First wine critique

[brewinvt]

Hi All, I just started my first wine from scratch and wanted to get some opinions on it since I'm not to sure what I'm doing with this batch.

Recipe:
13.5 lbs of blueberry's
2.5 Campden Tablets
2.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme
2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
Yeast (can't remember type of top of my head)

I mashed the blueberries with a potato masher to break the skin, poured in 2.5 gallons of warm water and then mixed in the Campden Tablets and Pectic Enzyme. Stirred every 12 hours for 2 days. After two days, I poured the juice off of the blueberry's, topped the bucket off to 5 gallons, balanced Acidity and brought SG to 1.086. After 9 days I racked it into primary fermentator, topped off with 8 cups of water so there is no extra oxygen, and added another 2.5 Campden Tablets per my instructions. SG was at 1.050. I'm thinking now I'll wait until it gets to SG 1.000 before racking again but wanted to get other peoples opinions on where I should go from here and things I should do differently with my next batch. Thanks for any help/pointers!

 

[winemaker_3352]

First off - welcome to the forum!!

In primary fermentation O2 is your friend - it helps the yeast convert the sugar to alcohol. And it sounds like if your are topping up - you are doing this in a carboy - you can do this - but you will get more O2 in if you just use a food grade bucket and cover with a cloth or towel and stir twice a day.

I would rack when the SG is about 1.010 - I am not 100% sure on this - but if you are doing a primary in the carboy - you many not need to rack yet.

The purpose of going from primary to secondary is to limit the amount of O2 at that time. Since fermentation is slowing down - less CO2 is being produced - which means more chance for oxidation.

Looking good though!!!

 

[Green Mountains]

and added another 2.5 Campden Tablets per my instructions.

Welcome aboard.....I'm 2 hours south of you in the lovely town of Ludlow.

I have a question though about adding more campden at this point. I've never done this and generally like the wine to finish out fermentation without hindering it.

 

[Sacalait]

Darren is dead on here. Campden should be added after the second racking. By doing it this early you're taking a chance of stalling or stopping fermentation. For a more flavorful wine another gallon or 4.25# of blueberries is required, keep this in mind on your next batch.

 

[Wade E]

True, do not add sulfites or sorbate while the wine is fermenting as you can stress the yeast out creating off flavors in the wine.

 

[brewinvt]

Sounds good I'll hold off on racking so quickly and the second round of campden tablets on my next batch thanks for the advice! I found a recipe for zucchini wine and pumpkin wine on the forum that sound very intriguing to me so I'm gonna try making a small batch of those this weekend!