Need help !

[yul]

I'm making 23l (5 gallons) blackberry wine with 22lb of blackberries. I was expecting to need 11lb sugar and 20l water, however I have so far used 3bags sugar, 4.5l water and 5l red grape juice and am on 23l on my bucket. Should I carry on putting in the remaining sugar and water?

[lockwood1956]

no

What is the sg?

Start with a gravity of 1.080

[yul]

so got 22lb of blackberries (floating freely), 3 bags sugar, 9.5l liquid and its showing 23l on my bucket and a gravity of 1.100.

[Hippie]

Take out 3 liters must, replace it with good water to lower the SG (shoot for 1.080-1.085), use the reserved must to add to the finished and stabilized wine. You might need to add another liter of water to get the SG down where it needs to be. Don't forget to recheck acid and/or pH.

[Zebedee]

22lb of blackberries will make a lot of pulp, so when you rack to secondary, you will have well under 5 gallons.

I'm not an expert,but if I wanted 5 gallons finished wine, I would start it with around 6 gallons of must (providing there was head space in the bucket)

[yul]

Yes thats what I thought zebedee.My thoughts were it would need around 20 lt of liquid plus the sugar and the juice of the blackberry to get it around 23lt final volume or am I missing something.

[yul]

Well I got 25lt showing on my bucket with blackberries in and an og of 1080.When I take the berries out after 4 days of pulp fermentation i'll top it up with a sugar solution.

[Hippie]

If you top up with sugar solution, you are basically 'feeding' the yeast which are making more alcohol. You will not need to top up until fermentation is almost over and you have it in a glass demijon or carboy, off the gross lees.

[yul]

What I'm trying to say is when I take my blackberries out, the volume of contents in my bucket is going to drop quite a lot below 23 Lt which is what I am aiming for.So if it drops say 3Lt below or more than the 23Lt I want,wouldn't adding that much water dilute the og quite a bit as I'm only starting at 1080. I thought if I make a sugar solution of whatever it may need be it 4 litres say and make it an og of 1080 and add it to the contents that would keep it in line giving me 23Lt at an og of 1080 wouldn't it or am I talking through my rectum.

[fatbloke]

If it was me, as the gravity was at 1.100 buy the time you've removed the pulp and strained/pressed it, then any water you'd need to add to bring it back up to the original liquid level i.e. 23 litres of so, should reduce the gravity overall i.e. including what's already been converted to alcohol.

Yes, as has already been pointed out, there's the issue of "feeding", but once the pulp is out, then take another reading. If you decide to just use water to top it up, then take readings before and after, then you should be able to work out the % ABV, the same would apply if you used sugar/sugar syrup.

According to Bob's gravity to alcohol % chart, the difference between 1080 and 1100 is only about 1/3 of 1 % alcohol.

So it's really up to you to decide how you want to proceed. It's worth remembering that if you feed it too much, the increase in alcohol in the end product might make it taste "alcohol hot" and while you can usually age that out of the wine, it can take a while.

In your shoes, I think I'd be removing the pulp and seeing how much extra liquid would need adding to bring it back up to the original quantity. Then decide from there (I'm also thinking of a 1/2 normal strength sugar syrup - so I'd not be feeding it too much but still topping off the levels to replace the missing pulp).

Your choice.......

regrds

JtFB

[lockwood1956]

According to Bob's gravity to alcohol % chart, the difference between 1080 and 1100 is only about 1/3 of 1 % alcohol.

er....

Not quite John...

1.080 fermented down to 0.990 (an S.G drop of 90) is 12.2% alc

1.100 fermented to 0.990 (an S.G. drop of 110)gives 14.99% alc a difference of almost 3%

If it were me, I would likely make up the must (without the fruit in place) to a volume of 23 litres, and an S.G. of around 1.070 then add the fruit pulp (the sugar in the fruit will likely lift the S.G. to around 1.080...and then ferment on from there.

However you will need a much larger than 23 litre fermenter (likely 40 litre min)

regards
Bob

[yul]

Well last night I removed the blackberry's from the must and strained the must to a clean 5 gallon (UK) better bottle and ended up with 21 Lt, more than I anticipated. I went down the route of making a sugar syrup as per fatbloke suggestion to top up to 23 Lt. Which way do you calculate the alcohol content by doing this.

21 Lt 1080 fermented to 1020 added 2 Lt of sugar syrup at 1040.

Thanks for your help.

[lockwood1956]

if you started at 1.080 and dropped to 1.020 you have had a 60 frop in SG so far.

you now need to measure the SG of the wine with the sugar syrup added, and then take that figure, and take away the figure the wine finishes at and add that figure to the original 60 drop, this gives you the total drop in SG you then divide that number by 7.36 and that will give you an approximation of the alc content (it isnt totally accurate, but near enough for our purposes)

[lockwood1956]

For example....

if after adding the sugar syrup your must goes up to SG 1.040, and it ferments to 0.990 you have had a further drop in SG of 50 points, add that to the original 60 drop, this gives you a drop of 110 in total, divided by 7.36 gives you 14.94% alc by volume (approx)

hope this helps

[yul]

Oh thats high aint it,will that affect the blackberry flavour? that'll be a hot wine then. If after it ferments out could I dilute it with say a litre of water to get the alcohol down and make it less hot and will it then let the blackberry flavour come through more, or will the blackberry flavour be there anyway.