Blueberry Wine

[redneckwineo]

Help! What do I do next? I'm a newbe winemaker and love it. I'm in the process of my first 6-gallon batch of blueberry wine. I used 15lbs of blueberries, 13lbs of sugar, 1lb of raisins, 1/2 tsp of Petic Enzyme, 1 tbsp Acid Blend, 1/2 tsp energizer, 1-1/2 tbsp of nutrient, 6 crushed campten tabletsand 1 pkg of pastuer red yeast for my recipie. My OG was 1.112. Seven days later my SG is 1.068 and has dropped a couple of points each day. I removed the pulp bag today and the must is still active with a SG of 1.068. Do I rack to my secondary at this point or let it go until the SG reaches 1.040 or lower? I was hoping for a dry blueberry wine but am lost. Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions...

 

[Wade E]

Your not lost! You should either wait till it gets down to about 1.020 and stir a little and rack or put the lid and airlock on at that time and let it ferment to dry in the bucket. That is a very low amount of fruit for a 6 gallon batch and quite a bit of sugar. I would recommend next time using about 6-8 lbs of fruit per gallon na d less sugar to start with a sg of around 1.085. You are lost likely going to have a weal flavored wine here which will require a flavor pac to be added. Search Flavor pac on here which will most likely be a post by either me or Tom.

 

[tkutch]

+1 to Wade. I have a little experience but not as much as others with fruit wines. My main question, is the recipe for 6 gallons or 1 gallon? I have noticed many recipes I look at make a batch for one gallon and tell you to multiply it if you want to make a larger batch(ex 6 gallons).

 

[gaudet]

Redneckwino

Your yeast have a really big load to carry there bud. You are at about 6% ABV right now.

Just a couple questions for you:

What temperature are you fermenting at? If you are lower than 70 degrees you might want to warm it up a little to help those yeasties along. That might help speed up your fermentation a little. You could also try making a starter with another packet of pasteur red and some of the must to kick start it.

Also, have you added any yeast nutrient or energizer to the must? That will help to promote better fermentation as well.

Using winecalc, the 13#'s of sugar you used made your SG 1.085 without the added 15#'s of fruit. You can download winecalc from here http://www.xs4all.nl/~mpesgens/thwp/winecalc.html it will help you to figure out how much sugar to add to achieve your desired starting gravity.

Tkutch

When making fruit wines you should go with about 5-6#'s of fruit per gallon of wine. You can almost judge the size of the recipe from that alone. I have made decent wines with 3-4#'s per gallon, but they tend to come out thin. You can add some boiled chopped bananas to your must to help boost the body if you like a fuller wine.

 

[Tom]

Yep Wade is right I make Blueberry with 36#'s and another 10# for a f-pac and backsweeten.


ALSO, that starting gravity is 15% = WOW ! thats high. It may not ferment dry as I think it about the top for that yeast.

 

[redneckwineo]

hey, I do appreciate the advise.
Hereare some answers to some ofyour questions.
It was a recipie for 6-gallons.
The fermenting temperature is 75 to 76*.
I added 1 1/2 tbsp of nutrient and 1/2 tsp of energizer at the begining.
I checked the SG today and it was 1.062


Do yall suggest pitching another pack of yeast and/or more nutrient to the must?

 

[gaudet]

Redneckwineo,

Give your wine a boost with a tablespoon of yeast energizer and two of yeast nutrient and give it a stir. You should see increased activity in your fermentation after that. I would hold off on another packet of yeast since your fermentation is going albeit slowly. If the nutrient and energizer don't speed you up then maybe add another packet of yeast, but I don't think its going to be needed.

The nutrient I use is added at 1 tsp per gallon and the energizer is added at 1/2 tsp per gallon.

 

[redneckwineo]

thanks gaudet, I just kicked it up a notch as you suggested...

 

[Wade E]

Blueberry is almost always a slow fermenter as it naturally produces Benzoate which is a yeast inhibitor so the nutrient and energizer are needed more in Blueberry and cranberry.

 

[redneckwineo]

Its me again....

I added the nutrient and energizer as suggested. Tonight the SG was 1.050. Seems that the must has settled down a lot.I sure worked hard picking those bluberries even though I should've used more. Any suggestions on saving this batch and making a semi- or dry wine?

 

[OGrav]

If it's fermenting; I'd leave it be, especially if you just added the nutrient and energizer. Your yeast should take it to 14/15%, though that's the upper range. This might take awhile and it's possible you're going to end up with some residual sugar. I did a blueberry wine with some KIV1116 a few years back; that took a while to start as well. I ended up feeding that one over six months to about 17%. I used about three pounds per gallon, and two years later, it is smooth and the fragrance can fill a room. If you are just a few weeks into it, you have plenty of options. You can rack laterand top up with concentrated juice, don't worry. With your numbers; you got it fermenting to begin with; I think you're past the hard part.

 

[gaudet]

Gotta agree with 0Grav, let it keep going until you get no further activity. You can add some more energizer and nutrient to feed it in the weeks to come. You might be able to coax it to 15% and then stabilize it, clear it, bottle it, and put it to rest for a couple years.

 

[Wade E]

I would stray from from adding more energizer any more if you have already added the recommended dosage cause if the yeast dont finish using this it will leave a bad taste in your wine unlike nutrient where that gets easily used and settles out much easier. Just keep stirring it to keep the yeast happy.

 

[redneckwineo]

I fed it a little breakfast-nutrient this morning. The SG is now at 1.034. Hopefully this stuff may just turn out drinkable! I'm sure I will have more questions. I have sucessfully made a couple of kits purchased from the toy store. Certainly easier that way. So far, I've tried to make a couple gallons of mead, got a gallon each of bananna, strawberry, strawberry/bananna blend and a gallon on blueberry Melomel in some carbouys now. Seems every batch of anything that I try to make is in some way different. Guess thats what makes it fun! This is a great forum, thanks to people like ya'll that are willing to help. I appreciate all of your post and suggestions.

 

[Wade E]

Those sound like some tasty Meads there. Yep, every batch will be different as yeast are alive and they can get fussy just like people. When making a mead, blueberry, or cranberry wine/mead I always break up the nutrient/energizer that I usually add up front and deliver them in stages sort of like what you are doing here but not adding more then suggested er bottle. Doing it this way really helps the yeast stay awake and keep on truckin especially with meads that can sometimes plug on forever.

 

[Goodfella]

Sounds like things are starting to look better... at least now you are almost to the range that you could turn it into a port if you had to.

 

[OGrav]

So any update? It looked like things were progressing along nicely.

 

[redneckwineo]

I racked the wine again and it has been bulk aging for over a month now. It was tasty but light bodied. I topped it off with a good cabernet to removed some of the head space and will probably bottle late December. I will certainly use more fruit/gallon next time.
The meads turned out great and pack a punch with each glass! I still have the blueberrymelomel in the secondary and plan to bottle it later.I'm begining tofavor some of this meads...I just need to work on my patience and let some of this stuff age...

 

[vcasey]

I racked the wine again and it has been bulk aging for over a month now. It was tasty but light bodied. I topped it off with a good cabernet to removed some of the head space and will probably bottle late December. I will certainly use more fruit/gallon next time.
The meads turned out great and pack a punch with each glass! I still have the blueberrymelomel in the secondary and plan to bottle it later.I'm begining tofavor some of this meads...I just need to work on my patience and let some of this stuff age...

Just make a bunch, lots more then you drink. I make 2 or 3 at a time and I leave it in the carboy for 2 years (the hard part). Then I bottle it and let it sit for a year. By that time its starting to get really good!