Blueberry/Elderberry

[pwrose]

I was looking through the freezer to see what was left to ferment out for this year. I found some elderberries that I had forgotten about, so I figured when I start the blueberry I would add these elderberries to it. What I am not sure of though is whether or not I should juice the elderberries or just put them in with the blueberries.

Here is what I have

18 lbs blueberries
4-5 lbs of elderberries

I was going to hold back 3-4 lbs of blueberries to make an f-pak, so that would leave me about 15 lbs of blueberries for a 3 gallon batch. By adding the elderberries it brings the total fruit in the primary up to a little over 6lbs per gallon.....

Or should I not hold the blueberries back and instead use the elderberries as an f-pak. Just juice the elderberries and condense the juice down to add as an f-pak and backsweetening the straight blueberry.

What is everyones take, oh I will using the slurry to start a 5 gallon batch of you guessed it skeeter pee.

 

[djrockinsteve]

Since the fruit is in the freezer you have split the cell structure to make sugar extraction much easier. I would remove them from freezer, thaw, and add pectic enzyme and other ingred. for 12 hours plus. Juice must be room temp for this. Then add your yeast.

Since it's been in the freezer you probably don't have to sulfite prior but others may have info on this.

Yes skeeter pee with the slurry.

 

[pwrose]

Which way do you think I should go with mixing the berries

straight blueberry with an elderberry f-pak

or

mix the berries for the ferment part and hold out some blueberries for an f-pak?

Thats really what I am not sure of.

 

[djrockinsteve]

Which way do you think I should go with mixing the berries

straight blueberry with an elderberry f-pak

QUOTE]

That would be my choice.

 

[pwrose]

Thats what I was thinking some time ago, I even posted about it here (I had to go look for it)
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9384&highlight=black

But I figured I would ask before I started it just to see.

Thanks for the input.

 

[pwrose]

Time for some more input

Here is the plan
Thursday night take the blueberries out of the freezer and put in the primary to thaw out.

Friday afternoon mash the and add pectic enzyme.

Saturday morning add enough water to bring the liquid amount up to around 4 gallons total, measure SG, acid, and ph levels, add yeast nutrient and energizer. Also while that is setting for the next 12 hours I will start with 3 lbs of honey and heat it up with part of the must and put that back in when it cools down and recheck the SG. If (which I probably will) I need more sugar to get the SG up I will use light brown sugar to help bring it on up to the target SG of 1.090. After the SG is where I am wanting it I will make a yeast starter with the RC-212 yeast that I plan to use. This should be ready to pitch by Saturday afternoon.

After this ferments down to around 1.010 I will put it in the secondary and let it finish.
The elderberries will not be messed with until the SG readings are saying that the wine is done and is dry. Then I plan to juice the elderberries and condense the juice down to about half of what I start with, and add enough white table sugar to get the SG of the blueberry wine up to around 1.020 to 1.025.


That is the plan, here are my questions

1. What should the acid level of the blueberry must be when it starts, the standard .6% or lower since I will be backsweetening with elderberry concetrate?

2. How long should I ferment on the blueberry pulp if I don't want the color to be that dark, or does the pulp have any affect on the color of blueberry wine?

3. Since I will be adding elderberry concentrate to backsweeten should I add any tannins or will there be enough in the blueberries and elderberry juice to cover what should be needed to make a good wine?

4. Is there anything that you might would do different, or that would make this a better wine in the end?

Thanks for the input from all that respond.

 

[Sacalait]

If it were mine I'd make a one gallon batch with the elderberries then proceed as planned with the blueberries. After completion I'd try blending to get the best of both worlds without taking a chance of screwing up an entire batch.

 

[pwrose]

Thats not a bad idea either. The reason that I was going for the backsweetening with the elderberries was because the blackberry I made earlier this year I backsweetened with blueberry juice and sugar and it turned out extremely good. So that was the thought here, but again I will keep this idea in mind as that might be a better option.

 

[pwrose]

Well the wife decided to step in and make a decission which normally dont happen when it comes to my wine making.
I will not be adding any of the elderberries this time around. So with that in mind the process was started last night, the hard part of it all. The blueberries were taken out of the freezer, empting out a hole that now needs to be filled back up, LOL.

Will update as things progress.

 

[pwrose]

This afternoon I spent the most amount of time making a wine that I have to date other than picking the berries. It took me nearly 2 hours to hand squeeze 18 lbs of bluberries into the strainer bag in the primary. I don't know why I did it that way but I did, and now relize I really really need a crusher. That will certainly be my next investment. Ok so now that those are all squeezed I added 2 gallons of water to the berries and juice. This brought the primary up to somewhere around 4.5 gallons. I checked the SG and it was at 1.010, this will be checked again in the morning along with the acid. Adjustments will be made before adding anything futhur. Oh there was also 1 tsp of pectic enzyme added.

SG adjustments will be made using Honey and Light Brown Sugar. The target SG will be 1.090, since I will be using honey in this I figured I would up the starting SG.

 

[pwrose]

Checked the SG this morning and had a 1.020 reading
Added 3 lbs of honey and 2 lbs of light brown sugar which brought the SG up to 1.072
I decided not to add any more at this time and allow the must time to settle and I will check again before I pitch the yeast and make it 1.090 if need be at that time.

Checked the acid and pH and had a .3% on acid and a pH of 4.0
Added 5 tsp of acid blend (all I had left) and checked it again
It was now at .5% and a pH of 3.5

Put the lid on the primary and left it to sit while the yeast starter gets going

Made a yeast starter with RC-212 yeast and will pitch that this afternoon once the SG is where I am wanting it to be.

Afternoon:
Checked the SG and added another 2 lbs of light brown sugar to get to the target 1.090
Pitched the yeast.

 

[pwrose]

The bluberries have bubbled away for several days now and the SG was down to 1.020 yesterday. So I squeezed out the strainer bag and put the wine into the secondary. It ended up being 3.5 gallons so the half gallon ended up in a 1 gallon jug but had enough bubbling going on to protect it until I rack off the 3 gallon.

The lees from the first racking will be used to start up a skeeter pee. Only problem is I will either have to buy another carboy or hope that my apple clears on up and I can bottle it. LOL what a problem to have.

you can follow along in my new blog on this site as well as in this here.
Here is the link to the blog.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/blog.php?b=7

I have it set so no one can make commits but me, just until I can figure out this whole blogging thing. LOL