Blueberry Again !

[Ajmassa]

@Scooter68 and @Stressbaby and anyone with insight really
A couple questions:
1. Why not just use more blueberries so you don't have to dilute with water? The acidity would be overwhelming?
2. Did you add KBicarb prefermentation? Seems like a good move. What are the pros and cons to adjusting blueberry juice before primary? Why not always do this for blueberry ?
3. I never thought to drink dry. Kinda thought blueberry wine was SUPPOSED to be sweetened some. Seems like it would taste like a punch in the face otherwise. I prefer my grape wine dry, but fruit wine (in my minimal fruit wine experience) never tastes good dry. Just your preference Stressbaby?
4. Why press early for a Rosè? Probably looks amazing in a clear bottle but wouldn't it be lacking? I guess if you like it dry then the Rosè would be an easier drinker.

 

[Stressbaby]

@Scooter68 and @Stressbaby and anyone with insight really
A couple questions:
1. Why not just use more blueberries so you don't have to dilute with water? The acidity would be overwhelming?
2. Did you add KBicarb prefermentation? Seems like a good move. What are the pros and cons to adjusting blueberry juice before primary? Why not always do this for blueberry ?
3. I never thought to drink dry. Kinda thought blueberry wine was SUPPOSED to be sweetened some. Seems like it would taste like a punch in the face otherwise. I prefer my grape wine dry, but fruit wine (in my minimal fruit wine experience) never tastes good dry. Just your preference Stressbaby?
4. Why press early for a Rosè? Probably looks amazing in a clear bottle but wouldn't it be lacking? I guess if you like it dry then the Rosè would be an easier drinker.

1. Blueberry is sort of notorious for getting stuck. I've used up to 6#/gallon without a problem, but my reading indicates that more fruit and you run into fermentation issues.
2. Calcium bicarb preferment to raise pH to 3.29 (in this particular case), then a touch of potassium bicarb to tweak it at the end. Next time I'll raise it probaby to 3.4.
3. This was a blueberry rosé, not regular blueberry. We like rosé on the dry side. I sweeten my regular blueberry wine.
4. Leaving it on the skins longer extracts more color. That's just the way I did it, I don't know.

 

[Ajmassa]

Thanks for the reply. We pushed the picking to next weekend since I'm not prepared to start a batch today anyway. Have been prepping for bottling my 1st DB batch today. My labels from noontime should be delivered tomorrow! . --but actually more like procrastinating while watching baseball and posting on here with minimal work getting done. So far a very enjoyable Sunday. (Empty house with the women at a pool party today). Time to GSD.

 

[Scooter68]

1) I did an 8 lbs/gallon batch and it was a bugger to get the pH right. Flavor wasn't that much better than with just under 5 lbs/gallon.

2) I haven't used anything to raise pH (Lower Acidity from say 3.18 to 3.4) before fermentation because I've found it to vary during the fermentation typically rising or falling a bit during the fermentation. I hate playing the game of Lower the pH - Raise the pH - Once was enough. Since my experiences with the blueberry has been that the pH moderates itself somewhat at lower lbs/gallon, so I'll continue that. All my other wine batches have not had the ultra low pH issue.

3) I always back-sweeten unless the ferment stops on it's own in a 'sweet state' My Black Current batch was the first to do that to me. A couple of others didn't go all the way to .990 but to me, anything at or below 1.000 is finished enough. I sweeten to taste and generally find afterwards that I'm hitting about 1.005 most times without shooting for that as a target.

4) Rose - not my thing.

Interesting though, my blueberry wines are all measurably darker than my Blackberry wines. My darkest wines have been Black Current (Clear but dark dark) and Black Raspberry dark purple. My first wine to have very strong legs was the Black Raspberry. I don't worry about my wine having legs but Wow - My Black Raspberry was crazy and with just over 4lbs/gal. It would stain wine glasses (Until washed) it clung to the carboys like it was a syrup but it certainly wasn't a syrup. Taste of the Black Raspberry was the most pronounced of any of my wines to date. (Of course I've only made about 20 batches so far)

 

[Ajmassa]

@Scooter68 sounds like 5-6 lbs per gal is the sweetspot then. Noted.
I agree about messing with the ph as well. Made sense for stressbaby since the Rosè ph was so low. But the more you mess around the more that can go wrong.
Everything you mention makes sense. I'm looking forward to enjoying this batch hopefully next summer.

 

[Scooter68]

Well just came in from my blueberry patch. 5 pounds today from 3 bushes. Two patches with total of 31 bushes BUT in one there are 16 plants and only 3 old - large enough to produce significantly. That patch is 90% done for the season. The other patch has 15 plants and about 9 of them are producers but this year a couple did poorly and one lost 4 big branches that shocked the plant and cut output by about 60%.
So it's been a good season, not great. Might see a total of 5 pounds more from ALL the bushes.

So we have about 10-12 pounds in the freezer, I've given away about 5-6 pounds and have 3 gallons of blueberry wine aging made with mostly last years frozen berries.

Not a bad year. Still need to go to the fruit stand and see if i can get hands on enough peaches and/or plums for a couple more batches before the end of the summer. And maybe the wife will let me have about 5 pounds of Wild Blackberries for 1 gallon batch.

 

[Redbird1]

1)

<SNIP>

Interesting though, my blueberry wines are all measurably darker than my Blackberry wines. My darkest wines have been Black Current (Clear but dark dark) and Black Raspberry dark purple. My first wine to have very strong legs was the Black Raspberry. I don't worry about my wine having legs but Wow - My Black Raspberry was crazy and with just over 4lbs/gal. It would stain wine glasses (Until washed) it clung to the carboys like it was a syrup but it certainly wasn't a syrup. Taste of the Black Raspberry was the most pronounced of any of my wines to date. (Of course I've only made about 20 batches so far)

I LOVE black raspberries, but have a hard time getting my hands on enough to make a large batch. Can you share your recipe in case I can find some at a reasonable price soon?

 

[Scooter68]

I'd use the same recipe as for blackberries EXCEPT for quantity. The wild berries we used* provided tons of flavor with just a bit over 4 pounds for a 1 gallon batch. That's all I have made so far but it was so impressive in the making AND the taste. Hoping the wife (Our family's wild berry picker) will let me have enough for another 2 gallon batch. Also hope to prevail on her for blackberries too.

Today though is peach day. Sliced up 23 lbs of fresh peaches and getting ready to run them through a stainless steel conical (And Manual) ricer. Should be 'fun' but the end result in one year. Fascinating AND intoxicating.

* If you use store bought berries check them for intensity. If they are like lots of store bought Blackberries they are big but more water contents than the wild berries so the flavor is less intense. In that case (Store bought) you probably would need between 5-6 lbs per gallon.

 

[Redbird1]

I'd use the same recipe as for blackberries EXCEPT for quantity. The wild berries we used* provided tons of flavor with just a bit over 4 pounds for a 1 gallon batch. That's all I have made so far but it was so impressive in the making AND the taste. Hoping the wife (Our family's wild berry picker) will let me have enough for another 2 gallon batch. Also hope to prevail on her for blackberries too.

Today though is peach day. Sliced up 23 lbs of fresh peaches and getting ready to run them through a stainless steel conical (And Manual) ricer. Should be 'fun' but the end result in one year. Fascinating AND intoxicating.

* If you use store bought berries check them for intensity. If they are like lots of store bought Blackberries they are big but more water contents than the wild berries so the flavor is less intense. In that case (Store bought) you probably would need between 5-6 lbs per gallon.

Thanks!

I wish I had a reliable place for wild berries. We've found them when we've gone camping before, but usually they are spread out quite a bit and it is tricky to time it so that the berries are mostly ripe. My son and I picked a couple pounds of red raspberries last weekend, but since the plants were spread out and only about 1/4 to 1/3 were ripe on most plants, it took quite a while.

 

[Scooter68]

Understand that. We have 17+ acres and some years we hardly have any Black Raspberries. The key thing (My untested guess) if the berries are large, then the flavor is not likely to be as strong as a smaller wild berry that perhaps was a bit short on water and therefore produced smaller berries. But sometimes you just have to compromise. I've never looked for or really noticed black raspberries in stores or roadside stands.