blueberry juice bucket idea

[blueberryboy]

Hey guys. Over the past year I have been working on juicing blueberries, with the idea of selling buckets of blueberry juice.
Each bucket will be balanced to 3.4PH, it will have the added sugar to 1.080 gravity( 19.3 brix). All the juice will be strained so there will be little to no skins or stems. Each bucket contains juice from about 55-65 lbs of blueberries. It will contain minimum sulfites for stabilizing the juice. The juice will be stored in a cooler until it is sold. It will be more of a local thing.
There will be a recipe that come with the bucket, but the wine maker is also free to do what he wants. Whether it be add water and make a bigger batch, different yeasts, or etc. This way the wine is custom to their liking.
The price point I am looking at is $95 for a 5 gallon pail. That is as low as I can go.
Is this something of interest? What could be improved or worked on?
I am looking for input and ideas.
Thanks for the help.

 

[salcoco]

are you going to inhibit fermentation. adding sugar to 1080 will have the wild yeast start the fermentation. if so the customer will have difficult time starting his yeast.

 

[bkisel]

I don't know if it would make a difference to many others but I'd only be interested in 6 gallon/23L buckets. I started with kits and then the DB recipe so I'm all carboyed up for 6 gallons.

Does the cooler keep the buckets from starting to ferment on their own? Guess it would if the temp were low enough.

 

[Johnd]

I'd be interested if the buckets contained the skins from which the juice was pressed and were frozen instead of having been sulfited heavily. Wouldn't need to have sugar added nor pH adjustments made.

 

[Stressbaby]

FWIW, I made a blueberry rosé this year, frozen fruit thawed, pressed off the skins, then fermented without the skins, and it is a very promising wine.

 

[blueberryboy]

My goal for the first year was to use sulfites, and just see if there was a market for bucket of blueberry juice. In the first year I would use the sulfites; just cause to get a freezer to freeze all the buckets would be a massive investment, when I don't know if there is a market out there for this. I can freeze a few buckets maybe like 2-3 if some people would request that, but the price might have to change.
If it all goes good this year, I would like to look into getting a pasteurizer and put it into more 6 gallon bladder bags. If I would pasteurize then no preservatives would be used, and I could start to ship the juice to more wine makers. Also as the comment to the skins, That would be something I would like to get into selling with the juice as well, but starting out I want just try to get the best quality, most convenient, and cheapest product out.
If this can work out really well, and I can make big batches; the cost will go down, and I will start to look into selling blueberry juice bottles for drinks and flavoring beer.
I have gotten a lot of push back from people who say that it won't work, but I give up easily, and I wanted your input.

Thanks for the help, and the insight.

 

[geek]

6gal pure blueberry juice bucket sounds interesting.

 

[Scooter68]

One point I would mention is that not all of us use 100% fruit juice in our blueberry wine. By that I mean we may be using between 4-7 lbs of blueberries per gallon. Using zero water with blueberries results in a very acidic wine. My first and last 8lbs of berries to 1 gallon of wine started out at a pH of 2.91. I don't know how you would plan on balancing the pH to a pH of 3.4.

BUT since I grow my own blueberries I'm not a potential customer for you. I just wanted you to be aware that Blueberries are one of those fruits where not everyone sees 100% berries and zero water as the only way.

 

[Stressbaby]

One point I would mention is that not all of us use 100% fruit juice in our blueberry wine. By that I mean we may be using between 4-7 lbs of blueberries per gallon. Using zero water with blueberries results in a very acidic wine. My first and last 8lbs of berries to 1 gallon of wine started out at a pH of 2.91. I don't know how you would plan on balancing the pH to a pH of 3.4.

BUT since I grow my own blueberries I'm not a potential customer for you. I just wanted you to be aware that Blueberries are one of those fruits where not everyone sees 100% berries and zero water as the only way.

True. My straight juice blueberry rosé had an unadjusted pH of 2.64. Calcium carbonate adjusted pH to 3.29, postferment right now sitting at 3.20. I really don't think you would have to take it all the way to 3.4.