Green newbie with hopes

[janij]

Hi all,
I have recently taken the plunge into wine making. My husband and I brewed some beer in college and that is all the experience I have. I am an avid bread maker so hopefully that will help. And I am not too scared to to try new things. That being said, we recently bought a small farm in East Texas. It has 2 large pear trees in the backyard. I have been over run by pears. My husband came up with the great idea of making wine out of them. So here I am. On Monday I started a 5 gallon batch of pear wine and a 5 gallon batch of blueberry mead/wine. The pear seems to be fizzing away but the blueberry is sluggish. I hope I have not screwed anything up too bad. I looked thru others questions and answers and I am hoping for the best!
Looking forward to learning from all the experience here.
Jani

 

[countrygirl]

welcome to the forum jani!
if ur blueberries are squished up in a bag, the fermenting may be taking place in the berry! that's kinda what my blueberry did. there was not alot of foaming, but the berries would "bloat" back up and i would have to squish them down again. good luck!

 

[Wade E]

Blueberries can be tough along with cranberries as they naturally produce bezoate which is a yeast inhibiter. A proper dose of nutrient and energizer will get this going better. I like to feed all the energizer up front with this and step the nurtient like 1/3rd up front, 1/3rd at around 1.055 and the last 3rd at around 1.030 ot help it finish fermenting. Glad to joined us and we'll be glad to help you on your journey.

 

[janij]

bloating/floating

The blueberries are right up at the top. I do stir them down at least once a day. It has only been 48 hrs but I just think it should be going more. The pear sure is. The hydrometer has dropped from 1.095 to about 1.08. I hope I did that right. It has been a long time since I took a chemistry class!
So you can add ingredients along the way? I could add more nutrient if it was slow. I did not have any energizer. I suppose I could get some this weekend. I also did not put tannin in the blueberry and don't know if I should have. I did put in a bag of jasmine tea. As you can see I an about 1/2 winging this, except for the cleaning!!! But there are so many opposing directions I am about 1/2 unsure what to do.

 

[Runningwolf]

Jani, welcome to our site. Glad to have you as part of the group.

 

[Wade E]

Yes you can add ingredients while it is fermenting and some times this is the best way. I think the tea has added some tannins and blueberry have some tannins themselves so I think your fine in that department. With these harder to ferment wines try and keep the temps up to about 75* to keep the yeast extra happy and if you can get some energizer and add some more nutrient. Dont add any energizer past an sg of about 1.040 as it could ferment out before using up all the energizer possibly leaving a very slight after taste. Energizer has a few ingrediets that nutrient doesnt and is a better option then nutrient if only using 1 or the other but I use both in all my wines. I use 1tsp of nutrient per gallon and 1/2 tsp of energizer per gallon.