different way which doesn't require champagne bottles.

 

[Geronimo]

All I know is that people make/bottle beer all the time with moderate carbonation. Controlling carbonation isn't hard. I'm not sure why you would risk using ordinary bottles when you will still need Champagne corks and baskets.

IMO, from the one and only experience I had with it, I would never do it again. Champagne corks were the biggest PITA to work with. Clearly I didn't know what I was doing (or something) but I had a top quality floor corker made for Champagne corks and it was very hard to get them into the bottles.

 

[Pumpkinman]

use the plastic stoppers, you dont even need a corker, just push them in and put the wire cage on, almost too simple.

 

[jrupjr]

Has anyone run their fruit blend through a Juicing machine first to break it down more? Seems like it might give a strong juice taste at the end.

 

[dangerdave]

I don't have a juicer. The wine comes out with a great berry flavor with all that squeezing. Give it a try!

 

[cohenhouse77]

When I remove my straining bag out of primary, there is nothing left but seeds and skins. I cannot imagine achieving more juice than that. Also, when juicing, you run the risk of chopping open the bitterness inside seeds. I just let the pectic enzyme do it's thing.

 

[lonesomechicken]

I got everything I need going to start it Monday.

 

[Tripplett]

I read some posts where users used blenders and all it did was make it harder to clear later.

 

[rezod11]

My Dragon's Blood label. You can tell I have kiddos.

Cohen, I friggin' love this label! I may have to steal parts of it for my first DB, currently fermenting

Haven't been able to check it for two days as I have been on the couch with my back out. Feels like an excellent reason to buy the all-in-one...heh heh heh.

 

[dangerdave]

When I remove my straining bag out of primary, there is nothing left but seeds and skins. I cannot imagine achieving more juice than that. Also, when juicing, you run the risk of chopping open the bitterness inside seeds. I just let the pectic enzyme do it's thing.

Chris is quite right. If you are giving that bag a good squeeze ever day (the Presser Method), there's not much left at the end to discard.

 

[mikeslag]

So I finally got to sam's club and got all my ingredients and am super excited to try this. I had a couple questions though since I'm still new to all this:

1. When you say every day to squeeze the juice out of the bag, how hard am I squeezing? Like just enough to bruise the fruit or enough to crush it or what?

2. So what's the consensus on the reallemon, one bottle or two or is it just a taste thing?

Thanks guys!

 

[Pumpkinman]

1 bottle! Unless you are making a Melomel, then no Lemon.

 

[dangerdave]

1 bottle! Unless you are making a Melomel, then no Lemon.

Ah, now there's the difference. I made my Red Dragon Melomel exactly like the Dragon Blood except for the honey replacing the sugar in the primary. I used just as much lemon juice as well. You have to try it.

I'm sending you a bottle tomorrow!

 

[cohenhouse77]

I substituted 2 cans of Pineapple Juice for the Lemon Juice, I used a mix of sugar and honey since I was just about out of honey.
Here is my variation based on Dave's recipe:

Tropical Daze

Ingredients

• 1 bottles (48 oz each) 100% Lemon Juice (Rea Lemon in the green bottle)
• Water to about six gallons
• 20 cups of white granulated sugar (looking for a SG btw 1.085-1.090)
• 8 cups Honey use to bring SG up to desired amount
• 2 – 48 oz Cans Dole Pineapple Juice
• 1 tsp. tannin
• 4 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 2 tsp. yeast energizer
• 3 Tsp Acid Blend
• 3 tsp. pectin enzyme
• 12 lbs. of Mixed Fruit Blend (Pineapple/ Peach/Mango/Strawberry/Grape) I put the fruit in a nylon drawstring bag or two if necessary, this will make for a much cleaner brew. I take a spring clamp and hold the drawstring in place so I don’t have to fish for them later.
• Yeast, 1 gram of yeast per gallon of Must. Lalvin 71B-1122 & ICV D47 blend,( you can use any of the following as well. DV10, QA23 - (Saccharomyces cerevisiae bayanus
• Go Ferm – 1.25 Gram per each gram of yeast used
• ½ -1 Oak Infusion spiral stick
• 2 oz untoasted oak.
• 20 oz. Raisins, chopped & re-hydrated
• Add 1/4 tsp. Potassium Metabisulfite
• Add 3 tsp. Potassium Sorbate
• Sparkolloid
• Sugar or honey for Back sweetening - 4 cups

Preparation: Add to Fermenting bucket

• 20 Cups of Sugar
• 2 gallons of hot water, stir until completely dissolved
• Add Honey, take SG reading, add until you reach 1.090
• 2 - 48oz Cans of Dole Pineapple Juice
• 3 Tbl acid blend
• 1 tsp. tannin ( I prefer Tannin riche, it imparts a nice sweetness to wine)
• 4 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 2 tsp. yeast energizer
• 3 tsp. pectin enzyme
• Stir well to incorporate all of the dry ingredients.
• 12 lbs of Mixed Fruit Blend (Pineapple/ Peach/Mango/Strawberry/Grape), thawed. I put the fruit in a nylon drawstring bag or two if necessary; this will make for a much cleaner brew. I take a spring clamp and hold the drawstring in place so I don’t have to fish for them later.
• ½ - 1 Oak Infusion Stick
• 2 oz untoasted Oak – helps reduce any vegetal flavors – I add in nylon drawstring bag or grain steeping bag.
• 20 oz chopped and re-hydrated raisins placed in Nylon drawstring bag
• Add the remaining water up to the 6 -6.5 gallon mark, taking into consideration the volume of the mesh bags.
• Take an SG reading, you want the must to be between 1.075 – 1.090

I let this sit overnight, with a heat mat wrapped around the fermenter, a brew belt would do too, just until it reaches 85°.

This yeast can handle 80-85° with no problems.

The following Day:

I take my selected yeast, 1 gram per gallon of must and rehydrate as follows:
I heat a half cup of water to 120° and add 7.5 grams of Goferm (1.25 g per gram of yeast used), add to the water and mix it in. When the water cools to 110-115° add the yeast, just sprinkle on top and let it rehydrate, let sit for 15 minutes or until you see it starting to foam (reproduce), then add ¼ cup of the must. This will give it a source of food to continue to reproduce and multiply, and it will get the yeast acclimated to the temp of the must.
Let sit for 5 mins and add to the primary.

Stir Primary Vigorously!

Every Day:

Check temp
Check specific gravity
Squeeze juices from fruit pack into fermenter---remove fruit pack: Temporarily place in sanitized bowl bucket.
Stir primary to introduce a little oxygen into must, the yeast will need it.
Replace fruit pack
Cover primary
When specific gravity (SG) reaches <1.000, do the following:
Squeeze juices from fruit pack into fermenter---remove fruit pack: Discard fruit.
Rack to cleaned and sanitized six gallon carboy
Add 1/4 tsp. Potassium Metabisulfite (stir)
Add 3 tsp. Potassium Sorbate (stir)
Degas very thoroughly: I cannot emphasize this enough!
Add Sparkolloid* as per package. Add hot mixture to carboy.
Allow to clear undisturbed for about 1 week

When wine is clear:

Carefully rack off of lees into cleaned & sanitized six gallon carboy

Back sweeten, if you are going to use sugar, I would make a simple syrup, 2 cups sugar to 1 cup water, heated just shy of a boil, you will see it turn to a syrup, make sure you stir constantly, you will probably need double that amount.
Back sweeten to your own taste

Remember! The sugars will blend with the fruit flavors over time, and the sweetness will come forward.
Do not over-sweeten!
Allow wine to clear free of all sediment: This may or may not require more racking over the next few weeks.

Pumpkinman, may I encourage you to start another thread for the Tropical version? This could take on a whole life of it's own. By the smells and tastes, it may become my new favorite, and I am so glad I decided to go with the 6 gallons. I made some variations to yours, but do not want to hijack this thread with too much non-Dragon's Blood info. I also do not want to take any credit for your variation. New thread! New thread!

 

[dangerdave]

I agree, Tom. That is an awesome recipe!

You should start a new thread!

 

[Pumpkinman]

Thanks, will do right now!

 

[ejr]

giving this a try ,ive backsweetened with koolaide which is good ,also backsweetened with raspberry and blueberry concentrate which was awesome,still up in the water about adding all the lemon juice and decreasing the yeast energizer and the yeast nutrient does it not get the rotten egg smell? Well to late now but I did biol all my water and dissolve the sugar in it that a habit.Do you place the lid on the primary bucket or do you just have a towel over it the whole time?Thanks for the information.

 

[Dend78]

giving this a try ,ive backsweetened with koolaide which is good ,also backsweetened with raspberry and blueberry concentrate which was awesome,still up in the water about adding all the lemon juice and decreasing the yeast energizer and the yeast nutrient does it not get the rotten egg smell? Well to late now but I did biol all my water and dissolve the sugar in it that a habit.Do you place the lid on the primary bucket or do you just have a towel over it the whole time?Thanks for the information.

one thing of lemon should be plenty

energizer and nutrient if not used falls out or is used by other bacteria and organisims

i put the lid on it just to cover it, it has an airlock hole which i place a towel over to allow it to breathe but keeps everything else out.

if you like honey try using honey to back sweeten

as for the sulfer/ rotten egg smell i believe thats from SO2 you can try copper if your wine has a smell