Ok, thanks Dave. Well due to a minor mistake on my part (adding water to 6.5 gallons BEFORE sugar), I now have 2 very large batches (7-8 gallons each). Below are the resulting recipes I have started.
Tinkleberry Tea
80 oz 100% lemon juice (e.g ReaLemon in the green plastic bottles or equivalent)
13 lbs sugar - to a starting SG of at least 1.080
1 tsp tannin
4 tsp. yeast nutrient
2 tsp. yeast energizer
3 tsp. pectic enzyme
8 lbs of fruit - I used 8 x 1lb bags of frozen Great Value blueberry/blackberry/raspberry/strawberry (berry medley)
5.5 gallons of water
1 packet Red Star Red Montrachet Yeast
1.080 - Starting SG
Tinkleberry Tropical
80 oz bottle 100% lemon juice (e.g ReaLemon in the green plastic bottles or equivalent)
13 lbs sugar - to a starting SG of at least 1.080
1 tsp tannin
4 tsp. yeast nutrient
2 tsp. yeast energizer
3 tsp. pectic enzyme
8 lbs of fruit - I used 2 x 4lb bags of frozen Great Value strawberry/peach/mango/pineapple (mixed fruit)
5.5 gallons of water
1 packet Red Star Red Montrachet Yeast
1.080 - Starting SG
To both primaries on Wed 8/8, I added lemon juice, 9 lbs of sugar, tannin, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, pectic enzyme, all fruit in a fruit bag, and 5.5 gallons of water. I stirred the must very well to make sure all of the sugar was disolved then squeezed the bag of fruit repeatedly to get fruit juice out. I let this stand, loosely covered, for about a day.
8/9 - I squeezed the berries, measured the SG, then added sugar till I got an SG of 1.080 (ended up taking 13 lbs). After that I just pitched the yeast directly onto the must and set the lid on top.
One thing to note about these 2 batches. Since I messed up a bit on the water quantity initially, I upped the fruit and sugar but kept the lemon juice the same. The result is basically 30% more wine using the standard Dragon's Blood recipe but 30% less lemon juice that what would be called for (if you used the full 96oz of the original recipe). Since Dave normally uses half the lemon juice and my original Tinkleberry Tea is a bit tart, this should come out just fine. I also did not use bentonite in either of these batches per Dave's comparative study.
These batches will give me an opportunity to compare my full lemon juice version to a reduced amount side by side as well as the difference in using the tropical fruit mix versus the mixed berry.
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