# BLUEBERRY WINE



## NorthernWinos (Aug 22, 2008)

Seems that Blueberry Wine is the flavor of the month.....

We opened the last bottle of Blueberry Wine...bottled July 2005...it was pretty good.







I have juiced up about 20 pounds of Blueberries [10qts of juice] to make a 6 gallon batch...

Been looking at my old recipe and many recipes OnLine and notice that most use a little less berries than that....Most recipes are 2-2½#/gallon....Is there a reason for this....





I was thinking about using a recipe much like this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BLUEBERRY WINE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8-10 QT BLUEBERRY JUICE [2# FRUIT =1QT JUICE]
[How many would you use?



] 

2-500 MIL WINEXPERT RED GRAPE CONCENTRATE
[I like using that in our fruit wines]

__# SUGAR [S.G TO 1.085]

4 CAMPDEN TABLETS 
[being as this can be a hard starter, thought I'd cut back on the Campden tablets....Would you?



]

3 tsp LIQUID TANNIN
[used it before..would you?




]

5 tsp ACID BLEND

NEXT DAY:

3 tsp PECTIC ENZYME
3 tsp YEAST ENERGIZER
6 tsp YEAST NUTRIENT
1 tsp ASCORBIC ACID

YEAST......WAS THINKING OF USING MONTRACHET OR PASTURER RED...OR...? [what do you think?



]

Not going to start this for awhile...so open for suggestions.





*Edited by: Northern Winos *


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## Wade E (Aug 22, 2008)

I would go with the Montrachet yeast. I use 4 campden or a little less as 3 1/2 equals 1/4 tsp of campden and that is what is required so 1 per gallon is very high and not recommended in IMO. Have never used the liquid tannin only the powder so cant help you there. I prefer using more fruit then most recipes out there myself.


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## smokegrub (Aug 22, 2008)

Northern:

I made blueberry last year and it is one of my favorite wines.

11 1/2 qt blueberry juice (steam-juiced)
Water to 6 gal
Sugar to SG 1.085
6 t yeast nutrient
3 t pectic enzyme
12 t acid blend
3/4 t tannin
6 Campden Tablets
Lalvin EC1118

After racking from secondary, I added 500 ml red grape concentrate, 5 more Campden and 3 teaspoons sorbate. After 30 more days under airlock I cleared with SuperKleer and bottled (28 bottles). I plan to follow this recipe again this year. The berries have been juiced--I just need an empty carboy.


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## NorthernWinos (Aug 23, 2008)

Smokegrub....
Sounds like a good wine recipe.....

I didn't use that much acid blend last time...I do see everyone uses quite a bit....so it must be needed to give the wine a little more tang.

Thanks for Posting. I am going to start this wine soon...really looking forward to this one.


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## kayciemae (Aug 20, 2012)

smokegrub said:


> Northern:
> 
> I made blueberry last year and it is one of my favorite wines.
> 
> ...






How do you steam juice??


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## Rodnboro (Aug 20, 2012)

I just stabilized 3 gallons of blueberry using 18lbs. of fruit and no concentrate. I did not have a problem starting or fermenting. I used Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast. I also stopped using campden tablets and started with K-meta. 1/8 tsp for this batch 24 hrs. before yeast.


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## mmadmikes1 (Aug 20, 2012)

I have seen people posting this lately and would love to know why people are adding K Meta to secondary. All that is can do is stress the yeast and that is not something you want. I had never seen this until this year. 71B 1122 is a great yeast for fruit wines and the perfect yeast for Blackberry


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## the_rayway (Sep 25, 2012)

Does anyone add Bentonite to their Blueberry wine?


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## SBWs (Sep 25, 2012)

I use bentonite with all my fruit wines. I add about 1 inch of hot tap water to the bottom of the primary and sprinkle in the bentonite while swirling the water around until it dissolves. This way works great for me, seems to help with clearing later. 

I like Lalvin K1-v1116 for blueberry.


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## the_rayway (Sep 26, 2012)

I put bentonite into it during secondary fermentation. at our last racking (off the bentonite) the wine seems to have a super-earthy taste. I'm trying to figure out if this is a direct result of the bentonite, or a regular thing with blueberry wine.

Any thoughts/ideas?


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## SBWs (Sep 26, 2012)

How much bentonite did you use?

Is the wine clear?

If it is from the bentonite, you could try using a positive charge clearing agent to help settle out the bentonite. 

Here is a good article on fining agents.

http://www.winemakermag.com/stories...n/26-a-clearer-understanding-of-fining-agents


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## the_rayway (Sep 26, 2012)

The wine is perfectly clear. Looks beautiful!

It is a 4 UK gallon batch, and the bentonite said to add 3/4 tsp to 5 gals, so I put in about 1/2 a tsp. It was during secondary fermentation, and stayed in the carboy for about a month. 

Thanks for the article, it's really helpful for a noob like me


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## roadwarriorsvt (Sep 26, 2012)

Looking at the recipes on page 1, they say water to X gallons. Would it be beneficial to use Ocean Spray Blueberry Juice (15% juice) instead of plain water?


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## the_rayway (Oct 28, 2012)

This earthy flavour doesn't seem to be going away. Wondering if I should add some pure blueberry juice to freshen it up a bit? Kind of frustrating when it tasted so beautiful earlier on  Any other suggestions?


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## SBWs (Oct 28, 2012)

I'd try Polyclar 10, it's good for cleaning up off flavors. 

http://www.makewine.com/winemaking/finishing/fining/#6


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## dralarms (Oct 28, 2012)

SBWs said:


> I'd try Polyclar 10, it's good for cleaning up off flavors.
> 
> http://www.makewine.com/winemaking/finishing/fining/#6



Wow, that page helps a lot.

Thanks for posting a link.


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## the_rayway (Nov 1, 2012)

So...I picked up some pure, nothing else added, wild blueberry juice. I expected it to taste something like blueberry pancakes, or blueberry pie. It just doesn't. 

The juice tastes like mud too.

I feel like I'm missing something, because this appears to be the flavour of blueberry juice. I wonder if this is a sweetening thing? Is that what I'm missing? Or perhaps acid? Or spices? Do others sweeten their blueberry wine?

In another thread, I commented that Blueberries taste so good I thought it was almost impossible to screw this up. It appears I spoke too soon.

Thank you all for your help!


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## Terry0220 (Nov 1, 2012)

What is your sg? It could be that it needs back sweetening to help bring out the fruit flavors


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## the_rayway (Nov 2, 2012)

It's at .994 and has stopped there. I'm going to have a bench trial and try sweetening with my homemade blueberry syrup. It's made with corn syrup, so it shouldn't do anything to start a re-ferment. I'm also going to check the TA and see what's up there. *sigh*


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## roadwarriorsvt (Nov 2, 2012)

I'd add some sorbate along with meta-k anyway, just to make sure of no re-ferment. And yes, adding sugar will help bring out the blueberry flavor. Adding blueberry syrup would be a flavor bonus I'd think! Let us know how it ended up.


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## Duster (Nov 2, 2012)

the_rayway said:


> It's at .994 and has stopped there. I'm going to have a bench trial and try sweetening with my homemade blueberry syrup. It's made with corn syrup, so it shouldn't do anything to start a re-ferment. I'm also going to check the TA and see what's up there. *sigh*



I believe corn syrup will restart fermentation. I could be wrong, I have never tried it but I would think it should be the same as dextrose.
A little K-meta and Sorbate will help stop this.


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## SBWs (Nov 2, 2012)

RAYWAY like others have said you need to stabilize (K-meta & Sorbate) before backsweetening. 

This is the way someone explained fruit wines to me. Pies are sweet, you wouldn't make a pie without using sugar to sweeten it. So if you want your wine to taste like pie you will need to sweeten it. Now that's taking it a bit far, but most fruit wines do need some sweetening to bring out the flavor. Some more so than others, blackberry, and elderberry are two I can think of that can be good on the dryer side. The corn syrup should help bring out the flavor and might even add some body. Looks like you are on the right path.


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## the_rayway (Nov 5, 2012)

Thank you all for the responses! This explanation of sweet to bring out the fruit makes a lot of sense (aha!).

So, sulphite and sorbate, then bench trials with several different sweeteners/strengths. Thank you all so much for the comments and help! Will keep you posted on how it turns out.


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## the_rayway (Jan 15, 2013)

I've now played with my blueberries a little bit, and still very disappointing. I've added all of the blueberry syrup I made this summer and it barely made a dent. I keep thinking that it tastes like 'barf' just like the juice I picked up. I've tried bench sweetening several different ways and all kinds of strengths and it never tastes good! 

I tested the TA and it came to a measly .20%, so this evening I added 4 tsp acid blend to bring it up to .60% it helped a little bit...and it took the little sugar addition better than it has. Do people generally add more acid to blueberry than 'normal'? I know that you never make blueberry pie without lemon juice.

Oooh, how frustrating!


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## dcteague (Jan 15, 2013)

I recently did a blueberry wine recipe I developed as the basis for a port. It was primarily concentrates that included both fig and blueberry, but mainly blueberry. Throughout the process, it tasted horrible. I had fermented down to 1.0 and had added additional blueberry to prolong fermentation, and then raise the alcohol so I could avoid diluting my wine with too much alcohol. Finally today, I added a bit of black cherry juice to finish off the fermentation process before I fortify. For whatever reason, the blackcherry juice made this just taste surprisingly good even though its not even 2 weeks into the process. Not sure what you've tried to back sweeten your wine with, but you may want to try black cherry - I picked this up from other recipes and I can now see why it is recommended.

Of course, I'm on my first wine (not my first time brewing though), so please take my comments with caution - my port could be diesel fuel soon


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