- Joined
- Mar 8, 2021
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- 11
Well, after a two-year hiatus from anything wine making related, I have some time to dabble in this again! We bought a big old farmhouse (basement perfect for winemaking equipment) out in rural Indiana last year and I have plenty of room to grow fruit now, part of which will turn into wine hopefully when the trees are more mature. It looks like we have some gooseberry bushes and thanks to some birds, we have a few black raspberry bushes coming up. I planted a couple of peach trees last year and we also have a couple of mature wild pear trees, so lots of possibilities.
I ran across a recipe for a blueberry/blackberry wine that I'm trying now. I bought about 23 lbs. of frozen blueberries and blackberries and assembled everything into a food grade 5 gallon bucket. I don't have a fruit crusher or press, so I crushed the fruit as best I could by hand. The blackberries crushed easily but the blueberries not so much. The first time I made some fruit wine a couple years ago I didn't use a mesh bag and I remember what a mess it was trying to strain that, so everything in a bag now! I added about 2 1/2 gallons of spring water to bring the volume up near the top of the bucket and added 5 crushed campden tablets, wine tannin, pectic enzyme, acid blend, and yeast nutrient. I let it sit in the basement overnight and the next day added about 11 lbs. of sugar and pitched a packet of EC1118 yeast. My initial SG started out at 1.100. Fermentation was off to a good start by the next day. Now fast forward 7 days and the SG is at 1.020 and I was thinking it's time to rack off the fruit. I pulled the bag out of the bucket and transferred it to one of my wife's kitchen colander strainers on a big stainless-steel bowl. I didn't know blueberries had such tough skins, so just did the best I could. So far so good. It has a wonderful smell and still retains a nice fruity taste with the alcohol developing. It's such a contrast to a failed strawberry wine attempt a couple years ago where I think I used way too little fruit (6 lbs. of berries for 5 gallons)...it was high alcohol, thin and nasty tasting, didn't smell great either. LOL, my wife mixed it with punch and let her friends drink it! I also didn't have a good way to sanitize everything, I just used dish detergent and rinsed. Now I used Star San on everything and made sure anything touching the wine must had Star San on it. From the 5 gallon bucket I have about 3-1/2 gallons now in glass jugs with airlocks. Not sure what to do with the odd half gallon, I guess my choice is either fill it up with some cider or other wine I have on hand or find a smaller container (glass growler maybe?) Am I missing anything?
I ran across a recipe for a blueberry/blackberry wine that I'm trying now. I bought about 23 lbs. of frozen blueberries and blackberries and assembled everything into a food grade 5 gallon bucket. I don't have a fruit crusher or press, so I crushed the fruit as best I could by hand. The blackberries crushed easily but the blueberries not so much. The first time I made some fruit wine a couple years ago I didn't use a mesh bag and I remember what a mess it was trying to strain that, so everything in a bag now! I added about 2 1/2 gallons of spring water to bring the volume up near the top of the bucket and added 5 crushed campden tablets, wine tannin, pectic enzyme, acid blend, and yeast nutrient. I let it sit in the basement overnight and the next day added about 11 lbs. of sugar and pitched a packet of EC1118 yeast. My initial SG started out at 1.100. Fermentation was off to a good start by the next day. Now fast forward 7 days and the SG is at 1.020 and I was thinking it's time to rack off the fruit. I pulled the bag out of the bucket and transferred it to one of my wife's kitchen colander strainers on a big stainless-steel bowl. I didn't know blueberries had such tough skins, so just did the best I could. So far so good. It has a wonderful smell and still retains a nice fruity taste with the alcohol developing. It's such a contrast to a failed strawberry wine attempt a couple years ago where I think I used way too little fruit (6 lbs. of berries for 5 gallons)...it was high alcohol, thin and nasty tasting, didn't smell great either. LOL, my wife mixed it with punch and let her friends drink it! I also didn't have a good way to sanitize everything, I just used dish detergent and rinsed. Now I used Star San on everything and made sure anything touching the wine must had Star San on it. From the 5 gallon bucket I have about 3-1/2 gallons now in glass jugs with airlocks. Not sure what to do with the odd half gallon, I guess my choice is either fill it up with some cider or other wine I have on hand or find a smaller container (glass growler maybe?) Am I missing anything?
