65lbs Organic Blueberries....

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sTiNkFiZzle

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Help! A friend gave me 65lbs of fresh Organic Blueberries. I have a grape crusher, fermenting bottles, camden tabs, and 4lbs of corn sugar. Id like to tey to come up with at least 10 gallons of wine from this. Any recipes, guides, suggestions. My only wine expedience is Apfelwein. Please help! I am also a fan of more dry wines and the wifey likes sweeter wines. So any yeast recommendations would be great.
 
Sorry to jack your thread, but I have a blue berry question too. :mug:

I picked about 2/3 of a gallon of wild Alaskan low bush blue berries today, and I'm gonna get more tomorrow. I rinsed them as soon as I got home and put them in the freezer. Is there anything else I should do to them? Do I just crush them and strain out the juice and mix it until I have a gravity I like, or is there something I don't know? I guess I'm a little worried because I found a millipede in them when I was rinsing them, but that just goes with wine making right?

Should I steep them or would that set the pectin? (I have campden tablets, but don't really want to use them unless I have to)

I plan on using a wine yeast (the only shop in the area in out of champagne yeast), but I'm not sure as to which one.
 
I wouldn't boil or steep fruit. I'd use the campden tablets, one per gallon, in the must. You crush them well, and dissolve them in some water, and add them to the must. Wait 12 hours, and add pectic enzyme (if using in that recipe) and wait another 12 hours and add the yeast. The campden tablets will sanitize the must, killing wild yeast, bacteria, and other spoiling microorganisms.

If you really don't want to use sulfites, then you could boil if you wanted. I don't like "cooked fruit" flavor in my wines.

As far as recipes, I love Jack Keller's website. I like drier wines, but he has several recipes of varying amounts of sweetness. http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request108.asp and http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request227.asp
 
I wish I had known last fall that I could freeze the berries to crush 'em. Also that boiling is unnecessary. Hey, I'm a brewer. We boil stuff, right? Nevertheless, I just bottled 5 gals of huckleberry wine from Oct that was just gorgeous despite all my mistakes. If you and wife like different sweetness levels, you could always make it dry, then sweeten back and stabilize a portion when you bottle. I used a Wyeast smack pack yeast intended for a Riesling - I'm sure that's all wrong too, but it seemed to do the job.
 
Thanks for the input.

Do I need to worry about all my berries still having the stem on them, I mean is the stem going to be broken down into dangerous levels of methanol?
 
Blueberries are my favorite to work with. 2 1/2 lbs per gallon of water and 2 lbs of sugar. It will easily cover your 10 gallons. Use some yeast nutrient every week or so to keep fermentation going, it can get stubborn. +1 to YooperBrew dont boil berries.
 
If all goes well today I'm gonna start a experimental gallon of blueberry wine this afternoon. I don't have a scale, and I didn't buy the berries so I don't know how much they weigh. My plan is measure the berries by volume, and make a few one gallon batches to see what I like more.

Wish me luck, and feel free to send any advice you got my way. :cool:
 
Thanks for the input.

Do I need to worry about all my berries still having the stem on them, I mean is the stem going to be broken down into dangerous levels of methanol?

methanol doesn't come from fermentation, but destructive distillation (burning under pressure) of woody material. Or from the refining of oil. The most the stems could add is extra tannin, which can be a good thing.
 
If the blueberries are about the size of marbles, then 1 layer thick layed down flat in a 1 qt. baggie will be about 1 pound. Once they are thawed you can easily crush them in the baggies with a rolling pin. I like the Montrachet yeast. Actually you can crush more, faster, in a gallon baggie.
 
Sulfite works by creating sulfur dioxide gas in the must, which kills bacteria and other nasties. However, over the course of ~24 hours it will diffuse out of the must and into the air, leaving it once again safe for yeasties and bacteria of all kinds. However, since the bugs that were there have all been killed you are free to introduce your preferred strain of fermenting friends.
 
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