Homemade blueberry wine has a beautiful ruby-red tone, pleasant smell, and a balanced taste with some grape notes. We’ll go through the right recipe of homemade wine. It’s a snap, the main thing is to follow the technology.
For blueberry wine you’ll need ripe juicy berries, you shouldn’t use overripe and tainted ones because they will make a cloudy beverage. First, thoroughly sort out blueberries, removing spoilt, tainted, and molded berries. Even one such berry can spoil the whole batch.
Ingredients:
- Blueberries – 11 lb / 5 kg
- Water – 1.3 gal / 5 liters
- Sugar – 4.4 lb / 2 kg
- Wine Yeast
- Citric acid – 0.7 oz / 20 gr
We need Wine Yeast as a precaution, in case if blueberries have little of them (for example, they were washed away by rain). Citric acid stabilizes the acidity of the must to maintain normal fermentation.
Blueberry Wine Recipe
- Crush unwashed berries by hands or with a spoon roller pin. Put the obtained mass into a wide container.
- Add cold unboiled water, Wine Yeast, citric acid and 1.1 lb / 0.5 kg of sugar. Mix it, cover the bottleneck with gauze to protect the must from insects. Leave the container in a dark room with a temperature of 65-77F° / 18-25°C. Stir it with a wooden spoon or a clean hand once a day.
- After 2-3 days you’ll see the signs of fermentation: a hissing sound, foaming, and a light sour smell, some pulp will come to the top. Pour the juice through 3-4 layers of gauze into a fermentation container (at least ¼ of its volume should be left free), squeeze the pulp till its dry. Throw out the overflow.
- Add 1.1 lb / 0.5 kg of sugar to the fermented juice, mix it and install an airlock. Check for tightness. Leave the must in a dark place with a temperature of 65-77F° / 18-25°C.
- After 4 days remove the lid with an airlock andGet 0.05-0.07 gal / 200-300 ml of the must and dissolve 1.1 lb / 0.5 kg of sugar in it. Pour the obtained syrup back, install the water lock. After 3 days repeat this procedure by adding the remaining 1.1 lb / 0.5 kg of sugar.
- The fermentation lasts around 30-60 days, when the airlock stops giving up gas (the glove deflates), there’s a layer of sediment at the bottom, the must becomes brighter, this implies fermentation is over. Pour the new blueberry wine into another clean container through a tube to get rid of the sediment at the bottom.
- Taste the wine and add sugar or sweeteners according to your preferred tastes.
- Hermetically seal the container or install the airlock again, if you are not sure that the fermentation has stopped – this is recommended for beginners.
- Leave the wine in a dark cool place with a temperature of 47-61F° / 8-16°C (a basement or a fridge) for 3-9 months of aging.
- Once every 20-30 days separate the wine from the sediment by pouring it through a tube into another container. It’s important not to touch the sediment during this step.
- After aging bottle homemade blueberry wine for storing, hermetically seal bottles with corks.
You will end up with 1.3-1.6 gal / 5-6 liters of matured wine. If you maintain the recommended temperature its shelf-life is about 3-4 years.