First batch · 19.0 litres · Country red
Blackberry wine
The best of the hedgerow wines, and the one that most convincingly has the shape of a red. Grape concentrate is what gives it a spine rather than being merely fruity.
Starting sugar
20.9 Brix
4.32 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.087
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.995
dry
Alcohol
12.1%
Brix alone predicts 11.5 to 12.5%
Residual sugar
0 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
6 months
best around 3 years
Made to Country red, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Four days on the pulp and no more. Blackberry seeds give up a hard, drying tannin after that, and a wine that has sat on them for a fortnight is astringent in a way that no amount of ageing fixes.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackberries Freeze and thaw them first. It splits the cells and gets far more colour out in four days than fresh fruit gives in a week. | 5.00 kg | 0.50 kg | 2.75 L | 12% |
| White sugar | 2.80 kg | 2.80 kg | 1.76 L | 65% |
| Red grape concentrate The difference between a fruit wine and something with structure. Tannin, body and a vinous background that blackberries alone do not have. | 1.50 kg | 1.02 kg | 1.16 L | 24% |
| Pectic enzyme | 8 g | - | - | 0% |
| Yeast nutrient | 12 g | - | - | 0% |
| Water, to volume | - | - | 13.30 L | - |
The ingredients contribute 5.7 litres and the water makes up the rest to 19 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
7.5 g/L
at pH 3.30
No malolactic
7.5 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
21 g
to reach 6.5 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
0.6 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 18 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.35
The batch
- Must volume
- 19 L
- Ferment at
- 18-22 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.5 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- 71B for fruitto 14%, low N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Freeze the fruit, thaw it into a sanitised bucket, and crush it by hand.
- 02Add the sugar and concentrate, top up to volume with cool water, and stir until the sugar has dissolved completely.
- 03Add pectic enzyme and leave twelve hours before pitching.
- 04Pitch 71B, which metabolises some of the malic acid and takes the edge off a wine that would otherwise be sharp.
- 05Ferment on the pulp at 18 to 22C for four days, pressing gently at the end.
- 06Finish in a carboy, rack at dryness, sulphite, and bulk age six months.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.