English Barleywine VI

Last year I brewed an English Barleywine based on the Original Eldridge Pope Hardy Ale English Barley Wine from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog.  You can read my post here.  The beer turned out nicely and I'm not sure I can really improve on it but I've decided to give it another shot this year.

The beer fermented at an unusually high temperature (mid 70s) to get a lot of ester character from the yeast.  The recipe called for WLP 099 Super High Gravity yeast which is supposed to be Eldridge Pope's original strain.  I wasn't able to get this in time for last year's brew so I went with the alternative suggestion of Nottingham.  I was frustrated by not having the original yeast so this year I planned ahead and got the real thing.  I've brewed a batch of small beer on the yeast to act as a starter for this batch so I'll hopefully have a bit healthy cake to chew through this 1.1 SG wort.

The beer is aggressively hopped to 84 IBU per recipe.  This was accomplished with low AA English Hops.  Last year I used mostly (5.5 oz) EKG at 6.1% AA along with a bit of Fuggle (2 oz) at 4.5% AA to accomplish the task.  This year I've gone with a bit more (8.5 oz) of Fuggle only for the bittering.  I was hoping to get whole leaf hops for this (not sure why) but they were all sold out so I've gone with pellet.  Makes for a lot of plant matter in the beer using low AA acid hops, which will waste some wort, but I like the bittering character of Fuggles.

Finally, last year I tried to cram 6 gal of this beer into a 6.5 gal bucket and got a ton of blow out (almost had the lid pop off due to a blocked blow off tube actually).  Made a mess and lost me a lot of beer.  This time I'll ferment in two buckets and then combine for aging.

This is my sixth English Barleywine brewed on Memorial Day.  These beers require patience to make but I really enjoy the process.  Hope to do many more.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 16 lb Maris Otter
• 7 lb 2 Row
• 4.5 lb Flaked Wheat
• 1.5 lb Crystal 60 L
• 6 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 6 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 120 min
• 2.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 099 Super High Gravity (Eldridge Pope/Hardy’s yeast) - Second Pitch
• Water:
• 20 gal spring water
• 2 oz CaCl
• 2 oz Gypsum
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 15 min
• Extras:
• 1 oz Cabernet soaked Toasted Oak

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 153 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 3 hrs
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 70+ F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 4-5 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.120  (Target 1.100)
• Efficiency:
• 6.7% (Target 62%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.030)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 91% (Target 71%)
• ABV:
• 16.25% (Target 11.87%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/27/19 - Brewday - 9:45 AM to 4:45 PM Including setup and cleanup
• Brought 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Milled half the grain.  Mixed the CaCl and Gypsum in with this

• Moved 6 gal into the mash tun.  Cycled the RIMS at 163 F.  Had about 1 gal in the Grant and RIMS during this.
• Added the grain to the mash tun.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs 

• Set the RIMS to cycle at 153 F.  Temperature settled out to about 151 F - ramped up to target within 10 min.  Mashed for 6 min
• Heated 9.5 gal of sparge/strike water to 185 F
• Sparged the mash until I'd collected about 7 gal of wort.  Left about a gal of final runnings in the grant
• Brought the wort to a boil.  Boiled for 60 min
• Cleaned out the mash tun and then added 5 more gal of water.  Cycled this through the RIMs (along with the previous mash's final runnings) until the system was at 163 F.  This took an extra 30 min of cycling the RIMS to get there
• Milled the second half of the grain (added the second half of brewing salts to this).  Added to the mash tun and stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  Temperature settled to 154 F.
• Heated another 5 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Mashed for 60 min.  Cycled the RIMS the entire time at 153 F
• Boiled down to about 4 gal by the end of the mash
• Sparged the second mash until I had about 11 gal of wort
• Continued heating through the mash and had it at a low boil most of the time
• Boiled for 120 min
• Added the bittering hops once the hot break cleared
• Transferred my Historic Pale Ale (AK) off the yeast cake to a new fermenter
• Added the flavoring hops with 30 min left
• Put in Irish Moss with 15 min left
• Put in the chiller to sanitize with 5 min left
• Chilled to 75 F
• Split the yeast between two fermenters

• Drained the wort into the fermenters.  Let it drop a couple feet to aerate
• Collected about 6 gal.  There was maybe a half gal of wort mixed with the hops and hot break.  I decided to pour this into the fermenters

• I added 1 additional vial of yeast to the fermenters during the transfer
• Measured the gravity as 1.120
• Moved to the chest freezer set to 77 F
• 5/28/19 - Lots of airlock activity the next day
• 6/28/19 - Combined the two halves into one fermenter for a bit more aging on the yeast cake.  Moved this out of the chest freezer
• 7/19/19 - Moved the fermenter to the chest freezer to cold crash at 34 F
• 7/20/19 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 7/21/19 - Transferred the beer into a glass carboy for a bit more aging.  Added about 1 oz of oak which I'd toasted at 360 F and then soaked in Cabernet Sauvignon for a year.  Measured the gravity of the beer as 1.010.  I'll give the beer another three months or so to age.
• 1/5/20 - Bottled today with 4 oz of priming sugar and a pack of rehydrated Red Star Premier Cuvee Champagne yeast.  Gravity is still 1.010.  Tastes really good with strong dark fruit and caramel.  Ended up with a bit under 6 gal which netted me 53 12 oz bottles (I would have had a couple more but I dropped the bottle caper and spilled some.)
• 2/16/20 - Tasting Notes - Very rich and complex beer.  It makes a very good sipper on a cold night.  It's boozy for sure but it doesn't taste like it would be 16% ABV.  I really like the toasty bread and caramel flavor and how it coats the mouth and lingers.  Also nice that it's sweet but not overly so.  I think this one is going to age very nicely for me.
• 5/23/20 - Tasting Notes (2020):
• Aroma:  Herbal hops are pretty pronounced in this one.  Fruit ester also plays in the background.  A bit of malt but it's overcome by the other aroma.  Alcohol comes through in the background as well
• Appearance:  Pours with a 1 finger head that fades to nothing fairly quickly.  Brown and very clear.
• Flavor:  Toasty caramel malt up front.  A good amount of hop flavor comes in next and then the toasty and cramel-like malt character lingers in the finish.  This is balanced by bitter hop flavor.  There is a fruity yeast ester character that also comes through in the start.  It also has a pretty smooth alcohol component that comes through all this slightly
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-light bodied and slightly sweet.  Very smooth.  Warming alcohol presence
• Overall:  Very nicely flavored beer.  Really rich set of flavors with the malt being the star.  The hop flavor rounds things out nicely.  As the youngest beer here it's quite different in terms of prominence of yeast character.  I imaging this will become more apparent as it ages and the bolder hop flavors fade
• 5/30/21 - Tasting Notes (2021):
• Aroma:  Fruity ester character - overripe fruit.  Some booze in there.  Maybe a bit of caramel as well
• Appearance:  Dark gold and very clear.  Pours with a 1 finger head that fairly quickly fades to a thin ring 
• Flavor:  Fruity ester and sweet bready and caramel malts.  A bit of toasty flavor in there as well.  Has a chocolate character too it.  Gives the impression of sweetness.  Finishes with a medium bitterness that is balanced by rich dark malt.  Some booze in there as well.  Maybe get some hop flavor out of it as well
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-full bodied and fairly sticky.  Smooth drinking with warming alcohol
• Overall:  Very rich and complex beer.  Has a very nice combination of malt and yeast character
• 5/28/22 - Tasting Notes (2022):
• Tasting Notes (36 of 50):
• Aroma (7 of 12):  A bit boozy with an unusual fruity ester character.  Also get a fair bit of bready, toasty malt and caramel.  I think I also smell some oak in there.  I don't really pick out any hops here.
• Appearance (2 of 3):  Dark red and very clear.  Pours with a 1 finger head that quickly dissipates to nothing
• Flavor (16 of 20):  Sweet bready malt up front along with a dark caramel flavor.  In the middle I get a wave of booze along with some fruity ester character.  The finish has a fairly assertive bitterness which a bit more agressive than the malt flavors.  I may get a bit of herbal hop character in there as well
• Mouthfeel (4 of 5):  Medium-full bodied and slightly sweet.  Drinks with just a bit of astringency.  Has an alcohol warming effect
• Overall (7 of 10):  This is strongly flavored beer with a nice level of complexity.  Has a slant towards strong malt character with a more restrained fruity ester character.  Quite a boozy beer which is nice in a Barleywine of course.  I really like the bitterness to it as well.
• 5/28/23 - Tasting Notes (2023):
• Tasting Notes (40 of 50):
• Aroma (7 of 12):  Light fruit flavor - overripe dark fruit and maybe apple.  Musty.  A bit of caramel malt and maybe some toasted malt in there as well
• Appearance (3 of 3):  Copper colored and very clear.  Pours with a 1 finger head that fades down to a thin ring after a few minutes
• Flavor (17 of 20):  Fruity up front followed by a rich dark caramel and toasted bread flavor.  The finish has a medium bitterness and a firm and bold malt flavor which lingers.  It's lightly sweet in the finish.  It also has a chocolate kind of character to it.  A bit of booze in the flavor profile as well.
• Mouthfeel (5 of 5):  Medium full bodied and a bit sticky.  Drinks very smoothly
• Overall (8 of 10):  This is a nice boldly flavored beer with pretty good complexity.  It has a nice balance between fruity and malt flavors (and leans a bit more towards the malt).  Has a nice bitterness which balances the finish nicely.

Lessons Learned:

1. I got most of my grain from a LHBS called "Fancy Camper" near me.  I ordered 21 lbs of grain (or at least I thought I did).  I ended up getting charged for 24 lbs of grain and then, when I measured, I got 22 lbs of grain (including the bag).  I was frustrated by the $$$ but, more so, as I had them bag all the grain together, I was frustrated that I don't really know what I actually got.  It is a very convenient shop so I will certainly go back but I'll ask for grain bagged separately going forward.
2. I ended up overshooting my OG by quite a bit with the beer.  I did the same thing with my last big beer (RIS with Oak).  I have been assuming an ~60%.  I'm doing a bit better.  You can always top up with water to get closer to target OG but then volume of the fermenter is also a concern.  Not sure what I'll do next time but I think it's better to be a bit high than a bit low.

English Barleywine Vertical Tasting - 2019

I've brewed English Barleywine for the last 5 Memorial Days (in 3 different houses).  This will be Vertical tasting of the beers to evaluate how each is holding up and compare the vintages (see the 2014, 2015, and 2016, and 2017 Tasting Notes).  I had been doing these tastings around Christmas but had too much going on so I've decided to start tasting the day before Memorial Day going forward.

I've brewed 5 beers so far.  They all have English Malt, Hops, and Yeast in common and fit into the English Barleywine style fairly well.  Even as similar as they are it has been interesting to drink them side by side over the years and pick out a lot of subtle differences.

It's been really pleasant to watch these beers age.  For the most part I'd say they've improved.  I limit myself to one old beer a year for these tasting in order to keep this Vertical tasting going as long as possible.  I'm excited to see how the last year and a half have treated the beers.

Vertical Tasting:

Left to Right:  2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018

• 2014 Version
• Overview:
• Brewed with Maris Otter and 3 lbs of assorted light crystal malts.  I was hoping for a light colored beer - got a bit darker than I'd hoped.
• Fermented with S04 and Nottingham
• The beer fermented all the way down to 1.016 from 1.101 which is 11-12% ABV
• I aged half the beer on oak that had been soaked in Brandy.  I'd been tasting both of these each year but they're fairly similar so this year I'll just do one - the plain portion.
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity - figs and raisin.  Caramel malt.  Very rich aroma.
• Appearance:  Dark red and very clear.  Poured with a thin layer of foam that quickly faded to nothing
• Flavor:  Sweet malt with rich fruit ester.  Maybe a slight bit of bitterness in the finish.  Some alcohol comes through.  Aged beer flavor - a musty and earthy character
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-full bodied.  Slightly sweet.  A bit of warming alcohol
• Overall:  Complex and interesting beer with some bold flavors
• 2015 Version:
• Overview:
• Brewed with Maris Otter, Vienna Malt and down to 2 lbs of Crystal.  Still was trying for a more pale beer but ended up darker.
• Used Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale Yeast
• Beer fermented from 1.096 to 1.006 for 12-13% ABV
• Aged with 1 oz of pre-boiled oak cubes
• Tasting notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity yeast ester - peach maybe or apricot.  Also pick up mandarin orange
• Appearance:  Copper colored and cloudy.  Poured with a lot of head (the bottle actually foamed over on me prior to pouring and made a bit of a mess).  The foam settled down to a thin ring within a minute or two.  Lots of sediment made it's way to the glass
• Flavor:  Caramel malt with some fruity yeast ester.  Alcohol comes through on the finish.  I don't get any hop bitterness
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-light bodied with a slight sweetness.  Has a pretty firm astringency that prickles the tongue
• Overall:  Some nice flavors but they are fairly mild.  Reasonably complex.  The astringency adds an interesting dimension.  Not an easy drinker but not a chore either.
• 2016 Version:
• Overview:
• Brewed with Maris Otter, 3 lbs of Rye Malt, and 1.5 lbs Double Roasted Crystal 120 L
• Fermented with Wyeast 1335 British Ale II
• Beer went from 1.093 to 1.012 which is 10-11% ABV
• It ended up forming a pellicle during aging although I never really picked up any flavors I'd attribute to wild yeast or bacteria
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Rich caramel.  Some graham cracker.  Slight bit of overripe fruit.  Some alcohol comes through
• Appearance:  Dark Red/Light Brown.  Poured with a 2 finger head that slowly faded down to a thin ring.
• Flavor:  Really nice malt flavor.  Sweet bread and caramel.  Slight fruity flavor.  A bit of alchol but well hidden.  Slight bitterness remains.
• Mouthfeel:  Medium bodied and fairly sweet.  Smooth drinking
• Overall:  Lovely malt flavors.  Not all that complex (as far as EBW go) but still very pleasant.  Hides the 10+ ABV remarkably well.
• 2017 Version:
• Overview:
• Brewed with 2 Row and Golden Promise as base malt and 5 lbs of white wheat malt.  Only used 4 oz of Crystal.  This finally achieved my goal of a pale barleywine.
• Fermented with Wyeast 1335 British Ale II again
• I'd wanted to get a fairly sweet barleywine on my previous version but had kept on getting more attenuation than desired.  This time I finally got one to stop at 1.034 (from 1.098).  So this is an 8-9% ABV beer.
• The beer was aged with 15 oz of Rum soaked golden raisin along with 0.5 oz of oak
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity - apply maybe.  Smells a bit like a white wine
• Appearance:  Dark gold and very clear.  Poured with a 2 finger head that pretty quickly dissipated down tot a thin ring
• Flavor:  Bready malt with some fruit flavor.  Has a bit of a wine-like flavor as well.  Maybe a slight bitterness.  Finish is malty sweet
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-full bodied and pretty sweet.  Smooth drinking
• Overall:  Complex and nice flavors.  The white wine character of the beer is significantly different than the others (must be due to the usage of the grapes).  This is the easiest drinking of the group.
• 2018 Version:
• Overview:
• Brewed using a historical recipe for Eldridge Pope's Hardy's Ale from the Shut Up about Barclay Perkins Blog
• Used a mix of 2 Row and Maris otter, 3.5 lbs of Flaked wheat, and 1.5 lb of crystal
• Used Nottingham yeast and, per instruction, allowed it to ferment in the 70s.  It was an agressive fermentation which produced a very strong and estery aroma.  The beer didn't turn out to be overly estery fortunately.
• Fermented out to 1.030 from 1.105 for an ABV of 10-11%
• This was the most aggressively hopped beer so far (7.5 oz of low alpha acid English hop in the boil) with an IBU target of 84.  Was very bitter just after fermentation but this had settled to a nice balance after 6 months of aging.
• Aged the beer on 2 oz of boiled and toasted oak
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Caramel and fruit ester - raising and apple maybe.  Also pick up a berry like fruitiness (strawberry?).  Maybe get a bit of herbal hop aroma.  Really lovely aroma
• Appearance:  Very dark red or light brown.  Poured with a 2 finger head that lasted several minutes and then faded to a thin ring.  Very clear
• Flavor:  Rich bready flavor along with caramel malt which blends nicely with the fruity yeast ester character.  Light bitterness in the finish which balances out the sweetness.  Some alcohol comes through
• Mouthfeel:  Medium bodied and pretty sweet.  Smooth drinking
• Overall:  Complex and rich malt and yeast flavors.  Still has a bit of hop character left which makes for a bit different balance than the others

2019 Rankings:

1. 2014 version
2. 2016 version
3. 2018 version
4. 2017 version
5. 2015 version

Historical English Pale Ale (aka "AK")

I've decided to brew up another historical English Ale from the "Shut up about Barclay Perkins" blog:  the 1896 Eldridge Pope AK.  This is a sort of English Pale Ale which apparently was a bit lighter in alcohol than the standard Pale Ale at the time.  I'm pretty much out of hoppy beer and have had to resort to buying commercial beer.  Will be nice to have my own hoppy beer to drink again.

Like a previous historic beer I brewed, the beer uses corn and Invert Syrup in addition to English Barley.  The invert helps the beer dry out, provides a color contribution, and may leave some slight residual flavor (the invert #2 is very raisin like).

For yeast, I'll be using WLP 099 Super High Gravity which was reportedly the house strain for Eldridge Pope.  I'll ferment for one week on the yeast cake and then move this beer off to make room for my next English Barleywine.

This one has turned out to be a pretty light colored beer.  I'm used to most English Bitters being more of a copper but this is a golden beer.  Fairly light invert #2 and no caramel malts have that effect I guess.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct
• 4.5 lb Maris Otter
• 3.5 lb Golden Promise
• 0.5 lb Flaked Corn
• 1.5 lb Invert #2
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 60 min
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 30 min
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 099 Super High Gravity (Eldridge Pope/Hardy’s yeast)
• Water:
• 12 gal spring water
• 1 oz CaCl
• 1 oz Gypsum
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 15 min

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 151 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 70 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.051 (Target 1.049)
• Efficiency:
• 70% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 80% (Target 73%)
• ABV:
• 5.38% (Target 4.73%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/19/19 - Brewday - From 12:00 PM to 3:45 PM
• Made the Invert Syrup #2
• Heated 2 cups water, 1.5 lbs of Demerara Sugar and 1/4 tsp of citric acid on medium low until the sugar had dissolved and the mixture reached 240 F

• Heated 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Milled the grain.  Added CaCl and Gypsum to the grain during milling
• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until the system had settled to about 161 F
• Stopped the cycle and added the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  The mash temp was down to 154 F after this
• Setup the RIMS to cycle at 151 F at approximately a couple quarts per minute.  Temperature quickly settled down to 151 F.  Cycled for 60 min.
• Heated about 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Drained the mash tun and gradually added more hot water to the top with a measuring cup as a sort of modified fly sparge.  Collected until I had 8 gal
• Started heating the boil kettle after collecting about 4 gal.  Had it to a boil a few minutes after collecting the full volume
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared

• Added flavoring hops at 30 min
• Added Irish Moss with 15 min left
• Poured in the invert #2 syrup with about 10 min left.  Rinsed the pot with boiling wort

• Added the wort chiller to sanitize the beer with 5 min left
• Added flame out hops at 0 min
• Chilled the beer down to 70 F
• Transferred the beer into a bucket fermenter.  Let it fall a couple feet into the bucket to aerate.  There was a lot of hop matter at the bottom of the fermenter with the last quart of wort.  Decided to dump all this into the fermenter

• Added yeast (no starter) on transfer
• Collected 5.5 gal and measured the gravity as 1.054.  Topped up with about a quarter of a gal of spring water to bring the gravity down to maybe 1.051
• Moved the fermenter to the chest freezer with a reptile heater.  Set temperature control at 70 F
• 5/20/19 - The airlock was bubbling by the next afternoon
• 5/22/19 - The beer is putting off a pretty off putting smell
• 5/2319 - Bad smell has mostly cleared.  Fermentation looks to be about rapped up
• 6/22/19 - Bottled today with 4 oz of priming sugar.  Got 5 gal which netted me 49 bottles.  Measured the gravity as 1.010.  The beer has a pretty clean flavor and a light bitterness - tastes almost lager like at this point.
• 7/27/19 - Tasting Notes - It's nice to have a bitter beer to drink again (I've ended up buying 2 cases of commercial beer in the last few months due to lack of pale ale).  I've gone through about half the batch since bottling a month ago.  This is a really drinkable beer.  Tough to say how it should have turned out but this English Pale ale is interesting in that it has almost no yeast character (could tell someone it is a lager and they'd believe it) - the Eldridge Pope strain (WLP 099) is not estery at 70 F with a 1.051 beer it turns out.  Regardless, the English Fuggle hops deliver the goods - flavor, aroma, and bitterness are all quite nice.

Raspberry Wine

I have over 60 lbs of raspberry left from my 2018 harvest.  I plan to use 15-20 lbs of that on a Raspberry Lambic which leaves a good 40 lbs to experiment with.  I've decided to try to make a Raspberry Wine with it.

Raspberry wine are typically back sweetened to make a dessert style wine.  They have a really lovely and intense raspberry flavor along with a pleasing tartness.  They go great on ice cream.

Raspberries aren't as rich in sugar as grapes so some sugar needs to be added in order to get to the target alcohol level (10-15%).  I found this nice article which give some tips from pro raspberry wine makers.  For a 5-6 gal batch (scaled down) the recommendation is 40 lbs of fruit, 10 lbs of sugar, and 1 gal of water (to dissolve the sugar).  This should get you a starting gravity of around 22 brix.  This is a lot of fruit (if you don't happen to have a large raspberry bed) but they warn that less than this will lead to a watered down final product.

Per the procedure, I'll start out with Frozen raspberries.  This will help with juice extraction.  I'll add the dissolved sugar mixture along with campden tablets to sanitize, pectic enzyme (for clarity) and yeast nutrient.  I'll leave this over night the thaw and get up to around 60 F.  I'll pitch a red wine yeast for the fermentation.

Over the first week I'll mix the fruit solids and liquid - I plan to do an open fermentation to make this easier.  After the first week I'll scoop off the fruit solids which are floating on the top.  After another week to let the fermentation complete I'll filter off any remaining fruit solids and then rack to a new container.  I'll then rack several more times and cold crash to separate out more solids.

I then plan to age this wine for several months on oak.  I may use some red wine soaked oak for this.

This should be a fun project.

Recipe Details:

• 40 lbs Red Raspberry
• 10 lb sugar
• 1 gal Spring Water
• 3 tsp Pectic Enzyme
• 1.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 1 packet of Red Star Premier Rouge
• Extras:
• 8 campden tablets at start to sanitize fruit
• Added a second packet of Premier Rouge yeast
• 5 campden tablets on transfer to glass carboy for aging
• 1 oz of Cabernet soaked oak

Results:

• OG:
• 1.096 (23 brix)
• Volume:
• 5 gal
• Post Fermentation FG:
• 0.992
• Back sweetened FG:
• 1.022
• ABV:
• 13.65%

Brewing Notes:

• 4/27/19:
• Put 40 lbs of frozen raspberries into a 6 gal brew bucket.  They just barely fit
• Crushed 8 campden tablets and stirred them into the frozen raspberries

• Brought 1 gal of spring water up to a simmer
• Gradually added 10 lbs of sugar to the simmering water and stirred as a I went to dissolved

• Added 1.5 tsp of yeast nutrient and 3 tsp of Pectic enzyme to the water/sugar mixture
• Transferred this into the frozen raspberries
• Let this thaw over night
• 4/28/19:
• Decided to transfer half of the mixture to a second 6 gal brew bucket
• Measured the gravity as 23 brix via my refractometer (1.096 in SG)
• Rehydrated a packet of dry Red Star Red Wine Yeast in Spring Water and then pitched half of it in each bucket fermenter
• 4/29/19:
• Stirred the mixture in the morning
• Stirred the mixture in the afternoon.  No sign of fermentation starting yet
• 4/30/19
• Stirred the mixture again in the morning. Still no sign of fermentation
• Decided to add another pack of yeast
• It was bubbling pretty vigorously this afternoon when I stirred again
• 5/1/19 - Fruit solids have formed a cap.  I pushed this down in the morning and the afternoon.  Fermentation is still progressing vigorously

• 5/2/19 - Pushed down the cap again.  A lot of C02 is released on doing this
• 5/8/19 - After a week I scooped as much of the fruit solids floating on top of the wine as I could with a slotted spoon.  This was pretty dry at first with very little liquid runoff.  I stopped when I got down to more of a liquidy pulp.

• 5/10/10 - Today I drained the liquid from the remaining solids:

• I first combined all the wine into one bucket
• I then poured a little bit of the wine into a kitchen strainer on top of bowl.  I stirred with spoon to encourage the fruit pulp to separate from the wine
• It required a couple dozen batches like this to separate all of it
• I ended up with about 5 gal of liquid
• I tasted a little dab and found it's fermented out pretty dry.  It has a nice raspberry flavor and is quite tart.
• I moved the bucket to my chest freezer at 37 F to help drop out any remaining solids
• 5/11/19 - Added gelatin to try to fine the wine a bit

• 5/12/19 - Transferred into a glass carboy to age.  Added a 1 oz stick of oak that I soaked in Cabernet.  Also added 5 campden tablets to help deal with any oxygen and to knock out any remaining yeast.  I ended up leaving behind about 3/4 a gal of yeast/semi-solid fruit stuffs
• 3/7/20 - Transferred the Raspberry wine to a bucket fermenter with a couple crushed campden tablets.  I measured the gravity as 0.992.  It is very dry, pretty tart, and has a wine like complexity.  I think it could stand for a bit more sweetness.  The article (mentioned above) suggested backsweetening with between 4 and 6% sugar.  Collected 4 gal - left behind quite a bit of solid (as well as the oak).  Decided to add 2.25 lb of sugar which should get me up to about 5 Brix.  Dissolved this in the raspberry wine sample and then added to the fermenter.  I'll give this another month to settle down before bottling

• 3/29/20 - No signs of fermentation for the last few weeks so decided to bottle today.  Used regular 12 oz capped bottles for this.  Got 42 bottles.  The wine measured 1.022 after the backsweetening.  It tastes slightly sweet with nice raspberry flavor along with a very slight tartness (sugar really balanced things out).  It's a mellow flavor with very little alcohol coming through.