# Wild muscadine/ blueberry help...



## captainl (Jun 15, 2011)

disclaimer: I have done 3 kit wines so far, 2 welchs, and 5 all grain beer's with water adjustments.


So I found some muscadines and picked 3 lbs with my 4 year old son. However I left tons there. We also went and picked 10lbs of blueberries today at a local farm @ $2 a lbs (inflations). I was thinking of doing a blend but now that I found so many muscadines i might go for a straight up wild muscidine. 

I have never made a wine with real fruit, but I have read about it. So a couple of questions.

How much Kmeta or campden do you need to kill the bacteria on the fruit?

Acid levels?? Is there a cheap way to do it? I don't want to buy a $100 kit that I will probably lose or break after a few months. In the process of moving.....ugh. 

Could I adjust with calcium carbonate after fermentaion by taste?? 

Age a minimum of a year I assume.

Anyone have some recipes other than jack kellers? I figure I will go with 6 or more lbs per gallon.

I have never had muscadine wine. Is it usually backsweetened? Dry? Made with a high abv....port??

I have read blueberries are hard to ferment, but maybe I should do 1 gallon by itself? But a muscadine grape and blueberry blend sounds good?

Should you remove the seeds prior to fermentation? PITA

I figure if I mess up the muscadines, at least they where free. 

thanks.

Mike

I f


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## djrockinsteve (Jun 15, 2011)

Mike some of us made muskadine wine from fruit last year. End result is delicious.

You can freeze the grapes first. Use the same amount of sulfite as other wines. If you freeze them the bacteria will be killed and you will break open the cell structure.

Thaw and add pectic enzyme.

Add enough water to ferment or better yet press the grapes and ferment them in primary, much better and thicker.

I did have to blend in some water to loer the acidity a bit. I believe it was 1 part water to 2 parts juice. It was very high acid.

Remove fruit around 1.020 then ferment dry.

It's very easy. Then I took skins and made a blush which turned out good. We back sweetened it a bit but kept it kinda dry.

I would bulk age a year. I didn't oak it. I believe I made it as 12 percent ABV and definitely recommend cold stabilizing it to decrease the acid.


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## Julie (Jun 16, 2011)

+1 Steve says, taste it as you backsweeten, muscadine is good on the dry side and good on the sweet side, so that will depend on your tastes. 

You can get a titration kit to test your acid. It is roughly $10 and very simple to use.


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## captainl (Jun 16, 2011)

Thanks guys. I just picked another couple of pounds this morning. I'll have to go back without my kids to get most of them. I'll definitely keep you guys updated.


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## Julie (Jun 16, 2011)

captainl said:


> Thanks guys. I just picked another couple of pounds this morning. I'll have to go back without my kids to get most of them. I'll definitely keep you guys updated.



please do, I think you are going to like this wine, it is very good.


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## CCtex (Jun 16, 2011)

Hi Mike
I live in Houston also and have been watching some muscadines that I'm going to do. They are not ready to pick yet. Good luck with your wine.
CC


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## Sirs (Jun 16, 2011)

note for you the wild muscadine has a good bit more acid to it than the farm raised ones so be sure to adjust for that otherwise wonderful grape for wine, one of the best american grapes for wine


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## Sirs (Jun 16, 2011)

and blueberry makes an awesome blend with them


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## Jarret (Jun 16, 2011)

1 tsp of sulfite per gallon? I thought is was one campden tablet per gallon. I believe it is 1/4 tsp of sulfite for 5 gallons. I may be wrong but post #2 may be abit too much suflite...


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## Julie (Jun 17, 2011)

Jarret said:


> 1 tsp of sulfite per gallon? I thought is was one campden tablet per gallon. I believe it is 1/4 tsp of sulfite for 5 gallons. I may be wrong but post #2 may be abit too much suflite...



When you initially add k-meta it is 1/4 tsp per gallon. After fermentation it is 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons every 3 months.


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## djrockinsteve (Jun 17, 2011)

Sorry you are right. Thanks Julie too. I changed that. I knew that but wasn't thinking.


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## captainl (Jun 18, 2011)

CCtex said:


> Hi Mike
> I live in Houston also and have been watching some muscadines that I'm going to do. They are not ready to pick yet. Good luck with your wine.
> CC



That brings up a good question. How do you know when these grapes are ready to pick. Taste alone? The ones I found have a lot of them falling off on to the ground. They taste a little tart though.

Is there a way to tell optimum ripeness?


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## grapeman (Jun 18, 2011)

Julie said:


> When you initially add k-meta it is 1/4 tsp per gallon. After fermentation it is 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons every 3 months.


 
Wow, that is a lot more than I ever use when doing fresh grapes. I have always found 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons worth of juice plenty to inhibit the wild yeast and keep the overall sulfite additions down. Granted most of it gets blown off or bound during fermentation, but the bound sulfite is still in the wine increasing total bound sulfites. I need to worry about this because there is a legal limit to allowed sulfites for commercial wines.

If I do a 150 -200 pound batch and figure I will get 10-12 gallons out of it I will use about 1/2 teaspoon to the grapes after crush. Using your rate I would need 6 times as much and I would feel uncomfortable adding that much.


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## Sirs (Jun 18, 2011)

captainl said:


> That brings up a good question. How do you know when these grapes are ready to pick. Taste alone? The ones I found have a lot of them falling off on to the ground. They taste a little tart though.
> 
> Is there a way to tell optimum ripeness?



You can tell when they are ready to pick at best brix by how the skins feel on them if it is tight they're not at completelyl ripe yet, when you barely squeeze them and roll and the skin is wrinkley then they are good. Also they will look like they are starting to dry up like a raisin only just barely starting. Also you'll notice the bees will start to suck on them. There will be a time later when they will feel sticky then they're awesome.


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