2017 Wines - Chapter 1 - Blackberry

We didn't have to travel as often this year to get the fruit we needed, as the elderberry and blackberry yields continue to improve at home. Therefore this year's blackberry was an all-juice, no water affair using mostly home-grown blackberries. The ingredients:

• 51# blackberries
• 2.5# elderberries (for color and tannin)
• 0.5g Lallzyme EX
• 5g OptiRed
• 5g Booster Rouge
• 2t tannin
• 1 cup heavy toast American oak chips
• 2700g sugar 
• 6t calcium carbonate 

The sugar adjusted the SG to 1.090. The calcium carbonate adjusted the pH to 3.40. 71B was the yeast, step fed with Fermaid K, total of 1.5tsp. 

I let this wine go until the cap dropped, then pressed off 5 gallons. 

Once in the carboy, I dosed with KMS. There was a fair amount of sediment and airspace after the first day. Given how quiet the wine was and that we were leaving town, I racked it down to 4.5 gallons in separate containers. We made several tweaks to the technique, including tannin and oak chips in the primary, elderberry in the primary, and letting it ferment to dry before pressing. It will be interesting to see the result.