If you’ve never made wine before, I would submit to you that making a blueberry wine is a perfect place to start.
For one, blueberry wine is any easy wine to make. And, it only requires the most elementary pieces of wine making equipment. Secondly, it makes an INCREDIBLE wine. Blueberries, quite frankly, are well suited to making wine. The flavors come through fruity and bright.
Secondly, it’s springtime and blueberry season is just around the corner, so what better time to get your ducks-in-a-row and everything squared-away, so that when they do come in you’ll have exactly what you need and know what to do.
The blueberry wine recipe below is very simple to use. All you need are the ingredients listed and to follow the basic wine making directions that’s are on our website. The blueberries can be fresh or frozen. Either way will work equally well in the recipe.
To prepare the blueberries all that is required is that the berries be lightly crush. You can do this by hand, or you could use something like a potato masher. You do not want to crush the berries too much, and you definitely do not want to break any seeds. This could unnecessarily add a bitterness to the wine.
Ed’s Blueberry Wine Recipe
(Makes 5 Gallons)
13 lbs. Blueberries (lightly crushed)
11 lbs. Cane Sugar (table sugar)
1 tbsp. Yeast Energizer
Pectic Enzyme (as directed on its package)
2 tbsp. Acid Blend
Red Star Montrachet Wine Yeast
10 Campden Tablets (5 before to fermentation, 5 before bottling)
One of the fun thing about making your own wine is that you get to make it as sweet or as dry as you like. If you do nothing more than follow the directions, you will end up with a dry blueberry wine. But if you want to make a sweet wine, you can sweeten the blueberry wine to taste just before bottling. Just remember, if doing so, to also add potassium sorbate along with the Campden tablets called for in the blueberry wine recipe.
Now, doesn’t that sound simple? I imagine the hardest part is keeping your patience in tact. Be sure the fermentation has completed and give it plenty of time to clear up before bottling. Once in the bottle, realize that aging the wine will dramatically improve its quality over the first couple of 3 months. After that drink up.
If you need wine making equipment to make the wine, the “Your Fruit!” wine making kit is taylor-made for making this blueberry wine recipe. Not only does it have the equipment you’ll need, but it also has plenty of the basic wine making ingredients for making many different kinds of wine – all at a discounted price.
First of all, thank you for a wonderful site. I have used several of your recipes and they have turned out great. I also use a lot of the tips you send to me. I have learned so much from your tips and just wanted to thank you.
One of the first wines I ever made was blueberry wine. I collected the berries from an abandoned blueberry farm, and it seemed like each berry had a tiny green worm in it that crawled out when I soaked them. The finished result was delicious dry wine that smelled like blueberry jam. Next season I decided to buy my berries from a orchard actually in business (I was feeling guilty), and I made two batches: the first was just like the very first, but the second was the first batch that ever got stuck. I tried to restart it, and had to turn it into Blueberry vinegar, which was good, but not what I wanted. Thinking it was a fluke, next season I bought picked and bought enough blueberries for a 5 gallon batch. It stuck. I tried again the next season. Stuck again. I tried restarting with apple juice, I tried another batch and mixed it with raspberries which ferment as explosively as apple. Stuck again. I really really want the blueberry wine to work again, and would love if you have a solution. BTW — I was using your recipe each time and all my supplies came from here.
Audra, a stuck fermentation has to do with the wine yeast not being in an environment that they like, whether it be: lack of nutrients, temperature to hot or cold, etc. With this in mind, I would suggest that you look over the following to see if any of these 10 reasons rings-a-bell for you:
Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure
http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-failure
My first 5 gal. batch several years ago was very similar. It tried to continue fermenting for months, never reaching a dry state. I finally bottled it as a semi-sweet after about 6 months and it was great. I had used frozen store bought berries the first few years but now have 30 good sized plants of my own. It does make some “Mighty Fine Wine”. I also do a mix of blueberry, pomegranate, and cherry. That too, is really great. I always go heavy on the fruit and go half the sugar to start, then add the rest in a few days.
I know this an old article but I have experienced stuck blueberry wine also. Try stirring the must well just before adding the yeast. I use a paint stirrer in a drill motor and stir well for 4 or 5 minutes and then add the yeast. Have never had a stuck fermentation since I started doing this and I make at least 5 or 6 batches a year. Picked up this trick years ago from the internet. Piece on the internet said blueberry must makes sulfates itself and need to get rid of it before yeast is added. Don’t know if that is true but can tell you it works to stir the devil out of the must before yeast goes in.
I have to take issue with your basic Blueberry recipe. It’s the same one that’s in your catalog, and I’ve followed it several times. The finished wine is consistently too sweet. Bulk aging doesn’t seem to make any improvement in the sweetness, although the flavor is noticeably better. I think 11 lbs of sugar is too much. I will try reducing the sugar next time I get more berries.
Would be interested to hear from some of your other customers on the subject.
In order to achieve a good amount of alcohol in your batch you have to consider and make a calculation in base to the fact that sucrose has a molecular weight of 178; when you add yeast to your must, the sucrose is split into two molecules of glucose with a molecular weight of 89; the you have to make a calculation in base to the specific gravity of the alcohol i.e. 78%, and you will see that if you want an alcohol content of 12 – 13% of alcohol, you will need the amount of sugar suggested by Kraus. By the other hand if you use a larger amount of berries what you will get is a more acidic wine.
About 18 lbs is right for a normal red wine, fermented on the skins.
however, I crush and press my berries10 and just use the juice. This needs rather more berries, about 27 lbs seems to work well, and the result is a Blush wine.. Its verry good.
How much blueberry juice would the mentioned recipe require if using juice instead of the berries?
Jerry, I do not have any information along these lines. This is essentially because almost all wine recipes refer to the fruit in pounds, not volume of juice. If I were to guess, I’d say a gallon of blueberry juice would come from about 12 to 15 pounds of berries, but this is only a guess. Does anyone else have any experience with this?
Hi Ed,
First of all, thanks for all your knowledge about wine making! I enjoy reading your viewers questions and your answers to their questions. I’ve been making blueberry wine for about 12 years and I found that 13 to 15 pounds works very well. I also have been using on average 10 lbs of sugar per bucket (5 gal of total contents) and it usually comes out great.
You would require approximately 20 li of juice. In order to produce this amount you would need approximately 15 lbs of blueberries. Mash the berries gently in a mesh bag and soak in a 25 li bucket. This will produce the required amount of juice. Makes an outstanding wine. You could use as much as 25 li of juice but the resulting wine will be somewhat lacking in body and flavour. Even if you use the 15 lbs of fruit and just extract the juice you would still need to add it to the water to make the must for fermenting
How many pounds o fberries would be needed for a 5 gallon carboy?
John, the amount of berries to use varys with the type of berry you are talking about and how much body you want the wine to have. In the case of blueberry recipe above it suggests 13 pounds for making 5 gallons of wine. I have seen recipes for blueberry wine calling for anywhere from 8 pounds to 20 pounds. For a better overview, you may want to take a look at the following page on our website:
Wine Recipes
http://www.eckraus.com/homemade-wine-making-recipes
Sorry, I’m confused.
The recipe says 13 pounds of berries make 5 gallons. Ron and Barry say 18 or 19 pounds.
Ed guesses a gallon of juice would require12 to 15 pounds which means 60-75 pounds for a five gallon carboy.(?!)
Further, the amount of sugar is in question. I’ve been working under the assumption that a starting hygrometer reading indicating 11-12 % alcohol produces the best results for grape wine.
Any suggestions for blueberry wine?
John, when you make wine from most fruits, you don’t use 100% juice. The wine would be way to tart/acidic to drink. In the case of the blueberry wine recipe you are using somewhere around a gallon/gallon-and-a-half of fruit juice. The rest is made up with water. The only exceptions I can think of where you DO use 100% juice are wine grapes and apples. I hope this clears it up for you.
I do not add any water in my wine . 10 kg grape ,one tbs. of Yeast, one kg Sugar candy(rock candy).
I make my blueberry wine from frozen sealed bags from the store. I hand squeeze the berries right in the bags before I open them. This lets me make sure I pop every berry open with out crushing any of the seeds in them. Also I don’t have to wait for blueberry season to come around when I want to make more. I differ with anyone about the fresher picked over the frozen. 13 lbs is 2.5 lbs per gallon for 5 gallons. I ferment in a 5 gallon pail, not a carboy, and I never use an airlock and I never stir my yeast into the must when I pinch it. I sprinkle it all over the top and lightly cover it with the cover, I do not snap it down tight, from start to finish, letting both air and co2 work their way in and out all the while it ferments. After 6 to 7 days I take a reading. my wine is set to be 14 or 15% A.B.V. When I have a reading of 10 to 11% done and only four or five% left to go, I do my first racking and I add another full dose of yeast nutrient after it is racked and I let it finish out from there, and it always does. I set my pail on a chair so I never have to move it between racking’s. And that’s my M O no matter what kind of wine I make. Your wine does not have to be low alcohol to taste good and it doesn’t have to be to sweet either. I think the biggest secrete to really being able to make a good wine, is learning how to really take good care of those little yeast fellows that make it.
I make my blueberry wine with 8lb of frozen berries to three gallons of water and five lbs of sugar. The other additives are about right for my recipe. The last time I made it, it took two months for it to stop bubbling, but it was still a little bit sweet, not dry at all.
I never use water. I sub grape juice for water. The best wines don’t use water.
I used 12 lbs of frozen blueberries, and 18 lbs of fresh Zinfandel grapes that i crushed/squeezed by hand for a 3+ gallon batch of blueberry/Zin wine. It came out fabulous. 12% abv, back-sweetened to about 1% RS. quite dark, almost like a rich Cab.
To the people who are having issues with batch that are hung, I would tell you, after having made wine of various kind, the biggest mistake is the sugar. You gravity level on your hydrometer has to be between 1.075 and 1.090. Anywhere outside of that and the yeast won’t work. Too much sugar will overwhelmed the yeast, too little sugar, and the yeast can’t strive enough to reproduce. This is a very critical part of the process. Also be careful about how many campden table you use. To many will prevent the yeast from reproducing. Campden tablet are use to kill of bad bacteria and to stop the wild yeast from starting fermentation. You could do wine with the wild yeast, but the flavor that you could get from a control yeast can be quite different. Hence why we like to use certain type of yeast to make certain type of wine. Once fermentation has started, then you can add sugar to increase the alcohol level, but be careful how high you take it and don’t add to much as you can stall the fermentation. Once your wine is done, and stabalized, you can add some sugar to your wine if you don’t like it overly dry. One point as well, adding sugar at the end of the process (before bottling) will bring back the fuity flavor of your wine. A dry wine won’t taste as fruity as a more sweeter wine. If you are adding sugar at the end of the process, make sure that you have stopped the fermentation otherwise the fermentation can start again in your bottle and you will find cork and wine on the floor and potentially get hurt by flying cork under pressure or even exploding bottle. Adding campden tablet will help stop fermentation, but also in conjuction potassium sorbate. One word of caution about potassium sorbate…it will slightly change the taste of your wine and if you keep your wine for a long time…many years, the taste might not be what you’re looking for. So in moderation with the potassium sorbate. Good luck to you all. Hope this does help
When I make a wine from grapes or blueberries I find the recipe I like and steam juice the berries. It is very convenient and you are left with juice and nice skins which I place in a mesh bag and add to fermenter. It is neat and easy. I share a steam juicer with 2 friends. Do it outdoors.
ED: back away from just adding 11lb of sugar BEFORE you measure how much sugar is already there. Otherwise, you lend your self to all the problems mentioned in the comments received.
I do it the easy way………Buy a Kit Wine…..Blueberry Noir……Taste Great….
Can I use my tomato press to extract the juice from the blueberries and leave the skin and seeds behind? It’s a manual crank I got years ago. It’s from Italy.
Kim, actually, you want to simply burst the skins on the blueberries and add them to the fermentation for the first 5-7 days. If you put them in a fermentation bag, all you need to do is squeeze the bag once it is time to remove the fruit. When making red wine, the reason you want the fruit as past of the fermentation is to extract more body and color. The link below is the complete directions for Blueberry Wine.
Blueberry Wine
http://www.eckraus.com/winerecipes/blueberrywine.pdf
I tend to use more fruit for my fruit wine. I use 30 lbs for 5 to 6 gallons. It is it difficult to add 10 to 12 pounds of sugar before it hits 5 to 6 gallons (it’s not much water to dissolve it in and add to the fruit), but I once I hit 1.090 gravity, I’m good. The fruit seems to help a lot with the flavor. If I use less fruit and more water, it seems to give people bit of a headache when drinking the finished wine. Just my own experience.
I am almost ready to bottle my blueberry wine but i feel it taste strong. Can i add something to it for a sweeter and blueberry taste to it. Someone said some welches grape juice might help.
Denise, yes you can add a simple syrup which is a sugar/water mixture or you can use fruit juice. Whatever you use, make sure that you add potassium sorbate to prevent re-fermentation of the newly added sugar.
Making Sweet Wine
https://eckraus.com/making-sweet-wines/
End of 2017 I used a blueberry concentrated juice. Start SG of 1.125, end 1.000, calculated alcohol 17%. The final SG of 1.000 is the highest I have had for anything I’ve run for the past 4 years.
This year I am just starting thaw of 32 pounds of blueberries for a 11 to 12 gallon batch. A variety of other fruits this year have started with SG between 1.110 and 1.120 with calculated alcohol between 16% to 18%. Because it has been tolerant to even higher starting SG and resulting in alcohol to 20%, I have stuck with Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast.
Would switching to Montrachet make any real difference to taste when I shoot for 16% alcohol???
Well guess I’ll start with Montrachet and be ready to add Lalvin K1V-1116.
Other recipes call for 1 tbsp Yeast Energizer + 2 tbsp Yeast Nutrient????
Can I make Blueberry wine with all frozen berries from my garden?
Margie, yes you can make wine with frozen fruit. Actually, there are benefits to freezing the fruit prior to making wine. For more information, please see the article link posted below.
Freezing Wine Making Fruit
http://www.eckraus.com/blog/freezing-wine-making-fruit
Blueberry wine recipe:
13 lbs isn’t enough berries. I use around 18 – 19 lbs. 11 lbs of sugar is way too much also. Use your hydrometer to determine the sugar amount. I have been making Blueberry wine for 16 years (several batches per year) and it is known around this area as the best!
Don
Don,
I’m new to making wines. I really only like some of the fruit wines–especially blueberry and raspberry. Do you mind sharing your blueberry wine recipe details?
Thanks,
Brian
Don, below is the link to the complete Blueberry Wine recipe. I hope this helps.
Blueberry Wine
http://www.eckraus.com/winerecipes/blueberrywine.pdf
Don,
after making wild blue berry wine, I would tend to agree with you. I would like to try your wine. Where is “around Here”? Bill McBride
Hello,
I’m using this blueberry wine recipe, only I converted it to six gallons. However after pulling out the pulp out of the fermenter and transferring to a 6 Gallon Carboy on day 6 for secondary fermentation, I’m at least a gallon and a half short. Should I add water? It seems like adding that much water might be too much. It is definitely still fermenting and is very very sweet. The SG Was 1.060 yesterday. Today is day 7 since the yeast was added. Any ideas would greatly appreciated!!
Leah, most wine recipes allow for topping back up once the pulp is removed. If you look at the step by step directions in the article posted below, it tell you to add water back to 5-gallons if necessary.
Blueberry Wine Directions
http://eckraus.com/content/blueberrywine.pdf
Thanks Ed! I really appreciate your help.
WOW, so many comments! Agree Blueberry wine is great. I blend some with my SunCal Cabernet Savignon and call it Blu Cab.
I use 45 lbs. of frozen berries and put them frozen in 20 gallon food grade plastic tubs like a Brute trash can with 10 gallons of water mixed with 4 Tbsp. sulfite solution and let sit for 24 hours with a loose top. We them put them through a centrifugal juicer putting the pulp into mesh bags for pulp fermentation. No tannin, or acid blend (the blues in Central Florida are acidic enough and you can always test and adjust after pulp is removed), all the juice, 4 T. of yeast nutrient, 2 T. yeast energizer, 8 t. pectic enzyme and 20 lb. sugar. Dissolve sugar and you should have an OSG of about1.085, then add the pulp bag. I stir, and poke the bag 2-3 times a day. I use EC 1181 champagne yeast because of it’s high alcohol tolerance. I’ll take new readings, record , figure adjusted gravity and feed sugar about every 4-5 days until I get to an adjusted starting gravity in the neighborhood of 1.120- 1.130 making a very strong wine; exceeding this puts you in danger of exceeding the yeasts alcohol limit and you may end up with a stuck fermentation which CANNOT be restarted! You must remove the pulp bag for every feeding, but I generally leave it in for 7-10 days! Beautiful color and body! I have tried pulp fermentation without a bag and the floating cake needs to be broken up at least 4-5 times a day then bagged and pressed when done; if you have a wine press (Highly recommended!).
Blues are notorious for their small seeds. Rack high off the lees and pour the last gallon through a muslin cloth into a deep bucket. By the second racking they should all be gone.
I made 2 big batches [54 750 l. bottles] of blueberry wine last year using the recipe from The Art of Wine Making book. I like to sample my wines when I bottle them, the 1st. batch I didn’t use raisins and it was way too sweet for me. It is ok when it is cold though. really good flavor. The 2nd batch I used raisins and it was just fine, it ended up with a very high alcohol content.
I love your site! I would love to try this blueberry wine recipe yet only make one gallon or even a half gallon to start with. Would that mean I use 1/5 of the wine packet? I have seen some recipes where the whole yeast packet is used even for just one gallon of fruit wine so I’m a little confused on that. Thanks!
Dana, if you are making one-gallon or five-gallons, you want to use the entire packet of yeast. Doing so will cause the yeast to become stressed.
Whoops just saw that you answered, thanks so much! Do I divide the tannin and acid etc by 5? I love your site so much 🙂 Its so nice to have a new hobby during these times. Really appreciate!
and yeast nutrient too? Thanks 😀
HI, if i would like to make this recipe as one gallon- do I just divide everything by 5 including the yeast and citric aid etc? Thank you.