Help with a Blueberry Wine recipe

[WindyCoastWine]

Just picked 20 lbs of Blueberries and decided to make my first Blueberry Wine. Thought that I would ask for any advice on my recipe before I started.

3 Gallon recipe:
20 lbs of Blueberries for wine
4-5 lbs of Blueberries for F-Pac
Water: 2 1/2 gallons ?
Enough sugar to raise SG to 1.085
Enough acid blend to acheive TA of .60%
Yeast: Cote de Blancs or Pasteur Red or Lalvin EC-1118 ??
3 Campden Tablets
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
3 tsp. pectic enzyme
?? tsp yeast energizer (I know that Blueberry is tough to ferment)
Grape Tannin ??

- Freeze blueberries
- Thaw in straining bag and crush. Add water, campden, and yeast nutrient.
- Wait 12 hours and add pectic enzyme.
- Check SG and TA and adjust as needed
- Wait 12 hours, add yeast
- Punch down 1-2 times daily
- Remove bag and rack at 1.020 SG (or remove bag and wait for lower SG to
rack?? Maybe around 1.010)
- Wait 4 weeks and rack. SG less than 1.000. Degass, back sweeten with F- Pac, and add clearing agent.
- Rack and make final adjustments. Filter and bottle.
- Age for at least 6 months.

Thanks for the Help!

 

[closetwine]

I just did one with Corte de Blanc, and I do NOT recommend it for blueberry. It's tough to get it going. Mine required like 6x the energozer/nutrient recommendations to even get it started.
Sounds ok to me....
ANYONE ELSE?

 

[SBWs]

With berries I'd get the pectic enzyme in right away. Then wait the 24 hours to added sugar and adjust acid. The pectic enzyme will bring the remaining sugar out of the berries. If you wait and add it along with sugar your S.G. could go up even more while waiting to pitch yeast. With today's pectic enzyme you don't need to wait 12 hours to add. I'd look at adding 1 cup light dry malt it will add body and help the fermentation to start. (But watch because you won't need as much sugar) Blueberry can sometimes be a little harder to start (not so much hard to start as just takes it's good ole time), keeping the must around 70 degrees seems to help with that. For yeast I like either Red Star Montrachet or Lalvin K1-V1116 for blueberry. With the ones you have listed I'd go in reverse order if that is all you have. Good Luck!

 

[MN-winer]

Blueberries are hard to ferment. They have a chemical in them - Benzoate I believe - which is a natural preservative. I was not able to get mine fermented until I did a yeast starter and slowly added blueberry must to the starter until it was going good. Good luck!

 

[rojerronny]

I've been making wine from one moment to another. All I can say is make sure that the juice has no preservatives and then just check your OS. You do not want much greater than 1110 to start. Just add sugar or water to adjust that. Take a little taste at first, and if both weak and if you add more strong then add a little water.

 

[UglyBhamGuy]

With today's pectic enzyme you don't need to wait 12 hours to add.

i can find no other source to substantiate this, can you tell me where you obtained this information?

 

[SBWs]

According to Luc's Blog he did an experiment on this and as long as you don't over sulphite, the sulphite doesn't effect the PE. I have never wait 12 hours, unless the temp was to low or high, to add pectic enzyme in any wine I've ever made. Never had a problem (knock on wood).

 

[UglyBhamGuy]

According to Luc's Blog he did an experiment on this and as long as you don't over sulphite, the sulphite doesn't effect the PE. I have never wait 12 hours, unless the temp was to low or high, to add pectic enzyme in any wine I've ever made. Never had a problem (knock on wood).

I thought i had read it, that must have been where.
I trust Luc, as well.

Thanks.

 

[SBWs]

Experimenting

He does a lot of experimenting that I wish I had the time to do. Rereading his BLOG post makes me wonder if I shouldn't be paying closer attention to the temperature of my must before adding my pectic enzyme.