Is this Recipe Plausible?

A friend of mine gave me a recipe he heard at a Home Brew Club.
Its to be a red wine.

This recipe is for 7 gallons:

28 lbs. Blueberries
46 oz. Grape wine concentrate (Alexander's Wine Concentrate)
Water to make 7 gallons
14 lbs. sugar
Acid Blend, tannin, yeast nutrient, pectin enzyme.
Yeast.

Do you think this recipe has any flaws or is it decent?
Thanks for reading, and for possible suggestions.

Its going to be weak, more fruit and concentrate, what yeast are you going to use? 7 gallons is a bit of an odd target? WVMJ

7 gallons in the primary probably to assure 6 gallons (less pulp etc) in the carboy?

No quantities shown for some of the ingrediants, might want to check Jack Kellers site for those.

The 7 gal. was to make sure the first racking made it into the 6 gal. As for the yeast I have been using
Cote des Blancs lately.
I purposely left out some quantities such as acid blend, tannin, etc. That I would figure out when time came.

Any ideas on using say, Vintner's Best Fruit Base to use in conjunction with the frozen berries I purchased last summer?

Duh, I do 5 gal batch so aim for 6 in the primary, of course its a good idea to do 7 and get 6 out, brain fart on my part. VH would do very well, You could either stick with the blueberry theme or to make it more interesting use a can of elderberry base. Depending on what your goal is, is this just going to be a nice light table wine or a port style dessert wine? If you want a beefier wine add another can of base like a blueberry, or go crazy and drop in a raspberry or strawberry to make it even more fruitier, you can make your primary 6.5 gal, hold back the VH and then add it when you transfer over to the carboy to preserve a little more fruit flavor. A little bit of oak goes well with berries if you like oak in your wines. WVMJ

Thanks WVMJ for some ideas. After reading your post I looked around a Brew Supply site and I'm not exactly sure of how much of the items (Concentrates, Fruit Base) would be needed to get my desired result.

So I'm trying to decide if I should just make a Wine Kit, which roughly would be the same cost as going my original route.

Up to this point I have only made fruit wines and Meads that were pretty straight forward. So I'm thinking for my nxt larger project I'de go with the Kit which would have more of a guaranteed result. It would be more cost effective.
By the way, your link in your signature was interesting, must be nice to have a fruit source of something you enjoy right on your property. That's an investment I should look into for myself.

shhh said:

Thanks WVMJ for some ideas. After reading your post I looked around a Brew Supply site and I'm not exactly sure of how much of the items (Concentrates, Fruit Base) would be needed to get my desired result.

So I'm trying to decide if I should just make a Wine Kit, which roughly would be the same cost as going my original route.

Up to this point I have only made fruit wines and Meads that were pretty straight forward. So I'm thinking for my nxt larger project I'de go with the Kit which would have more of a guaranteed result. It would be more cost effective.
By the way, your link in your signature was interesting, must be nice to have a fruit source of something you enjoy right on your property. That's an investment I should look into for myself.

Click to expand...

If you are unsure about the recipe, why not scale down the batch to a 1 gallon or even a 3 gallon size? Lower cost to give it a try.

Our elderberries failed 2 years in a row, so now they are considered ornamental until they produce again! Cider orchard going in this spring, hoping elderflowers will mix well in a cider so we can at least use them for that. What kind of kit would you get that matches your orginal post? Good luck. WVMJ

So any ideas about using a white grape concentrate as a source of sugar and body for lighter fruit wines? Example: peach, apple, strawberry. Then vice versa for red grape concentrate on more assertive fruits such as
blueberry and elderberry?
Nice idea using one can to get say, 2 or 3 one gallon batches started.
Maybe a nice carrot-apricot with a Pinot Chardonnay concentrate? I guess the combinations can be endless.

Sorry to hear about the Elderberries failing, I have a pear tree and these last few years it hasn't produced
any good fruit not to mention the squirrels and birds getting at it.
Take care guys, thanks for helping me spit ball some ideas.

I use grape or fruit juice frozen concentrates. They work as a suger bost to start with. Any grape juice makes wine yeast happy, so the less like grapes your wine fruit is the happier the yeast will be with a grape juice added. I use them for backsweetening as well. They do work as a flavor bost. I like wines made with more then one type of fruit. So even a little concentrate to a plain wine will add complexity.
Some people make wines just using the concentrates. They are just a little flat for me. Even a small amount of fruit makes a huge diference. Or added tannins can help some.

Back in mid January I put together a smaller batch based on the original post.
I used 5 lbs. of blueberries.
20 oz. Merlot concentrate.
2 lbs. sugar.
Water to make 1.5 gallons.
1/4 Tsp. Acid blend.
1/4 Tsp. Tannin
1 Tsp. Nutrient.
Added a campden tablet, 12 hours later I added Pectin Enzyme.
24 hrs. later I pitched Montrochet yeast.
The SG was 1.090.
Stirred daily for the first 10 days.

On the 28th of January I racked it off the fruit into secondary, the gravity was down to 0.992.
I tasted it at racking time but I can't recall anything now besides I thought it a bit thin but, I was tasting it against a 12 day old Pyment that I was also racking to glass 2ndary. So you can imagine the tastes aren't quit there.

Thanks for reading if you did. I figure I'de share my process and any ups or downs with one of my batches.