Blueberry wine

Post date: Aug 26, 2012 9:19:40 PM

8/26/12 2PM Started

This recipe is a mashup of Blueberry Wine (1) from winemaking.jackkeller.net and this one from http://homemadewine.wordpress.com (Adapted from Stanley F. Anderson and Raymond Hull's The Art of Making Wine)

2½ lb. wild blueberries (Wyman's frozen wild blueberries from Costco)

½ lb. raisins (SunMaid, also from Costco)

2 lb. granulated sugar

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1-1/2 tsp citric acid

3/4 tsp malic acid

3/4 tsp tartaric acid

½ tsp. yeast nutrient

1/8 tsp tannin

water to 1 gallon

crushed Campden tablet

One package Red Star Cote de Blanc Yeast

Bring half the water to boil, then set aside. Put thawed blueberries and chopped raisins into a nylon fermentation bag in primary fermentation vessel, and mash well by squeezing in your (clean) hands. Add the still hot water to the primary fermenter to help with thawing. Boil the other half of the water and add sugar to dissolve. Pour into fermenter and add the rest of the ingredients except yeast. Cover well and allow to cool.

8/26/12 5PM

Yeast was pitched at 92.6F.  OG was 1.084 (corrected O.G. 1.0889). 

8/26/12 Late night

Yeast is bubbling away

8/27/12 8:30PM

There was a rotten egg smell coming out the airlock.  Web consensus on that is that the must need to be aerated to clear out H2S and give the yeast more oxygen.  Stirred and splashed for 10 minutes with a sterilized ladle.  Must smelled much better afterward, tastes fine (still very sweet).

8/29/12 2PM

After a couple days, the egg smell was back, but not as bad.  Pressed and removed the fruit bag today, stirred and aerated again, fished out some stray raisins.  Going to rack this weekend.  Still fermenting.  Tastes somewhat sweet, but not overwhelmingly so.

8/30/12 4PM

Racked today.  Stirred and aerated before racking to clear the H2S smell.  The batch was a little large, so it filled a gallon jug to within a few inches of the top.  Put the rest in a VitaminWater bottle and in the fridge.  Taste is intriguing - I think it will be good once it clears and matures.  Fermentation is not done, gravity is 1.014 or so.  Mild sweetness, clearly alcoholic, not fizzy.  Nice reddish purple color, very cloudy.  pH is fairly acidic, so I think the blue pigment is red at that pH.

9/22/12 10AM

Racked.  Wine is much clearer and has a beautiful purple color.  It is very acidic still.  I think I may need to sweeten or blend this. I think wild blueberries are much more acidic than domesticated ones, which were the basis for the recipe.  Next time I will cut the acid by a lot.

10/10/12 5PM

Racked.  The wine is very clear and a really nice reddish purple.  I take back what I said about the acid - it's mellowed out a lot.  Very drinkable.  I think I'll bottle it this weekend, and then think about making this in quantity!

10/13/12 10AM

Bottled.  Got 5 full bottles plus a little bit (maybe a cup).  That is with the gallon carboy topped off to the neck.  Interesting - the wine tastes kind of acidic again (not vinegary, kind of citric acidy).  Basically the way I remember it on 9/22.  But it didn't the other day when it was chilled and had been aired for a few hours.  So I think that this wine needs to breathe a bit before drinking.

11/6/12 7PM

Took a bottle over to dinner/election watching at my parents' house.  It was really very good, even though only 2-1/2 months old.  The sourness had really mellowed out, and the wine was noticeably clearer.  Indistinguishable from "real" wine, although a bit lighter bodied than what we usually drink.

11/17/12 4PM

Looks like I didn't record a final gravity - I have a vague memory of it being 1.000, which would make it about 12% ABV.  Chose the name "Wild Blue Yonder".