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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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I made this wine once and everyone loveddddd it. I am going to make it again and this time use some Oak chips. Do you recommend leaving the Oak chips for a certain length of time so as not to overpower? Or would I just leave them in for 6 months if I leave in carboy that long? Thanks!
You want to put the oak chips in for the secondary ferment and then you leave the oak chips behind after racking.
I’m currently on day 2 of the primary where I stir daily…my husband keeps saying I’m going to make vinegar cause I open up the top of my gallon to stir it with a spoon…am I doing this wrong? I don’t want to make vinegar 😅 and the wine is fermenting STRONG. I just have it in a gallon screw on jar as primary and we hear CO2 gassing out of it all day and night…I’ve read some comments that using a coffee filer at the primary is ok but that conflicts with the thought that it couldn’t be in contact with air. Maybe I’m making this over complicated…any help is appreciated
It’s ok during this stage for the wine to be exposed to the air because the fermentation at this stage is so strong. Once you get ready to rack the wine into your secondary vessel you will want to have some kind of waterlock device to keep any potential contaminants out of the wine while allowing any gasses to release from the jar or bottle.
Not clear on how to test the a!cool content of my wine. I bought a hydrometer but when I got it it says it’s only for distilled products. Suggestions?
Thanks,
Jeany
I would suggest contacting the manufacturer of your particular hydrometer. They should be able to help.
I love your recipe but I want to know do I need a specific kind of oak chip or can I use the ones offered in the grocery store or Walmart or can I use oak from the trees I have on my place. We have a verity of different types of oak trees down here in Mississippi. Also can I make wine from crabapples my crabapple tree is loaded this year. This is my first time trying to make wine so any help will be appreciated.
The oak chips are completely optional. You can use any kind you like. If you decide to get the kind from the grocery store I would be sure to check that they haven’t been processed with any chemicals or additives. If you have access to oak trees on your property then I would just use those. Yes, you can definitely make wine or hard cider from crab apples.
Is Pectic enzyme absolutely necessary? I think that’s the only thing I’m missing.
Nope. That’s optional, and it improves the clarity of the wine. It causes pectin in the fruits to drop to the bottom so that the wine is clear instead of cloudy. You can skip it altogether and not worry about it, leaving the wine cloudy if it ends up that way (it may not). You can also just keep racking the wine to a new container every few weeks until it clears, which is what they used to do before the enzyme was readily available.
Do you think this recipe would work if I substitute wild huckleberries for the blueberries? Any recommended changes?
Absolutely. Blueberries and huckleberries are very similar and can generally be used interchangeably. The only suggestion I would have is to check the sweetness of the huckleberries to be sure that they are sweet.
What is the amount per ounces or gallons that this recipe makes? I picked 4.9 pounds of blueberries today!
The recipe is for a one-gallon batch and calls for 3 pounds of blueberries.
Can you add water in during or before the second fermentation?
This article here recommends that if you are going to top up that you do it after the fermentation has completed. https://www.homebrewing.org/Wine-Making-Topping-Up-Your-Homemade-Wines_ep_135-1.html
After I rack, I end up with ~60% of the volume I had before, the remaining 40% being blueberries. Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong? This happens with the other fruit wines I’ve made from your wonderful website as well.
It makes sense that it would happen, from an object permanence point of view, but two things give me hesitation. (1) For the small-batch quart-jar recipes, you often have filled jars in pictures; if this is just an aesthetic choice, I’ll feel less crazy. (2) The result, at least for the blueberry wine, is incredibly sweet, almost like a syrup, so we split the batch and added more water.
You can definitely add more water. This article recommends topping up once the fermentation is complete. https://www.homebrewing.org/Wine-Making-Topping-Up-Your-Homemade-Wines_ep_135-1.html
I have 12 lbs of blueberries. Wanting to do all at once. Do I just multiply all other ingredients x4 ?
Yes, that’s exactly right. Enjoy!
Ok. Great. Thats what I figured. I just wasn’t sure if amount of water and sugar wound need x4. Thanks again
Hi this is my first time making wine. Well I have a few different flavours going on right now, but on this blueberry wine, after I removed the blueberries and transferred the liquid to my carboy, I noticed that the level of the wine is fairly low. Can I add a cup or two of water to bring the level back up?
Thanks.
I should also note that this is after the 5 to 7 days of stirring the mix each day. So I’m in secondary fermentation.
This article recommends topping up after the fermentation is completed. https://www.homebrewing.org/Wine-Making-Topping-Up-Your-Homemade-Wines_ep_135-1.html