Blueberry Wine From Bottled Juice

[jcook5003]

The local organic foods store has all sorts of organic non preservative bottled juices. I'd like to make a 5 gallon batch of blueberry wine but couldn't find a recipe that used only juice. How much juice should I substitute into a recipe that calls for blueberrys? I'd like a medium body wine.

 

[Rocky]

Jcook, if it is pure juice, I would say you need a 1 to 1 ratio. You may find the wine a little thin from juice without the berries and may consider buying dried blueberries from Sam's Club (they have them here) and add them in primary fermentation. Sorry I don't have recipe, but I would start by taking the SG of the juice as bottled and go from there. From what I have seen on the forum, most people start blueberry around SG 1.085 so you may have to add either simple syrup to raise the SG or water to lower it before you get started.

Look into the posts under fruit wines and search for "blueberry wine" and you might find a recipe.

 

[PCharles]

You might also consider simmering the bottle blueberry juice. I would not add any water and would try to reduce the volume by 1/4 to 1/3. This would help to concentrate the flavor. Perhaps you could blend in a few jars of blueberry jam instead of adding sugar.

Just a thought.

 

[cottonhouse]

I saw on a blueberry juice manufacturer's site that it takes three pounds of blueberries to produce one quart of juice. That would be 12 pounds per gallon or 60 pounds for five gallons. But most of the recipes posted call for around 15 -20 pounds or so for a five gallon batch. So shouldn't you cut the blueberry juice with water?

 

[Julie]

I saw on a blueberry juice manufacturer's site that it takes three pounds of blueberries to produce one quart of juice. That would be 12 pounds per gallon or 60 pounds for five gallons. But most of the recipes posted call for around 15 -20 pounds or so for a five gallon batch. So shouldn't you cut the blueberry juice with water?

But you don't know how many #'s this company used nor do you know what process any of the company's use to extract the juice. If this is how many pounds they needed to use to get the taste that is saleable then that is what I would use to make the wine.

 

[Runningwolf]

I would never add any water to blueberries for wine. I would rather ferment it out and close to bottling time decide if it needs to be cut. Then I would only do it with another wine like Cayuga or Vidal.