Blueberry Wine

We have been making wine directly from crushing grapes or with a kit. Phil decided to try something different and make a blueberry grape wine. We started with 4 pounds of green grape and 6 ½ pounds of blueberries. We first crushed the green grape then the blueberries in the hand-cranked crusher. We put them in a stockpot added water to cover the fruit and added 7 pounds of sugar. We let this boil for about 10 minutes.

We then placed a mesh bag over the primary plastic fermenting bucket. This was to catch the skins of the grape and blueberries. We poured the mixture into the bucket and tied off the mesh bag. At this point, we added cool water to bring the volume up to the 3-gallon point and allow mixture to become room temperature. At this point we than could add 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrients, ¾ teaspoon of pectin enzyme and 1 package of champagne yeast. We chose champagne yeast to dry the wine out so it would not be too sweet. We stirred the mixture twice a day for 3 days. On the third day, we pressed the juice from the skins that were in the mesh bag. We let the juice stay in the bucket for another 3 days.

The juice was then transferred to a glass carboy where it was allowed to ferment for 1 week. We racked the wine to get rid of the sediment. Racking just means transferring from one container to another. The wine was again allowed to sit and ferment for 2 more weeks.

When the wine in the carboy stops producing gas its time to bottle. We transferred the wine from the glass carboy to a plastic bottling bucket. The bottles and corks were sterilized and we began to transfer the wine into the bottles and corked the wine. It will now sit and age for about 3 -4 months before we will be able to drink it

CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW TO SEE THE ENTIER PROCESS

Blueberry Wine