Pressing/ juicing berries for fruit wine

[CatsCradle13]

Hi Everyone,

New to the winemaking community! I was wondering if anyone has experience with the quantities of fruit (in pounds) that when juiced/pressed yield one gallon of juice.

I read some past posts and came up with:

9 to 10 pounds of Blueberries Juiced - 1 gallon
10 pound of Blackberries Juiced- 1 gallon

I would love to know about strawberries, cherries, currants, raspberries etc.

Anyone with some experience and or a juicer/presser let me know your findings!

 

[BigDaveK]

Welcome!

Did you simply want to know the quantity of fruit to make a gallon of juice or were you planning to use all juice for wine?

If you're planning all juice...
Making wine is "simple" but you've touched on a topic that's tricky.
Apples, pears, grapes and a few others can be be 100% juice. Most other wines only need 3-6 lbs of fruit per gallon, depending on the quality of the fruit. Using more could be a waste and/or it might not work and/or it may have to age a LONG time to be good.

I just started last year and made blueberry, strawberry, cherry, raspberry and a couple others and each was roughly 4 lbs fruit per gallon. Most were homegrown and not the flavorless grocery store variety. The flavor of the wine, to me, was wonderful! This year I'll experiment with 25-50% more fruit or try a couple other ways to boost flavor.

It may be wise to start with a basic recipe, get comfortable with the process, gain confidence, boost ego, and then go off and start experimenting like crazy.

If you just want a gallon of juice...
I can only give info about apples and grapes - apples about 20-25 lbs per gallon and grapes 20ish lbs per gallon.

 

[CatsCradle13]

Thanks Dave! Yes im interested in no water wines so just trying to wrap my head around how many pounds of berries / fruits it would take to yield one gallon of juice. Something I didn’t consider was the method of juicing I.e steam juicer vs press etc

 

[winemaker81]

@CatsCradle13, welcome to WMT!

Fruit wines vary dramatically, and there are other things you need to take into account. For instance, blueberries are highly acidic, so a pure juice wine would need to reduce acid chemically, or blend with a low acid fruit.

Other fruits are not all that juicy, so it's common to add water. If you go with a fruit+water wine, a lot of folks go higher on the fruit levels, e.g., 6 to 8 lbs for most fruits. Lighter fruit such as strawberry may benefit from more fruit, and heavy fruit such as elderberry need less.

I suggest you do some searches in the Country Wine forums for specific fruit. If you don't find what you're looking for, or if your search produces more questions than answers, post the questions.

 

[CatsCradle13]

winemaker81 , thanks for the reply! I will browse the country wine Forum

 

[BigDaveK]

Thanks Dave! Yes im interested in no water wines so just trying to wrap my head around how many pounds of berries / fruits it would take to yield one gallon of juice. Something I didn’t consider was the method of juicing I.e steam juicer vs press etc

One of the things country wine makers do is freeze the fruit first. It breaks down the cellular structure a bit for better fruit extraction.

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

theres No shame in adding water to your juice. Doesn’t make it any less of a wine.