I have 500 lbs of blueberries to experiment with

[penguinluvinman]

So I work on a small permaculture farm doing various tasks and have recently decided/got permission to take on winemaking as my side project.

They have done it before, just to play around and have a setup with a 50 gallon fermenter, a ton of 5 gallon carboys, and most of the materials. I'm gonna take an inventory this week and see what kind of yeast they have and stuff like that, but we currently have 500 lbs of frozen blueberries and a decent amount of blackberries that they need to clear the freezer space for.

My background is in biology and I've homebrewed a few 5 gallon batches of beer in an awful setup in a small apartment. I've been reading a lot and I think my best plan is to make a base 50 gallon batch, and then separate out some 5 gallon batches from that and try adding different amounts of sugar or more blueberries and seeing what we all like best.
Unfortunately I tend to like sweeter wines and my boss prefers very dry ones lol.

One specific question I have is whether the blueberries need to be "cooked" or not. Some recipes call for it, but is that basically just for pasteurization and if you use some campden tablets it can be skipped?

Here is the base recipe I have so far:

50 gallon base recipe

-150 lbs of frozen blueberries in a mesh bag
-water to get to 50 gallons
-50? campden tablets
-let sit for 48 hours
-sugar SG to starting point TBD (1.090?) (does sugar need to be added via a boiling water mixture or can I just dump it straight in and mix it well? Am I really looking at like 80-100+ lbs of sugar?)
-1/2 cup acid blend
-1/2 cup pectic enzyme
-5/8 cup yeast nutrient
-1/5 cup tannin
-stir well
-add yeast
-stir and punch cap daily during fermentation, approx 2-3 weeks, monitor airlock activity and SG
-when fermentation slows, remove bags of berries, squeeze bag to extract juices? some say yes, some say no b/c it can make it bitter
-rack wine into 5 gallon carboys, at least two times with 3-4 weeks between to clear, add campden tablets each time?

In the 5 gallon carboys is where I'll make different adjustments. I'll try adding more sugar to some, maybe honey to one, add more blueberries to some in different amounts, and we can also age them different amounts. And I know somewhat about stabilization and stuff down the line that will vary a little for each one, and they'll all be bottled. He also says they didn't add any additional sugar last time, and just used blueberries but that doesn't seem right. But 100 lbs also feels excessive (recipes say 2 or 3 lbs per gallon) but what do I know...

Am I missing anything major in that basic outline?

 

[toadie]

Wow! In your shoes I would make a 5 or 6 gallon batch to start before attempting to ferment the whole amount. Arguably the more fruit and the less water the better the final product. I am a big fan of boiling a small amount of chlorine free water and adding the sugar before adding to the fruit. Maybe try 6 lbs of fruit per gallon but you could definately go higher. Please do not boil the fruit and the standard 1 campden tablet per gallon sounds about right. I will defer to the more experienced country wine makers amongst us but sounds like a fun challenge. Making wine is easy but making good wine is hard. Cheers!

 

[Rice_Guy]

WELCOME TO WINE MAKING TALK , , , ,WOW
* the first I would suggest is put out feelers of who is in your neighborhood and could look over your shoulder an give suggestions and if you are very lucky run quality tests for you. This community seems to have folks in every state and a number of other countries, ,,, so put out feelers
You are looking at commercial quantity with 500 pounds and it will be a shame not to make sales quality wine.
* one question was boiling? we normally do not boil fruit since this dissolves pectin and makes it harder to produce a clear wine.
* if you can find or borrow a larger tank (floating cover) you would have less oxidation to deal with. It can be done in five gallons, ,,, but lots of work.
* my main guidance as a country wine maker is my quality improved when I assumed no free SO2 and maxed on potassium metabisulphite (Campden)
* your starting point is 50 gallons so you may be thinking “run it in a fifty gallon stainless drum. There are things as building in enough space for foam in the primary. ,,,, In the pilot plant I could deal with 500 pounds wet cooked rice, BUT it required a lift, with labor I probably maxed at fifty pounds for repetitive tasks, ,,, and with a 250 pound sample on floor level I managed to give myself a hernia. ,,,, Again someone on the phone to talk things through will help
* there is a function called Private Message in the menue above, try to get to know folks who have been there.
* I don’t know your history, this is food regulated by alcohol and tobacco. Any product sold needs to go through the legal label process. We’re you making it for free samples? Alcohol and tobacco regulates how many gallons can be made in a year with out a license. States also have regulations and you should get up to speed on your local rules.
* there is an area on WMT for folks who have gone commercial.

good luck

 

[Snafflebit]

What a bounty! yeah, jealous. Will this much fruit be close or over the 100 gallon federal limit? There are plenty of ways around that limit, just making you aware of it. Maybe winemaking will become popular at your farm.

Freezing is a better way of breaking down berries for wine. If they are already frozen lucky you.

 

[dralarms]

What a bounty! yeah, jealous. Will this much fruit be close or over the 100 gallon federal limit? There are plenty of ways around that limit, just making you aware of it. Maybe winemaking will become popular at your farm.

Freezing is a better way of breaking down berries for wine. If they are already frozen lucky you.

Most places it‘s 100 per adult in household. For me it’s 200. But imagine you have 6 legal drinking age adults. Wine for days.

 

[heatherd]

So I work on a small permaculture farm doing various tasks and have recently decided/got permission to take on winemaking as my side project.

They have done it before, just to play around and have a setup with a 50 gallon fermenter, a ton of 5 gallon carboys, and most of the materials. I'm gonna take an inventory this week and see what kind of yeast they have and stuff like that, but we currently have 500 lbs of frozen blueberries and a decent amount of blackberries that they need to clear the freezer space for.

My background is in biology and I've homebrewed a few 5 gallon batches of beer in an awful setup in a small apartment. I've been reading a lot and I think my best plan is to make a base 50 gallon batch, and then separate out some 5 gallon batches from that and try adding different amounts of sugar or more blueberries and seeing what we all like best.
Unfortunately I tend to like sweeter wines and my boss prefers very dry ones lol.

One specific question I have is whether the blueberries need to be "cooked" or not. Some recipes call for it, but is that basically just for pasteurization and if you use some campden tablets it can be skipped?

Here is the base recipe I have so far:

50 gallon base recipe

-150 lbs of frozen blueberries in a mesh bag
-water to get to 50 gallons
-50? campden tablets
-let sit for 48 hours
-sugar SG to starting point TBD (1.090?) (does sugar need to be added via a boiling water mixture or can I just dump it straight in and mix it well? Am I really looking at like 80-100+ lbs of sugar?)
-1/2 cup acid blend
-1/2 cup pectic enzyme
-5/8 cup yeast nutrient
-1/5 cup tannin
-stir well
-add yeast
-stir and punch cap daily during fermentation, approx 2-3 weeks, monitor airlock activity and SG
-when fermentation slows, remove bags of berries, squeeze bag to extract juices? some say yes, some say no b/c it can make it bitter
-rack wine into 5 gallon carboys, at least two times with 3-4 weeks between to clear, add campden tablets each time?

In the 5 gallon carboys is where I'll make different adjustments. I'll try adding more sugar to some, maybe honey to one, add more blueberries to some in different amounts, and we can also age them different amounts. And I know somewhat about stabilization and stuff down the line that will vary a little for each one, and they'll all be bottled. He also says they didn't add any additional sugar last time, and just used blueberries but that doesn't seem right. But 100 lbs also feels excessive (recipes say 2 or 3 lbs per gallon) but what do I know...

Am I missing anything major in that basic outline?

Welcome! For wine your process is to ferment to dry at around 0.990-0.995 specific gravity, then add your camden tablets (which should be potassium metabisulfite) and add potassium sorbate. After those two additions you can do smaller tests to see where you want your sweetness, rather than trying tests on 50 gallons, you can do maybe a liter with varying types of sweetener and sweetness.

 

[Rembee]

I don't see it mentioned, but blueberries can and are very acidic. Before adding any acid blend you need to check the ph of your must first. Blueberries can be anywhere from 3.3 to 3.9 in ph without adding any other acid. I would start off with 7 ro 8 lbs per gallon. Crush the berries and add the amount of water you need per the amount of berries your going to use per lb. Then test the ph. A ph meter can be bought on Amazon for a fair price.
1.090 SG is a good starting gravity for blueberries.

And welcome to the forum!

 

[penguinluvinman]

Thanks for all the replies, I've made a good bit of progress and am feeling more confident now.

A couple more questions:
I'll be using a conical fermenter that were pretty sure is 98 gallons. I know it needs some head space, but I'm not sure how big of a recipe to shoot for. I assume 80-90 gallons, which should yield 50-60 gallons of finished wine.

And I assume most of the ingredients just scale up proportionally (so 18x if we go with an 90 gallon recipe), except for the yeast, which I'm gonna about a gallon starter solution.

His fermenting tank also has 2 nozzles - one at the top of the cone to rack the wine above the sediment, and one at the very bottom tip.
After primary fermentation, instead of racking the wine off the sediment into a new vessel is it sufficient to drain the sediment from the bottom and leave the wine from the top in that container? I'd like to leave it in the big one as long as possible, so I could drain the sediment after about a week and leave it for 3-4 weeks then transfer it out, but I'm afraid there might be enough gunk left in the fermenter to impart bad flavors if it's not transferred to a clean vessel.

As far as the legalities concerns some people raised, they should be good on that front but I don't think we'll exceed 100 gallons this year anyway. Maybe that can change though.

 

[Rice_Guy]

A couple more questions: I assume 80-90 gallons, which should yield 50-60 gallons
His fermenting tank also has 2 nozzles - one at the top of the cone to rack the wine above the sediment, and one at the very bottom tip.

* I assume that the conical can run with an air lock, ie anaerobic, in which case I would run the primary (main foam generation) in three food grade 55 gallon drums or equilavent Brute containers, covered with a lose cover (to keep bugs out). I am assuming that the crushed berries are in here and at the end of primary they are filtered out. In running country wine I use a press with a nylon bag as my filter. Pump / fill the conical via the bottom to minimize aeration. ,,,, I can’t help on expected yield, the closest I have done is juneberry.
* for the first racking off the cone, I would pull as much clean wine out into the food grade 55 gallon drums. Then pull the lees (spent yeast) into a clear plastic as a 7 gallon Big Mouth Bubbler to give it a second chance to clarify. When separated this could be kept clean in a carboy or used for testing. ,,,, When the conical is empty clean and pump the wine back into the conical (splashing is bad because oxygenation) You will have void space which is bad, I assume a tri clover cap or bigger in which case you could put a polyethylene bag in and inflate it with CO2 or nitrogen. You again need an air lock.
* at some point it needs to be degassed, I wouldn’t rush it. When racked for bottling it could be held in carboys with vacuum, ,, possibly in the conical if it withstands a low vacuum, ,,, you will see arguments for 15 inches Hg but it is safer using a week time and not doing a fireworks / bubble show.
* water is cheap and in my test facility I would dry run the transfers.
* I have seen more oxidized at one year blue berry wine than clean, my opinion is it is not a long shelf life wine. Marketing would sample the competition, and get a feel for what they like. I would be writing finished product specifications on what marketing wanted, ,,, and hope that I hit it first time! ,,,, well in reality I would be running test batches getting a feel for how the scale up might run/ in process specifications.
*

 

[winemaker81]

Most fruit wine recipes state X lbs of berries per gallon of water. Starting with fruit and adding water to a given level is difficult to judge, as the fruit volume can vary depending on many factors.

2 to 3 lbs of fruit per gallon is going to be weak in blueberry flavor. For most fruit, 5 to 8 lbs per gallon is recommended, but for blueberry I recall it may on the low side of that -- I've made fruit wines, but not blueberry, so I'm going by conversations on WMT.

I'm pinging a couple of fruit wine makers, both of which have experience with blueberry (IIRC). Their advice is solid. @hounddawg, @Scooter68

If you want to experiment with different sugar levels and/or types of sugar, make separate batches. It's going to be complicated if you try to make one batch then separate out and add more sugar. It sounds like you'll be doing quite a few experiments, so keeping things as simple as possible is in your best interest.

Dry vs sweet is simple. Start with an SG around 1.090 and ferment dry. The wine(s) can be stabilized with sorbate/sulfite and backsweetened to taste. Non-grape wines usually benefit from a bit of sugar -- they can be astringent and/or bitter without, and the sugar opens the fruit up. I prefer dry wines so my fruits may have a FG as low as 1.000 (from a wine whose SG was 0.995), so backsweetening can be minimal.

Regarding fermentation, do not use the calendar. Use a hydrometer to determine when fermentation is complete.

Yeast never read a calendar and ignore it.

 

[Snafflebit]

Thanks for all the replies, I've made a good bit of progress and am feeling more confident now.

A couple more questions:
I'll be using a conical fermenter that were pretty sure is 98 gallons. I know it needs some head space, but I'm not sure how big of a recipe to shoot for. I assume 80-90 gallons, which should yield 50-60 gallons of finished wine.

And I assume most of the ingredients just scale up proportionally (so 18x if we go with an 90 gallon recipe), except for the yeast, which I'm gonna about a gallon starter solution.

His fermenting tank also has 2 nozzles - one at the top of the cone to rack the wine above the sediment, and one at the very bottom tip.
After primary fermentation, instead of racking the wine off the sediment into a new vessel is it sufficient to drain the sediment from the bottom and leave the wine from the top in that container? I'd like to leave it in the big one as long as possible, so I could drain the sediment after about a week and leave it for 3-4 weeks then transfer it out, but I'm afraid there might be enough gunk left in the fermenter to impart bad flavors if it's not transferred to a clean vessel.

As far as the legalities concerns some people raised, they should be good on that front but I don't think we'll exceed 100 gallons this year anyway. Maybe that can change though.

I don't love conical fermenters for winemaking, because of all the solids involved. It seems to me that conical fermenters are better suited for beermaking where the liquid goes directly into kegs. What happens if the top adjustable nozzle gets clogged with skins? OTOH, if the conical fermenter is elevated on a stand, you can gravity feed the liquid out. But on the other, other hand having access to a 100 gallon tank is great. I would suggest doing the primary ferment on skins in some other container, like @Rice_Guy says. then move to the conical

 

[penguinluvinman]

@Snafflebit and @Rice_Guy I may have been a bit unclear - there is only one large fermenter, which is a 98 gal conical. The rest of our available containers are 6.5 gal fermenting buckets, and some 5 or 6 gallon glass carboys. Unless you're suggesting to start multiple small batches for primary comma then transfer it to the large conical for secondary.

As of now I think the plan is still to make a full batch, because he really wants to get rid of the berries to clear the freezer space ASAP. So after primary will probably divide up into five gallon batches, which would be like 10-14 containers. I'm thinking maybe half will stay as sort of the base recipe, and then other half I'll try some different things.

After doing inventory, I think he slightly overestimated his blueberry supply, and I think we're looking at closer to 200 or maybe 250 pounds of frozen blueberries

He also has a book (just called the winemakers recipe handbook) he used previously for blueberry, but it only calls for 2 lbs per gallon. The consensus for most recipes I found online seem to be 3-5 pounds per gallon.

The main business of the farm is a CSA produce delivery program, and I believe most bottles will be used as gifts to give those customers, and mostly just for the Farm staff and their friends and family. But I would definitely love to eventually make it a more commercial endeavor. I used to dream of opening a brewery, but I think as I've gotten older a winery sounds more appealing anyway

 

[Snafflebit]

Believe it or not, these trash cans are food grade plastic and USDA approved.
Uline 44 Gal.

Rubbermaid Brute also work, but I like smooth sides

 

[penguinluvinman]

Believe it or not, these trash cans are food grade plastic and USDA approved.
Uline 44 Gal.

Hmm, now there's an idea I never would've considered. So you'd recommend starting ferm in a couple of these, then after primary finishes (presumably about the same time) rack them both into the conical together?

 

[Rice_Guy]

* I assumed that you had one high quality stainless container.
* In the part of the country where I am Craig’s List has food grade barrels free, sometimes called pickle barrels, so this is what I assumed, yes as @Snafflebit says Uline sells inexpensive containers. The winery closest to me will use a HDPE plastic tote 42”*48” by 24H as their primary. ie there are lots of choices of inexpensive open top plastics.
* I am assuming that water is used to top off the 98 gallon, as you note one recipe is two and some are four per gallon, ,,, there is some flexibility, ,,, or choice in style one produces. The end goal is to build a specific acid taste which wine folks describe as titratable acidity of 0.6 to 0.7% calculated as tartaric acid.
* pH is a control point which is involved in the effectiveness of metabisulphite. I target pH 3.20 to 3.30 with fruit wines,,,, lower is more stable but yeast like above 3.00.
it

@Snafflebit and @Rice_Guy I may have been a bit unclear - there is only one large fermenter, which is a 98 gal conical. The rest of our available containers are 6.5 gal fermenting buckets, and some 5 or 6 gallon glass carboys. Unless you're suggesting to start multiple small batches for primary comma then transfer it to the large conical for secondary.

A few berry juice samples
2019 Mi. pH 2.83; TA 1.31%; gravity 1.050
2020 Mi. pH 3.11; TA 1.54%; gravity NA
2019 Peru pH 3.43; TA 0.89%; gravity 1.060
Pink Lemonade var. pH 3.97; TA 0.60%; gravity 1.057
. . . ie there is variation in the crop
two finished blueberry wines;
Wi crop pH 3.73; TA 0.77%; gravity 1.068 (ie back sweetened) 12% ABV
Ma crop pH 3.38; TA 0.70%; gravity 1.018 (ie back sweetened)
* the graphic is sweetness on about 100 wines, consumersd in the US market tend to buy wines from a very rough line in the scatter graph ,,,,ie lots of variation exists in what folks try to sell but it still follows a trend, ,,, and one of the wines in my lab file is sweet and not on the "normal" scale, ,,or "style"
.

 

[hounddawg]

blue berry i'd go 5 to 6 lbs per gallon and plenty of pectic enzyme,,, yeast nurturant and i'd use K1V-1116
Dawg

 

[penguinluvinman]

I'm pretty sure this is the fermenter I'm working with if that helps. It looks like the same tank shape, although our stand is little different. So if I'm understanding, it's better suited for secondary fermentation. Is it permissible to mix different primary batches into one secondary vessel, at least since they're made from the same fruit batch?
I appreciate you taking the time to provide the detailed info, that helps a lot.

@hounddawg we have Lalvin Bourgovin RC 212 and Red Star premier rouge

 

[sour_grapes]

If you use RC212 and blueberries, make sure you use plenty of nutrients.

 

[penguinluvinman]

@sour_grapes my current working recipe for ~50 gallons is
~200 lbs blueberries
2 cup acid blend
1/2 cup pectic enzyme
1/2 cup yeast nutrient
2.5 tbsp tannin

 

[Snafflebit]

Hmm, now there's an idea I never would've considered. So you'd recommend starting ferm in a couple of these, then after primary finishes (presumably about the same time) rack them both into the conical together?

That is what I would do. Or any type of food grade barrel, if you are in a commercial environment there are usually lots of drums available.
I think at these volumes, you will eventually want a pump.