Blueberry Goodness

Information about fruit/vegetable type washes.

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Sunshineer
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Blueberry Goodness

Post by Sunshineer »

I'm starting this thread from another started by a really nice guy named Cranky about all kinds of fruit just for blueberries. From the beginning of my adventure is where I will start my daughter's boyfriend soon to be husband calls me and asks if I would like some blueberries. I said sure how much do you have? He said 240 pounds. I said how much can I get he said all of it. I turned that into 7 seven gallon cartboys of pulp and juice. Added only enzymes and yeast and let them do there thing very slowly for about a month when I racked it off the lees I had five cartboys of some fine juice to which I added four pounds of sugar per cartboy which gave me another three gallon cartboy to which I added a pound and a heavy half they started to ferment again after about an hour and were bubbling along nicely for about three days at about 75 degrees then they shifted into high gear and for the last three days I'm getting a bubble a second from the airlocks and the smell of blueberries is fantastic. As my adventure continues I will post updates but please add any and all things blueberry. I hope to have enough when it's done to bottle as wine and as a nice brandy. This is my first time with blueberries so anything anyone else wants to add please do.
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Sunshineer »

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here's a picture of one of six.
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Yonder
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Yonder »

Makes a hell of a good mead!
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Sunshineer »

May have to try that in the future feel free to post your recipe here as long as it uses blueberries
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Tater
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

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I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
Sunshineer
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

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Wow half a pound of sugar for every pound of fruit sure seems alot and I didn't use any water I just added juice mostly grape to thin it out when I started. And have only added twenty pounds of sugar where you would have added one hundred and twenty since it is still fermenting it is not to late to add more if necessary. And is that your standard for any fruit. Thanks for the input always appreciated.
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Tater
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

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Sunshineer wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 12:20 pm Wow half a pound of sugar for every pound of fruit sure seems alot and I didn't use any water I just added juice mostly grape to thin it out when I started. And have only added twenty pounds of sugar where you would have added one hundred and twenty since it is still fermenting it is not to late to add more if necessary. And is that your standard for any fruit. Thanks for the input always appreciated.
Thought that also however did make some nice wine . Making a pure blueberry brandy it take around 300 lb to get 2 gallon .As to adding sugar to other fruits counts on what the natural fruit sugar content is .Ive played with varying amounts to see how it affects taste .Seem there is two ways of doing it = fruit with little sugar or sugar with little fruit . Really a matter of personal taste .For me the most taste for the work was making this .viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4065 like this as well using pears
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Sunshineer »

Just to update my blueberries are still hard at it and the dark purple color is starting to lighten.
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Sunshineer »

Blueberries still going strong was hoping that this thread would added to by all of your own blueberries recipes please feel free to post anything blueberry.
il5bms3000
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by il5bms3000 »


Any updates on this one?? I found about 20 #10 cans of blue berries in the scratch and dent section. This was about the only post I could find about brandy so I was hoping to get an update before I pulled the trigger on trying this one.


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tombombadil
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by tombombadil »

If you're not going to distill it you might consider adding lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Seems to really bring out the blueberry flavor. I just bottled 6 gallons of blueberry mead that I made about a year ago, good stuff.
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Mendel »

I've considered buying blueberries, as they grow here and I can buy in bulk cheap. Should I crush them? If so, how?
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by CoogeeBoy »

Well, I have posted on another thread but I macerated some blueberries on 90% ABV and got a wonderful coloured spirit at around 78% abv.
I had done a raspberry and mixed that with some sugar syrup and that turned out fantastic.
The Blueberries though, I just cant get a good balance of fruit and sweetness.
I am thinking the blueberries do not make a good liqueur as they are too sweet to start with.
Taking a break while I get a new still completed....
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Evil Wizard
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Evil Wizard »

I distill blueberries professionally.
I avoid crushing them to allow easier drainage because I use a continous distiller that hates solids.
I use sugar to raise up to 20ish brix to get 13%-14% abv, use a wine yeast with no methanol production that produces raspberry ketones.
Once distilled I take the stillage, fine with bentonite and extract the acids using CaOH and Phosphoric acid. Then I add some of the acids back to the distillate. Much of the flavour of blueberries are in the acidity.
The rest of it are in the glycosides, so I take dried blueberry powder (Ironberry brand), soak that in 40% giving me some natural sugars and glycosides and color. I blend that in as well.
Tastes like a blueberry, which is tricky to get from the fermentation itself, as there is really no ester that tastes like blueberry.
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Bushman
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Bushman »

I have two large blueberry bushes that for the last twenty five years have produced around 3 gallons of berries. This year I got some free compost that I put around the bushes and they flowered but produced zero berries. It might be time to replace the plants but Is ill give them another year to see if the compost was too rich for the rest of the soil.
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cranky
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

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Bushman wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:17 am I have two large blueberry bushes that for the last twenty five years have produced around 3 gallons of berries. This year I got some free compost that I put around the bushes and they flowered but produced zero berries. It might be time to replace the plants but Is ill give them another year to see if the compost was too rich for the rest of the soil.
There are lots of reasons blueberries might flower but not fruit, my guess is the compost threw the PH off or the nutrient balance but it could have been the rainy weather we had this past year.

As far as replacing the plants, the blueberry park in Tacoma was an active blueberry farm from the 20's until '68, when it was turned into a park in the 90s they just pruned the existing plants down close to the ground and let them grow back. I don't think there is a single plant in the park less than 50 years old. Maybe your plants just need pruned.
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Bushman
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Re: Blueberry Goodness

Post by Bushman »

cranky wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:01 am
Bushman wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:17 am I have two large blueberry bushes that for the last twenty five years have produced around 3 gallons of berries. This year I got some free compost that I put around the bushes and they flowered but produced zero berries. It might be time to replace the plants but Is ill give them another year to see if the compost was too rich for the rest of the soil.
There are lots of reasons blueberries might flower but not fruit, my guess is the compost threw the PH off or the nutrient balance but it could have been the rainy weather we had this past year.

As far as replacing the plants, the blueberry park in Tacoma was an active blueberry farm from the 20's until '68, when it was turned into a park in the 90s they just pruned the existing plants down close to the ground and let them grow back. I don't think there is a single plant in the park less than 50 years old. Maybe your plants just need pruned.
:thumbup: I think I will prune back the old growth and leave any new ones. See what happens as my plants are probably close to that same age as I bought them from a berrry farm that was going out of business.
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