little help

[odorf]

I can make a little apple cider. but am not by any means an accomplished wine maker
blueberry season is on us,
I want to make some blueberry wine
using 1 gallon of blueberries per 1 gallon glass jug, i can use 2 gallons berries per 1 gallon
what do you recommend?
and lalvin ec118 champagne yeast.
i plan on freezing the berries to break them down
should i add sugar? if so, how much?

 

[bernardsmith]

Blueberries contain compounds that sometimes inhibit fermentation so don't be surprised if the fermentation stalls. How much sugar you should add depends entirely on how much alcohol you want this wine to have. My guess is (and it is a guess) that your berries when juiced will have a gravity of about 1.035 - 1.045. Dilute that with water and the gravity (and flavor) drops. Not sure how much juice you can get from 1 gallon of berries - a pint? How much wine are you hoping to make from this volume of juice? Grape wines generally have a starting gravity of about 1.090 but cider has a starting gravity of about 1.045 (or half that of wine). A pound of sugar added to water to make a total volume of 1 gallon will increase the SG of the water from 1.000 to 1.040. Cannot tell you what you should do. Can just say that what you do should be based on what you are looking for.

 

[odorf]

sounds like a need to pick more berries
thanks i will check back when ready to procede
thank you

 

[bernardsmith]

I am a bit of a contrarian. In my opinion, you only dilute fruit if the undiluted fruit tastes too tart (and that can happen with cranberries or oranges) or you want something else to play front and center of the wine - say, honey, if you are making a melomel, a mead with added fruit. Water is used for brewing but in wine making* (IMO) water is really best used for cleaning your equipment... It's the fruit that should be the stars of the show, not flavored water.
* Water (or fruit juice) is needed in mead making too as honey is simply too concentrated to be able to ferment with such a high percentage of sugar. In fact honey is so concentrated that it will pull out moisture from living cells and kill them which is why historically, honey was used to treat wounds. It is a natural bactericide when undiluted.

 

[Mr impatient]

Hi, not to be rude but 'suck it and see'. I am getting the impression that using only pure juice from fruit is where I need to be but it aint.

For my apple wine (my missus recons I make over strong flat cider) I use 5lb of apples liquadised and put into a 5ltr pan with just under 1 ltr of water to bring up the volume, then after boiling I add 3 1/2 lb of sugar per gallon. I only make 3 gallons per bucket (25ltr bucket) and I get two and a half demijohns from the mix, squeezing the apples out after the first firmentation can take a few hours but it is well worth the work.

I use 3 1/2 lb of rosehips (about 1 1/2 kilo per gallon) and again 3 1/2 lb sugar. for some reason I add my suger after boiling so the quantity goes up a bit, and I liquidise the heck out of the Rose-hips and boil them for 15 to 20 mins.

I am new to this lark as well all but for about four years, and I have started experimenting because I want new crisp fruty wines for quaffing liberally, for that purpose I have some black currant wine on the go, both with 3 1/2lb of suggar per gallon but I am trying a different approach to see how the flavour goes, one has 2kilo of currants and one has 1kilo, both smell nice both are bubbling away well and the colour is almost indistinguishable from each other at the moment, one is a fraction darker but thats all.
I will leave them to firment as much of the sugar as possible, but I am starting to hear of stopping the firmentation at certain levels of alcohol to make sweeter wines and adding differing kinds of finnings not to only clear the wine but to inhance the flavours. This will be my next step forward possibly trying something like this next year.

Any way, nice to meet you odorf, happy wine making.