Blueberry brandy?

[zirtico]

Hey all,

It's blueberry season up here in Canada and I thought I'd give blueberry brandy a shot! Picked up 20 lbs of berries and from what I've read, a full-bodied blueberry wine comes in at approx. 3 lbs berries per gallon and I'm thinking of making 5.5 gallons of which the majority will get distilled for brandy and I'll keep about 1.5 gallons to enjoy as wine.

Planning on using about 17 lbs of blueberries, about 3.5 kg of sugar for 5.5 gallons with an OG of no more than 1.072-1.080. Then I'll run it through the still twice and perhaps distill a portion of the wine only once and add the single-distilled portion to the double-distilled (to preserve flavour).

If anybody has ever tried this or has any useful tips, I would love to hear them before I finally run it!

[Bushman]

I have 2 large blueberry bushes that yield a bout 3 lbs per year, let me know how it comes out!

[Tater]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=48110 Got some wine making now .Got 21 lbs off my 6 plants this year . have trimmed them back . got 28 lbs last year .Like peach you will find its hard to keep the sent with blueberries .

[zirtico]

Interesting. Thanks for that. I was thinking more along the lines of a spirit rather than a liqueur but that's still a good idea. Blueberries, having rather a strong flavour of their own, I figured might end up making a moderately flavourful brandy with as much flavour as a grape brandy might have. Instead of running it twice, I thought I might run it just once like you did which would certainly result in a more flavourful spirit. The alternative would be to run the whole batch once, and run part of the first distillate a second time and end up with a mixture of first distillate and second distillate as a final spirit. I'll make the call once I run it the first time.

[MDH]

The key is time. After distilling it, it is vital to let it sit for around half a year with a tiny bit of air exposure. You'll notice it go from "Hot alcohol" to a distinct blueberry character. Settle for less sugar in your ferment. Actually, try using grape concentrate instead. Don't go beyond adding 1-2% potential to the blueberry mash or you will indeed begin to lose a lot of valuable taste.

[Paulinka]

Traditional Transylvanian blueberry-pálinka is a pseudo-geisted spirit. First you make a strong neutral fruit-spirit from other fruit (fi. from grape or plum) by triple disilling it. Then you crush your ripe blueberries, mix them with max. 3% sugar by weight (3kg sugar inverted to syrup for 100kg berries) and about 6-8 litres of 80%v/v alcohol, stir them up good. Manage the pH to around 3,2 and inoculate with winers yeast that has a good alcohol-tolerance, a medium fermentation rate and a great aromatic esther production (Fermiflor is a good choice for blueberries). That alcohol we poured in the mash will extract and hold the scent and taste of the berry while fermenting. Always use pectinase for fruits, it breaks up the cells by liquifying pectines, also converted pectines will not turn this way into methanol.

BB needs a relatively long ferment, after one week pour 10% aerated water (by weight) and readjust the pH if needed.
A week later do it again, and around week three it is done and ready to be cooked.
MDH is spot on, as with all other fruit-spirit, leave your brandy for half year to settle and harmonize.

[Paulinka]

Sorry about the volumes, I hope no one will hold it against me, I tend to forget that we can legally distill 50L 100% alcohol from fruit by person in Hungary each year for personal consumption. Altogether from all the fruit trees we have in our farm plus the fruit we buy sometimes when it has a good price I never ever distilled more than 20L 45% fruitbrandy, this will be the first year when I will have around 30, and it all stays in the family and given as a gift to friends and relatives.

[zirtico]

Thanks for the advice. I blended the berries with some light sugar syrup yesterday, threw in some pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient and some red wine yeast. It'll hit a max. of 10% ABV, if that, so as not to stress the yeast. Then I'll run it. Before I went to bed, the bubbling had already begun, so it's well underway now. Hoping to run it after it ferments dry in about 2 weeks.

I liked oaked spirits, like a good single malt, but I was thinking maybe this is best enjoyed as a nice eau-de-vie without any oaking? What do you guys think?

[zirtico]

I ran my blueberry wine yesterday. Very nice blueberry aromas coming through on the first run and as is expected, the heads and tails were smeared all through the hearts on the stripping run. I set aside a small portion of the exact middle of the run (to maximize pure hearts quantity with minimal heads/tails). I then ran the rest of the low wines again slowly which definitely allowed more distinctive cuts. The second run was definitely smoother and one of my small jars had the most heavenly smooth blueberry flavours ever. I collected pure hearts on the second run and blended it with the portion of the first run that I had set aside, to yield what was effectively 1.5 times distilled blueberry brandy.

Just the tiniest bit of heads and tails kept in, with the vast majority being hearts. On the nose, it has a light but distinctive blueberry aroma, which I am glad has carried through. I am going to enjoy this as an eau-de-vie without oaking, as I feel that the oak would tend to dominate this gentle spirit. I would most compare this to a grappa. I'd say its a success and I encourage anyone who likes fruit brandies to give this one a go!

[Paulinka]

Didn't it get clouded? Strips from fruit use to be cloudy. Not that it would really matter, fi. I diluted my whisky way too fast and after three weeks it is still cloudy, but the taste is ok.

[zirtico]

Nope, no cloudiness, crystal clear. I had it and its rather nice actually. If I could redo it, I would double-distill the whole batch because I believe that one jar which had strong blueberry flavour was the pure heart of the second run while the "heart" of the first run that I set aside was not quite so pure. I assumed that I'd lose too much flavour, but I think even with a little loss of flavour on the second distillation, it would still be a purer blueberry aroma, even if it were lighter.