How many days before I remove blackberries from primary?

[Northerngal]

How many days should I wait to remove blackberries from primary? They are frozen/thawed but not macerated. Should it be no more than four days, similar to raspberries, to avoid bitterness from the seeds?

Thanks!

 

[WaterWolf]

You want to leave them in there long enough for the yeast to break them down and extract flavours from the skin. Four days is probably just about long enough if you have a strong fermentation. Do you plan on pressing the berries through a bag to get the juice out?

I'm not sure how long it takes for bad flavours to come out of the seeds, or if you need to worry about it. Does anyone know?

 

[Turock]

We leave the berries in thru the whole ferment so that they all break down and are incorporated into the wine. It gives better flavor. The seed thing has mostly to do with not allowing them to get into the secondary so that you're not aging on them.

Did you use pectic enzyme on them? Did you bag them? I always like to bag this kind of fruit. Makes it easier to deal with the seeds.

 

[Tenbears]

I leave them in throughout the fermentation, as turock said. Well at least until the SG hits 1.010, You will find when removed at that time there will not be much more than seeds left. Blackberry seeds are much larger than raspberry so the concern over missing some into the secondary are less. But again I agree with turock, the bitterness associated with the seeds comes from term post fermentation exposure.

 

[Northerngal]

Great! Thank you all. Yes I used pectinase and the fruit is in a grain bag, allllll squished up.

Jenn