Bill,
For some reason I didn't catch your response below, but caught it when
Frederick responded to you. Frederick has some good points as well. From
some of the reading I've done about blackberry wine, it does need to age at
least a year, and may get better as it ages longer. I thought that in order
to get a wine to keep the best over a long period, one needs to get the
alcohol level to about 11%. I don't know if this is a concern for you or
not. There's a winery up north which makes country wines, and they usually
have 11% alcohol by volume.
Darlene
Wisconsin

"frederick ploegman" wrote in message
...
Hi Bill

Another opinion. All of your first instincts were the right ones. If you
do
not want to use a fixed recipe, you need to design your own ferment and
"create" your own must. I would dilute to get control of the acid and
add sugar to get the desired amount of end alcohol.

Since you want a sweet wine, remember that we measure everything as
"concentrations" and adding post ferment sugar will dilute the wine and
cause changes in the concentration of everything else. Thus, you will
want to start the must with slightly higher values than you want to end
up with. I would suggest starting the must at ~3.3-3.4pH and
~21-22 BRIX.

MLF is your enemy on this one. Do_not_ allow it to happen !! HTH

Frederick

PS - If you like the wine from that winery, why not get a bottle of their
wine, bring it home, run every test and measurement that you can, and
shoot for the same numbers they ended up with. IOW - use_their_
success as_your_ guide.



"William Frazier" wrote in message
...
Tom, Dar and Paul - Tom...I couldn't get a brix on the syrup...just too
thick. I did several dilutions and the pH was 3.09 to 3.11 regardless of
concentration. I will have about 4 to 5 gallons of wine so not enough
for a barrel but I may use some French cubes. Dar...I bought the syrup
from a local winery. They make mostly hybrid wines but they do make a
terrific raspberry and blackberry. Both are finished with some white
wine and are sweetened to taste...I would guess 3 to 5% rs. Since the
acid is so high I will do the same. I'm worried about a spontaneous ML
fermentation in my cellar. This always happens. I have been able to
stop these unwanted ML fermentations with Lysozyme. I guess I could let
a ML start and keep an eye on %TA, then stop it at some point. I've
never made a high acid, blackberry before so I was mainly curious if
anyone would suggest diluting the juice until the acid was lower, then
add sugar to bring the brix back up. Really didn't want to do that
because the juice diluted to brix 18 tastes really good. Dar...I think
this will make 10% alcohol if it ferments to dryness. But, I'm using DSM
Fermiblanc yeast which is similar to Epernay 2 so it may pull up a bit
short. Time will tell.

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas USA

"Tom S" wrote in message
m...

"William Frazier" wrote in message
...
I have some highly concentrated blackberry juice that I will make into
wine. I diluted some juice with water to brix 18. The pH was 3.05 and
TA was 1.90%. The blackberry flavor was wonderful, albeit tart. I make
mostly grape wines and a TA this high would result in an undrinkable
wine. I hesitate to add K bicarbonate to lower the acid because I
believe blackberries contain mostly malic acid. For those that make
blackberry wine how would you proceed? Thanks.

Hi, Bill -

I don't make blackberry wine, but if the dominant acid is malic it
sounds like a natural for acid reduction via ML.

Just curious: what was the pH and Brix of the undiluted stuff? Would
it be appropriate for a barrel fermentation? I'd like to see French oak
on blackberry. I'll bet it'd be really nice!

Tom S