Pretty much fail

[jswordy]

Pretty much fail - BUT I SAVED IT

I guess this is as good a place to put this disappointed rant as any.

As some know, I bought some blueberry puree off the site many, many months ago that unfortunately started to ferment on the way here. I put it in my fridge unknowing, and when I came back to is a couple weeks later, the milk jugs it was in were ballooned.

So I was forced to make wine, and added some good yeast to it, as well. Well, it has turned out to be my most expensive fruit-made wine and it is a fail. Quite a while back, I bought a vac pump and filter system from Wade, and I was forced to use it today for the very first time to run this murky muck through a 1-micron filter. (I do not want to chemically clear it. You are what you drink.)

It still is hazier than I like but it at least is much clearer. Unfortunately, there was some shipping damage to the pump fittings I did not see when I got it, so I cobbed it a bit and got it going. Then I had an air leak in the filter I never did get fixed so you have an idea what a frustrating day it has been.

Previously, over months and months I had racked this over a few times and even put it out for over a week in the cold, a sure-fire settler for me, but no dice. The lees are very very fine because of the wild yeast. I have never seen them so fine, so unwilling to settle out.

I had to back-flavor with blueberry wine base because the berry flavor was not prominent enough, etc.

So I figure I've got about $70-80 in this 6-gallon jug by now. Mostly what I get now is a bready taste due to the wild yeast. I added a bunch of sugar to pump the berry flavor up and try to make something out of it.

Don't get me wrong, it's drinkable and it will get you drunk, but I had initial hopes this puree would be far better than any blueberry I have ever made. I've done better with Wal-Mart blueberries.

So I'll let it sit another week and bottle it off. Looks like I get to drink all this one myself instead of giving it away as I planned. Glad this an extremely rare event for me. Never had this exact thing happen before.

Some days you step in it, some days you don't. Rant over.

 

[BernardSmith]

Ach, I am so sorry. You don't think that it will turn around in a couple of years and perhaps be the best blueberry wine you have ever made?

 

[Boatboy24]

Funny you're writing this. I just tasted my blueberry port today - 18 months old and still not where I want it. That blueberry can be tough to work with, I guess.

 

[jswordy]

I have made tons of blueberry. I have medaled with blueberry. Blueberry wine is my favorite wine.

Where this went wrong was when it was contaminated and started to ferment on the way here. I should have dumped it then, probably. I am always preaching about using good wine yeast and not just letting it wild ferment, but this one forced my hand.

There's no long aging with blueberry wine. Within 6 months, surely no longer than a year, it's about as good as it is going to get on its own without outside help, IMO. Best of luck, Jim.

 

[Deezil]

No bentonite?

Blueberry is one of my favorites as well

 

[wineforfun]

Don't get me wrong, it's drinkable and it will get you drunk

Sounds like a success to me, albeit a very expensive one.

 

[jswordy]

I've never used bentonite in blueberry before. It's all turned out fine. But I was making it from fruit, not puree. I hardly ever use clearing agents in any wines I make.

I finally gave in and added Super Kleer. That's the third time in all these years I've ever used a clearing agent. It really doesn't look like it did much either, except make the wine so my wife cannot drink it. Whatever. Next step is into the bottle, whenever I get the time.

Ah well, I learned.

 

[jswordy]

Hey, hey, let me give a little update on this one.

My blueberry wine is just OK in a bench test, has a strange taste high in the mouth near the glottis. I have added too much sugar to it now in efforts to bring out the flavor and get it to behave.

So I am right now drinking a test glass where I blended it with scuppernong. This is gonna work. Adds vinosity and power down low, removes the odd taste from the top. It is clearer, too.

Looks like 1/3 scuppernong wine and 2/3 blueberry ought to work.

It's amazing how something like this can work at the brain of a vintner. I have been mentally chewing around the edges of this vexing problem for a while. I might have something now. Yay.

 

[GreginND]

That is unfortunate.

Did you dilute the puree at all or just let it go by itself? I bought a 55 gal drum of what is probably the same puree. Mine was aseptically sealed and was not fermenting. I used some of the puree in a 100 gal batch of dragons blood started in November. It is crystal clear now all by itself. It's turning out great.

 

[jswordy]

I prepped the puree as I would have any must, even though it was actively fermenting already. I left out the k meta. Added water to volume directed by seller, added sugar to bring the SG up where it needed to be. I also added a wine yeast but the die had been cast as far as wild yeast flavor and lees.

Fortunately, today I bottled it. Post fermentation, I ended up using a half-gallon of blueberry wine mix from homewinery.com and then blending it as 60% of this blueberry and wine solution, 25% from a Thompson Grape oaked recipe of which I had a case and a half still around, and 15% scuppernong. All this greatly reduced the bready taste and made for a clear wine. I got 53 bottles yield after all this blending.

It's the most expensive wine I ever made, especially for what it is, but at least it is consumable now. I can serve this to friends without embarrassment.

 

[jswordy]

Looking at my bottles today to see if any are OK to bring to a party next week, and every single one of them has crud lying in it. Just very disappointing. This will all have to be consumed at home. I learned my lessons on this batch.



This was bulk aged since the end of July, run through a 1-micron whole house filter, Super-Kleered and allowed to sit for a week after that. From now on, I'll stick with fruit. Sorry for the downer thread. Grrrrrr!

 

[HB_in_Subic]

What if you were to use K-Meta in the very beginning when you found the wild yeast fermentation? Would that have been the proper thing to do? I don't mean to be an armchair quarterback...

 

[jswordy]

It was too far along. What I should have done was dumped it, and saved myself money in the long run. Sigh...