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There’s an old saying that the best time to plant a blueberry bush is 5 years ago. They take a while to come into production, but once they start, crops can be huge.
Once the freezers full and you’ve made your fill of blueberry jam and muffins, there’s often still enough to fill a carboy with homemade blueberry wine.
This recipe is adapted from The Home Winemakers Companion. The author describes it as, “One of the most interesting fruit wines…The basic recipe produces a fruity, easy-drinking, nicely balanced wine. Slightly sweet, it is a match for fruit pies, chocolate cake, ice cream, and soft, creamy cheeses.”
While the recipe has you simply place the blueberries and sugar in the primary fermenter and then top with boiling water, I find it helps to use a wooden spoon or potato masher to muddle the blueberries into the sugar.
I then give them about 6-12 hours to soak in the sugar, which helps to extract their blueberry juice. At the end of this time, you should have a good amount of blueberry syrup already, before adding any boiling water on top.
That’s completely optional of course, and as the recipe is written, the blueberries, sugar and boiling water go right into the fermenter with no delay.
Another option for pulling more flavor out of the blueberries is freezing. Freezing the berries for a day or two before making blueberry wine helps to break open their cells and release their juices.
Homemade Blueberry Wine
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 lbs blueberries
- 2 1/4 lbs sugar, about 4 1/2 cups
- 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 tsp acid blend
- 1/2 tsp Pectic Enzyme
- 1/4 tsp tannin powder
- 1 packet Cote des Blancs Wine Yeast, or other wine yeast
- water to fill
- 2 tbsp oak chips, optional
- 1 Campden tablet, optional
Instructions
- Sanitize all equipment.
- Add the berries and sugar to a primary fermentation container. Bring one quart of water to a boil and pour it over the fruit/sugar. Stir to dissolve.
- Let cool to about 70 degrees F.
- Once cooled, add the remaining ingredients (except oak chips & Camden tablet, if using) and add enough water to fill the one-gallon fermentation vessel.
- Stir daily for 5 to 7 days. Once the fermentation calms down a bit, rack into a sanitized glass brewing carboy, add oak chips if using and seal with a rubber bung and water lock.
- Ferment in secondary for 4 to 6 weeks.
- At this point, either rack the wine again to ferment for another 6 to 8 months....or add 1 crushed Campden tablet and rack into a clean fermenter for a few weeks until the wine clears.
- Bottle the wine and allow it to age for 6 months before drinking.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Hello Ashley
I love your blog….just love it.
You have 2 1/2 pounds of sugar is 4 1/2 cups?
mmmm.I have figures its closer to 8 cups? Please clarify for me so I don’t add to much or not enough.
Thank you so much
You are wonderful
I did a quick internet search and most sources indicate that 1 pound of sugar would be equal to about 2 cups so I would go with the 4 1/2 cups.
Good evening, I am from South Georgia where blueberries are taking over the peach state. My question is I am wanting to upsize the recipe to a 6 gallon primary fermentation container and 6 gallon carboy, so can I just multiply all the ingredients by 6 and in theory achieve the same results? I’ve made muscadine wine in the past in 1 gallon containers but I think your recipe for blueberries sounds awesome, plus blueberries are easier to get this time of year versus muscadines.
Yes, you can! For a 6 gallon carboy though, I’d only make 5 to 5 1/2 gallons just so you have some headspace in there to allow for bubbling during fermentation. Also, just use one whole yeast packet for the batch.
We wanted to increase ingredients to fill up a 6 gallon Carboy and decided to multiply your recipe x4, mainly because we didn’t have enough blueberries to do more, I’m glad we didn’t add more because after everything was said and done with primary fermentation we siphoned and added the French oak chips and it was almost slap full, just enough to have a little headspace for the foam. Looking forward to how this will taste! If adding the chips do you recommend aging it longer the 6-8 months? Also I’m fairly new to wine making but I forgot to check the specific gravity before adding the yeast. Is there any way to determine the alcohol content only at Bottling time?
Thanks in advance!
If you forgot to check the specific gravity at bottling, I don’t know of a good way to know the finished alcohol content unfortunately. I’ve found though, that fruit wines are deceptive in alcohol content, and they hit you really fast, even if they measure lower in alcohol. The peach wine we make made was incredibly potent, enough to sit you down after one glass (but it wasn’t that alcoholic). The percentage is just a number in my opinion, and it’s not all that helpful in telling true impact/impairment.
If you do the oak, I would personally age it longer, but that’s totally up to you.
Good luck!
I I’m on my 6th batch of blueberry. I use approx. 17-18 lbs . Fresh picked frozen berries and 20lbs sugar . A 1/4 cup lemon juice a hand full of raisins in 6gal. Ferment bucket. I Mash berries. Leave in for 1 week primary then squeeze out and filter in 6gal demijon with airlock for no less than 2 weeks then transfer one more time for two weeks then bottle. And have Great results.with a great tasting smooth semi sweet wine with typical abv of 30-35% ..
Note I do use 1 pack of wine yeast and 1 pack bread yeast.
This looks like a nice, easy recipe! Thanks! I’ve been doing some reading and some say to use Potassium metabisulfite when making fruit wines. What’s your take on this? Some say it’s a harmful chemical, some say its necessary to keep bad bacteria/yeast at bay.
I have never used it, not even once. I get enough additives/preservatives in my diet by accident, I’d rather not put them into stuff I’m making from scratch. Using it will result in a more consistent wine though, as it’ll completely beat back any existing yeast on the fruit so that you’re just culturing the added packet yeast. Personally, I have great results with a small amount of wild yeast in the mix, and to me it seems like they’re quickly outcompeted by the commercial strains anyway.
Great post! First time trying this, any advice on bottling? I think I understand how to use the siphon to get the wine into the bottles but there should be some head space left between the wine and the cork right? I read elsewhere that this small headspace is typically purged with CO2 or N2 gas. Is this required? Will the wine get oxidized if I just leave a bit of headspace and cork the bottle? If purging is necessary any suggestions on equipment? Thanks!
Purging is not necessary at all. Fill the wine bottles up to the base of the neck, right where it narrows down. When you put the cork in there should be an inch or two between the bottom of the cork and the wine, and the total length will depend on the shape of your wine bottle. The main thing is to minimize the surface area, so filling it until the neck narrows does that.
I’ve been meaning to write an article specifically on bottling wine/mead, and there are some pictures of the process in an article I just wrote on making mead.
I have never made wine of any kind but now I have a very good supply of Blueberries and I thought why not give it a go.
My problem is, what equipment do I need, can you help me?
Sure, happy to help! I take you through the equipment you need in this article here: https://practicalselfreliance.com/small-batch-wine/
But in general, you need two fermentation vessels, usually a narrow neck demijohns, which is basically a gallon guy like those cheap wine jugs (carlo rossi?) you can buy in some grocery stores. Then you need a rubber stopper with a whole in it for a water lock, which is a one-way valve that lets CO2 out but won’t let contaminants in. You put water in it, which creates a seal that the bubbles can escape through.
That’s all that’s strictly required, but I’d also suggest an auto sciphon for racking the wine over to a new container and bottling, a bit of brewing sanitizer to keep things clean, and something for bottling (corks and a corker usually, along with empty wine bottles). So here’s your list:
-two traditional one-gallon demijohns (includes rubber stopper and air lock)
–auto siphon
–brewing sanitizer
–Wine corks
–bottle corker
–wine bottles (usually you can just wash out ones you already have really well with the brewing sanitizer, for a one gallon batch you usually need 4)
Just wondering about the white wine yeast, have you tried RC-212?
Nope, but if you do, let me know how it goes!
Is the recipe/instructions you provided for a single gallon or more? Thank you.
This is a one-gallon recipe.
One more question. For the primary fermentation, before the wine gets put into a carboy, can I use a glass one gallon jar with a coffee filter as the lid so the gasses can escape?
Yes, that’s fine. Lots of people open ferment their wines in primary and leave them without a water lock at that point. The yeast are so active at that point that the risk of contamination is minimal, with all the CO2 coming off of it there’s a lot of outward pressure and everything’s moving out rather than in. After primary though, once things slow down, filter out the fruit and get it into something with a water lock.
Gotcha. That’s kind of what I thought, I just needed to be sure. I appreciate your time and will share you blog! I love it
Thanks, Grace! I hope it turns out wonderfully for you.
Should I leave the blueberries in the whole mixture while it ferments or should I strain and wash the berries like in the other fruit wines if I did the sugar and mash method?
Either is fine. If you’re open fermenting this wine in a bucket without a water lock for primary, leaving the fruit in is easier. Just filter them out before the secondary. If you’re putting it right into a carboy with a water lock for primary, then I’d filter out the berries before it goes in, rinsing them to get as much juice out as possible.
Can I make this with just the blueberries , sugar and yeast? I do not have the other ingredients
Yes. You can make it with just the blueberries sugar and yeast. It’ll take a bit longer to ferment fully, and might not have a well-rounded taste. For a better option using just stuff you might have at home, also add 1 cup strongly brewed black tea (for tannin), 1/4 cup lemon juice (for acid) and about 1/8 cup raisins (for yeast nutrient). That’d give you a good approximation without having to get specialized ingredients.
Thank you so much for naming the alternative for me! I’m so excited to try this. I love love love your articles
Awesome! Good luck, and watch that first 24 to 48 hours for overflows. In this warm weather, the yeast really get going, and blueberries can stain. Watch where you put it until the fermentation settles down a bit.
how can you know if your blueberry wine has contamination