Time for more raspberry wine. We have been getting lots of berries this year even though we have fewer plants than we have had in the past. They just continue producing, so I am running out of freezer space for more berries. To make this batch, I used some older frozen berries I had and some of the berries I had already frozen from this year (5 lbs. from 2017, 7 lbs. from 2018, 3 lbs. from 2019).
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Process:
I put the frozen berries in my primary bucket to thaw out overnight, rinsing out the freezer bags with a bit of water to get all the juice. The next day I added the sugar to the thawed berries, then put in enough water to bring the volume to 5.5 gallons. I tested the OG and then I added the yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme. After stirring to dissolve the additives, I then added the yeast and sealed the bucket with a blow-off tube.
7-12-19: Put frozen berries into primary bucket to thaw.
7-13-19: Prepared wine in primary bucket. OG measured at 1.1000 giving a potential alcohol of 14.3% ABV.
8-3-19: Racked the wine from the primary bucket into a 5-gallon carboy, leaving a little over 1 gallon of fruit pulp/yeast behind.
9-12-19: Racked the wine off the bottom yeast into another 5-gallon carboy.
6-13-19: Bottled into 41 12-ounce bottles. FG measured at 0.992 giving a strength of about 15% ABV.