Illinois Investment Network


Recent Blogs


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"This platform is the best I have come across. The response has been consistently superlative, in both quantity and quality. Thank you for everything! "
Anthony L.

 BLOG >> Recent

Blueberry Winemaking [Agriculture
Posted on October 3, 2017 @ 09:09:00 AM by Paul Meagher

A major pre-occupation for me lately is gaining experience with blueberry winemaking.

Over the weekend I crushed six 5 gallon pails of blueberries at my farm property. This yield was added to four 5 gallon pails that were already crushed. Total yield was 45 gallons of blueberry pulp and juice. Plus 5 gallons of plum juice and pulp from a plum tree on the farm property. I will be harvesting grapes from my vineyard in about 3 weeks so this gives me some early winemaking practice.

The video below shows my process for crushing and preparing blueberries for wine making. I do a double crushing of the blueberries because the berries are smaller than a grape berry which the crusher is more adapted to. Small scale winemaking can be a heavy lifting workout as I demonstrate in the video. You might notice that I don't remove leaves and grass from the blueberries (unscreened). It would be alot of extra work and it is mostly leaves (and a small amount of rye grass) which could be considered a herb flavoring.

I expect the 6 pails I crushed to convert to 7 or 8 pails of fermentable wine once I remove some must from each pail so I can add sugar to create a wine or port style.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the small scale winemaking that I am practicing right now. The main advantage is that because I am making small 5 gallon batches of wine I can experiment with different variables to try to figure out an optimal set of conditions for producing a blueberry cooler, wine or port (e.g., add acid blend or not, add oak shavings or not, control the starting specific gravity through sugar addition or not, etc...). The number of possible permutations is exponential. The disadvantage is that with so many different experiments going on at such a small scale it is hard to guarantee consistency of your product. If I dumped all my berries into a great big vat that is temperature controlled with proper air headspace then I might be able to create a consistent offering from year to year.

It is what it is. Each batch will be unique. For now, I've got to make lemonade out of that lemon reality.

The blueberry cooler style (6% alcohol) is something I will approach from two directions to see which one turns out best. The first approach is to not add sugar, or add very little, to the juice and when it is done fermenting backsweeten with a blueberry jam type fruit pack made from the blueberries. The second approach is to dilute a blueberry wine or port that is done fermenting with water and then back sweeten with the fruit pack. Usually when you make a cooler from a kit you back sweeten with a fruit pack so that is why I think this might work. Here is the preparation process for the blueberry fruit pack that I made by simmering the blueberries for a couple of hours and adding some sugar to taste. Willy Wonka this fruitpack has flavor!

I am ramping up again tonight to process more blueberries into cooler, wine and port styles that I will be fermenting in my garage mini-winery. It would have been nice to go to wine school to learn winemaking skills, but I'm hoping that deliberate practice over the long term will eventually make up for this lack of formal instruction. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool's book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016) offer motivational research on the power of extended deliberate practice to deliver expertise in any skill area.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]