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Hey guys, I'm planning on entering a bottle of last year's blueberry wine in a state fair and they ask for the residual sugar %. I've read about it but I have no idea how to calculate it. I used 4 lb of sugar to backsweeten at the end as the recipe calls for, but there may be more residual? This is a 6 gallon batch. Any help appreciated!
Here's the recipe I used with only minor modifications to the additives.
18 lbs of blueberries (3 lbs per gallon)
1 tsp grape tannins
1 T yeast nutrient
1 T acid blend
1 T pectic enzyme
Sugar (about 10 lbs)
Champagne yeast
The berries should be frozen before use. It breaks the cell walls down allowing the juice to come out. Thaw the berries. I use a ziplock freezer bag to store them, so I can simply crush them in the bag. I store 3 lbs in a ziplock, so each bag is good for 1 gallon.
Put the crushed berries in a nylon bag in your fermenter. Add water to make it about 3 gallons, add the pectic enzyme, and about 50 ml of 2.5% solution of potasium sulfite. Let the juice sit for a couple of days stirring several times each day.
Boil the sugar and water together, use 5-10 cups per 5 lb bag of sugar. Let it cool and add to the juice. Use a hydrometer and get a reading, we are aiming for something in the 1.075 to 1.090 range, depending upon how much alcohol you want in your wine. More is not always better. Add the grape tannins, yeast nutrient, acid blend, stirring the mix well. If the specific gravity is too low, add more sugar with less water. You want to bring the whole mixture up to about 6 gallons and maintain the desired specific gravity.
Add the yeast to the top of the mix. After several hours, stir the yeast into the juice. The yeast needs oxygen, so stirring is not a bad thing.
The yeast usually takes about 24 hours to really get going. Put in an air lock and keep an eye on it to make sure it is not getting clogged with foam. If it is, clean it out and even remove it while the wine is doing the serious fermentation.
Take readings with your hydrometer daily. When it gets down to about 0.990, your wine is mostly fermented. Time to transfer it to a glass carboy.
Carefully siphon the juice leaving the heavy junk behind. Squeeze out the mesh bag, get as much juice as you can out of it. This will take some time, but it is worth it. You may be able to squeeze out a couple of pints from the fiber.
Once it is in the carboy, top it up with water or sugar water. Let it sit in the carboy for at least a month. Make sure the air lock has liquid in it, I like to use sulfite solution, that way I dont get any bacteria growth in the airlock.
After a month or more (3 or4 months is fine) carefully siphon to a bottling bucket. Take samples and add sugar to taste. I generally use about 4 lbs of sugar boiled into 4 cups of water for the whole batch. Dont forget to use Potassium Sorbate to stop the added sugar from fermenting.
Bottle and let it rest for a couple weeks before drinking.
Here's the recipe I used with only minor modifications to the additives.
18 lbs of blueberries (3 lbs per gallon)
1 tsp grape tannins
1 T yeast nutrient
1 T acid blend
1 T pectic enzyme
Sugar (about 10 lbs)
Champagne yeast
The berries should be frozen before use. It breaks the cell walls down allowing the juice to come out. Thaw the berries. I use a ziplock freezer bag to store them, so I can simply crush them in the bag. I store 3 lbs in a ziplock, so each bag is good for 1 gallon.
Put the crushed berries in a nylon bag in your fermenter. Add water to make it about 3 gallons, add the pectic enzyme, and about 50 ml of 2.5% solution of potasium sulfite. Let the juice sit for a couple of days stirring several times each day.
Boil the sugar and water together, use 5-10 cups per 5 lb bag of sugar. Let it cool and add to the juice. Use a hydrometer and get a reading, we are aiming for something in the 1.075 to 1.090 range, depending upon how much alcohol you want in your wine. More is not always better. Add the grape tannins, yeast nutrient, acid blend, stirring the mix well. If the specific gravity is too low, add more sugar with less water. You want to bring the whole mixture up to about 6 gallons and maintain the desired specific gravity.
Add the yeast to the top of the mix. After several hours, stir the yeast into the juice. The yeast needs oxygen, so stirring is not a bad thing.
The yeast usually takes about 24 hours to really get going. Put in an air lock and keep an eye on it to make sure it is not getting clogged with foam. If it is, clean it out and even remove it while the wine is doing the serious fermentation.
Take readings with your hydrometer daily. When it gets down to about 0.990, your wine is mostly fermented. Time to transfer it to a glass carboy.
Carefully siphon the juice leaving the heavy junk behind. Squeeze out the mesh bag, get as much juice as you can out of it. This will take some time, but it is worth it. You may be able to squeeze out a couple of pints from the fiber.
Once it is in the carboy, top it up with water or sugar water. Let it sit in the carboy for at least a month. Make sure the air lock has liquid in it, I like to use sulfite solution, that way I dont get any bacteria growth in the airlock.
After a month or more (3 or4 months is fine) carefully siphon to a bottling bucket. Take samples and add sugar to taste. I generally use about 4 lbs of sugar boiled into 4 cups of water for the whole batch. Dont forget to use Potassium Sorbate to stop the added sugar from fermenting.
Bottle and let it rest for a couple weeks before drinking.
