Saturday, September 10, 2016

2016 Wines - Chapter 2 - Blueberry

I'm tickled with last year's blueberry, my only disappointment being that I only have 1 gallon. This year, I made several adjustments to the recipe and we made a 3 gallon batch.

Planning this batch required more mathematics than is typical. I wasn't sure what the yield of pressed blueberries was expected to be. I originally estimated 18# of blueberries for 6#/gallon if I got the water addition and the final volume right. I will spare the details, but my calculations indicated that I should get 1 gallon from 12.8# of berries. Because I have plenty, I bumped to 20# of berries, which were thawed and hit with K-meta. To hit 3 gallons, 1.44 gallons of liquid was required. Of this, 36 ounces was Alexander's Merlot Concentrate. This stuff is 68-Brix-sweet-goodness and I imagine it would be tasty on ice cream. In the wine, it should be an improvement over Welch's. The remaining 1 gallon and 20 ounces was water. It was all left in the bucket overnight to finish thawing.



The next day the blueberries were gently crushed. 550g of sugar brought the SG from 1.062 to 1.080; I didn't want to overshoot, as a further increase was expected as the fruit releases sugar. I added 3g Opti-Red and 3t pectic enzyme. The pH was 2.91 and increased to 3.37 with 4t of calcium carbonate. The must was left at room temp to macerate for another 24 hours.

After 24 hours on the pectic enzyme, the numbers had changed somewhat.  SG 1.072, surprisingly. I bumped to 1.085 with another 390g of sugar. The pH dropped back to 3.01, so with another 2t calcium carbonate it came up to 3.27. It was good looking, great smelling must. I pitched a starter of Montrachet and we soon had a nice cap.

Unfortunately despite perfectly timed step feeding, this wine struggled to get to 1.022 where it stuck. I pitched K1-V1116 on day 7.


By day 8 it was at 1.012 and dropping. I was tied up the following night, so I pressed it and moved it into carboys.


The volume will be spot on by the time we account for losses from racking. I'm excited about this wine!

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