Blackberry wine ??

[Stanna]

Hi, can anyone point me in the right direction with my first blackberry wine, I have followed a 1 gallon recipe x 5 so it says for 23 litres 8.75 kg of blackberries, 7.5 kg of sugar, 22.5 litres of water, i have sived all the fruit out of the wine on only added 6kg of sugar and 11.5 litres of water but the volume is already up to 20 litres, so by the time I add the other 11 litres of water and 1.5 kg of sugar the total volume will be in the region of 32 litres, I have checked other recipes online and there virtually the same amounts, why have I got so much more volume ???.

[Stanna]

I should also add that I boiled the fruit first because I just couldn't bring myself to fermenting unsanitised fruit, did this perhaps release more juice from the fruit.

[WalesAles]

Stanna,
What is the SG on 20Lts?
I don`t know why your volumes are out so much.
Someone on here will enlighten us with their superior knowledge of Wine Brewing.

WA

[Stanna]

The sg was 1.100, the fermenter was almost full at 24 litres with all the fruit in it, I left it fermenting for 5 days before filtering out the fruit, I would have left it till it was fermented dry to filter the fruit out but the cap of fruit was wanting to push the fermenter lid off.
Anyway yesterday I added another 8 litres of water and 2 kg of sugar sg 1.085 and put it in a 60 litre fermenting vessel, had a quick taste although obviously sweet the blackberry taste was great, so I have about 30 litres of wine instead of 23 litres, not to bad of an outcome really, should turn out around 14.4% if my calculations are right.

[WalesAles]

Stanna,
How did you calculate 14.4%?
At 1.100 I get FG of 13.7%
At 1.085 I get FG of 11.6%
One of us ( or both ) is wrong in our calcs!
We will find out soon enough.

WA

[Jambo]

Usually such wine recipes will tell you to add water to make the total volume up to x L, rather than to add x L.

[steviebobs83]

Stanna,
How did you calculate 14.4%?
At 1.100 I get FG of 13.7%
At 1.085 I get FG of 11.6%
One of us ( or both ) is wrong in our calcs!
We will find out soon enough.

WA

Hey Wales, I think he's added a solution of 8 litres @ 1.085 to the fermenting wine which started at 1.100, therefore boosting the alcohol slightly.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[thepatchworkdoll]

Hi WalesAles
I concur with your figures 1.085 fermented out to 0.995 will be 11.6%
1.085 - 0.995 = 0.090 x 129 = 11.6%
Regards
Patch

[WalesAles]

Hi WalesAles
I concur with your figures 1.085 fermented out to 0.995 will be 11.6%
1.085 - 0.995 = 0.090 x 129 = 11.6%
Regards
Patch

Patch,
I was looking at FG1000,
85 / 7.3 gives 11.6%
Old School, but what the Hell!

WA

[steviebobs83]

Yeah but isn't that 8 litres which has the potential of 11.6% still added to a 20 litre solution that already had the potential of 13.7%. It's like astrophysics trying to work it out but I'm pretty confident it would be around the 14% mark.... then again, does it water it down? I'm now starting to doubt myself.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Stanna]

I used a distilling Web site calculator to calculate the sugar to water potential alcohol percentage, but that doesn't include the sugar in the fruit to start with.

[Mjr6313]

Stanna,
What is the SG on 20Lts?
I don`t know why your volumes are out so much.
Someone on here will enlighten us with their superior knowledge of Wine Brewing.

WA

Wine recipies are generally written for final volumes so you always make more than is needed for 3 reasons. 2 and 3 are kind of the same
1st when you remove the fruit (not usually cooked first but it could work) the levels drop.
2nd some is left over during 1st racking which you put into a seperate bottle with a stopper to add during second racking to maintain levels.also you can test for hydromiter readings without contaminating your larger batch.
3rd after racking off the Lee's the 1st time there can be a lot of sediment left leaving too much of an air gap that could risk wine spoilage.
I hope this helps