Blueberry Wine

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Hello everyone, I've been lurking around the forums for a while now, and there's alot of useful information here! So I have a question about one of my current wines..
I'm making 4gallons of blueberry wine, which has been fermenting very slowly(OG was 1.062, and it took 10 days to get to 1.051), but after two weeks I put it in secondary, as it has not been foaming excessively. It's in a 3gallon better bottle, and a one gallon glass carboy. Now, what I'm finding strange is that both carboys have the "bubble" airlocks, and the one gallon has bubbles very consistently(one right after another, I guess around every second or so), but the 3 gallon has none. I know wines don't always bubble in the airlock, but what makes me wonder about it is that one part of it does, and the other does not.
I've heard that blueberry can be difficult to ferment, but it does seem like it's fermenting(you can see tiny bubbles constantly rising to the surface in both), just doing so rather slowly..
Temperature is pretty stable, around 72F, and the two carboys are sitting next to each other. Let me know if everything is okay or if I need to do anything :)
Also, I've been stirring them both a couple times a day.
Thanks for your time :)
 
Careful on the stirring...you don't want to get contamination. Hope you are santizing the snot out of whatever you are using to stir.

I bet the non-bubbler is just fine, but what you should do is wait a week or so and do a gravity reading from each of your secondaries and see if they are roughly the same. It may be the airlock, the stopper or something else leaking a little CO2 so you aren't getting the nice visual bubbling.
 
What's your recipe? We cleaned our freezer the other day and I found a bunch of blueberries I didn't know I had.
 
Careful on the stirring...you don't want to get contamination. Hope you are santizing the snot out of whatever you are using to stir.

I bet the non-bubbler is just fine, but what you should do is wait a week or so and do a gravity reading from each of your secondaries and see if they are roughly the same. It may be the airlock, the stopper or something else leaking a little CO2 so you aren't getting the nice visual bubbling.

Yeah, I've been keeping it sanitized. Should I not stir it anymore now that it's in secondary? I don't stir the others(have a few other fruit wines and a mead in secondary), but I had thought you were supposed to if it wasn't bubbling well.

Thank you though, I will definitely do that :)


As for my recipe:
9lb blueberries
5lb sugar
3gallons water
.25tsp pectic enzyme
3tsp yeast nutrient
Premier Cuvee wine yeast

Boiled 2g water, with 4lb sugar dissolved into it, poured that over my blueberries(which were cleaned and placed in a muslin bag, in the sanitized 6.5g primary), then added the remaining gallon of cool water, and the additional pound of sugar. Stirred the sugar until that was dissolved into it as well, added the enzyme, and airlocked it. The next day I added the nutrient and the activated/prepared yeast, and let it go. Then crushed the berries everyday for about a week, then removed the bag, and stirred it everyday for an addition week before racking to secondary.
 
Hey again everyone,

Sorry to revive an old thread, but this wine is not really cooperating with me I suppose you could say. It's been about 6 months in the better bottle and glass carboy, and after adding another package of champagne yeast back in late September, the final gravity is still too high. I've tasted the wine it is too sweet.
By January it had come down to 1.030, and it hasn't gone any lower since. I'm not particularly wanting to bottle it yet, if there's anything I can do to ferment some of that sugar out.
Also, I had added some sugar with the yeast, bringing the SG back up to 1.06.
So at the moment the Alcohol % would be 6. I'd like to get it up to about 8. I don't need it to be completely dry, just not quite this sweet. :eek:
 
Mt first batch of blue berry wine was stubborn. My recipe called for yeast energizer, but I didn't have any so I put a little extra yeast nutrient to "compensate". It didn't work as I expected, so I went to m LHBS and got the energizer. I'm glad I did and Blueberry is my 2nd favorite of countless flavors made. They still start sluggish even with the energizer though.
 
Well, if you added more sugar, and took the SG from 1.030 to 1.060, you're probably really stressing the yeast. Definitely add some yeast nutrient and/or energizer, and see if that helps. The more fermentables you add, the more the yeast has to work. I wouldn't add any more fermentables!
 
Well, if you added more sugar, and took the SG from 1.030 to 1.060, you're probably really stressing the yeast. Definitely add some yeast nutrient and/or energizer, and see if that helps. The more fermentables you add, the more the yeast has to work. I wouldn't add any more fermentables!

Oh no, I'm sorry. I meant that the OG was 1.061, and after a couple weeks it was down to 1.051. I then added sugar, which brought it back to 1.061, and the [second package of] yeast. The current SG is 1.03, and it has been so for the past few months. Sorry for the confusion on that.

And yeah, looking back I shouldn't have added more so soon...

Do you think I should pitch more yeast, and see if I can get some of that sugar fermented out? Or would that leave it with a yeasty flavour? It's about 3.5 gallons now, after all the racking.
 
Well, you could make a yeast starter. What I would do is get another package of yeast, and rehydrate it according to package directions. Then, add a little sugar water (not much sugar). Then, take out some of your must and dilute it with some water. Add that gradually, over several hours, to your yeast mixture. Keep doing that and then start adding more must and less water. When you've got a great big yeasty starter, and it doesn't stop fermenting when you add straight must, dump it all in your fermenter and it should get going.

In the mean time, add some yeast energizer to your must, too.
 
Well, you could make a yeast starter. What I would do is get another package of yeast, and rehydrate it according to package directions. Then, add a little sugar water (not much sugar). Then, take out some of your must and dilute it with some water. Add that gradually, over several hours, to your yeast mixture. Keep doing that and then start adding more must and less water. When you've got a great big yeasty starter, and it doesn't stop fermenting when you add straight must, dump it all in your fermenter and it should get going.

In the mean time, add some yeast energizer to your must, too.

Did as you said, and it seems to be fermenting away :D
Once it's fermented down, I'm going to stabilize and sweeten it. How long should I wait before bottling? Just until it's fermented, or should I wait a few months, rack it a couple times, and then bottle?
 
I have been making blueberry for a few years and have found that yeast nutrient is your best friend. I add a 1/8 tsp every week until im done fermenting. I Bulk age my blueberry in carboys for 6 months before I bottle, and find it really works well. Then I age in bottle for 3 more months before I touch it. It comes out wonderful with that much time. I Always keep my recipe 2.5 lbs sugar to 3 lbs berries to 1 gallon water. Montrachet yeast.
 
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