Recipe Review please!

Long time Brewer, first time vintner. Actually it's my wife who wants to make this after we loaded up on u-pickem blueberries, but I'm helping her with finding a recipe and this one was modified from what I found online. It's here: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1jV-2Xe5lrdrBL0-6S6Fms08wIWGr6A4Qf2FvF0_HU2U

She is using my 2.5 gallon better bottle so we're not going to use nylon since I don't think we'd be able to get the blueberries back out, but we can strain it later. It says to get a hydrometer reading every day until it hits .99, but that seems like a lot of work sanitizing and cleaning my thief and meter everyday so can I just wait a week or so and see how it's doing?

Any other tips for a beginner?

The real hazard of working with fruit is the amount of space it takes up in the better bottle, and the fact that it will float and form a "cap" of densely packed fruit. You really need to be able to accommodate the extra volume, as well as get a spoon/paddle in there to break/punch the cap down daily.

Personally, I would rethink starting in the better bottle, and start in an ale pail for the first week or so. The wine will be putting off enough CO2 that you don't really need to worry about oxidization. And often times, a little bit of oxygen in the primary helps the yeast grow. Just by lurking, Yooper has pounded it in to my head that she just puts a cloth over the top of her wines - for the primary. Then you could follow the remaining steps.

Otherwise, it looks good to me. I've never made a blueberry wine - never had a source that was cheap enough/reasonable enough for quantity. But it sounds yummy.

Daedolon said:

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Personally, I would rethink starting in the better bottle, and start in an ale pail for the first week or so. The wine will be putting off enough CO2 that you don't really need to worry about oxidization. And often times, a little bit of oxygen in the primary helps the yeast grow. Just by lurking, Yooper has pounded it in to my head that she just puts a cloth over the top of her wines - for the primary. Then you could follow the remaining steps.

Otherwise, it looks good to me. I've never made a blueberry wine - never had a source that was cheap enough/reasonable enough for quantity. But it sounds yummy.

Click to expand...

I agree! It'll be almost impossible to stir the cap and to remove the fruit in a BB! I don't even put a lid on my primary, as was mentioned. A clean towel will do as long as you don't have a ton of fruitflies hanging around!

I HIGHLY recommend using a bag for the blueberries. You will NOT easily be able to strain them out without oxidizing the wine. A great big mesh bag so they can be stirred/crushed/smooshed around in the fermetner is great, and then you'll be able to remove them. I'd suggest a plastic bucket, so you can easily do this.

I transfer to the carboy at 1.010-1.020. That's usually 3-5 days, and it's good because you still have some co2 being produced to help protect the wine. I'd wait about 5 days, and plan on transferring then. Check the SG and if it's below 1.020, go ahead and put into secondary.

Thanks for the feedback!