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- AceNZ February 2015
- CothermanDistilling February 2015
- FloridaCracker February 2015
- FullySilenced January 2015
- grim January 2015
- Sunshine January 2015
- TheMechWarrior February 2015
- Unsensibel January 2015
Blueberry Brandy?
I own and operate a blueberry farm and have been thinking about this for quite some time now. I've done the research but wanted to get input from this forum.
I have access to almost an unlimited amount of culls (overripe, split skin, smashed, etc) from the packing house that I send my fruit to. Quantity is not a problem like it is for most. Price is cheap.
Admission: I have never tried to make any kind of brandy. Whiskey is my drug of choice but I like trying new things, so...
Any of you have any experience with this? Was going to do the whole infusion thing but would rather do it right. Any tips or advice? I'm also going to try and isolate our local yeast from the skins of our berries and create something totally unique to our farm. Might try that yeast for rum and whiskey as well.
What do y'all think?
Comments
Step 1. Make Blueberry beer/wine
Step 2. Distill to make brandy.
I've never made it and I have no idea about the viability of a blueberry wine. That said I can't see why you couldn't macerate (I'm doing it now) blueberries or even vapour infuse.
Commercial or hobby?
I like the eau de vie approach, white, and had some very good experiences using an approach that @Myles recommended on another forum (thanks man). Ferment a double batch, strip half, add the low wines back to the mash, and do your spirit run. The only recommendation is to be gentle on the strip run, don't try to blow it through full speed. Makes for a great white product. You lose a lot of the delicate fruit flavors if you strip all of it and then do a spirit run. Depending on your rig, you may or may not be able to do it in one pass, since fruit mashes tend to be relatively low alcohol (and taking it off at about 70-80% isn't possible with a pot setup). Only saying this because the only fruit mashes I did were running on a pot still. Single pass on a pot might be good for an aged brandy, but is a little strong, the delicate stuff gets lost.
Don't adulterate with sugar, it's going to be very harsh. If hobby and you want to stretch your yields, run a neutral and use it to raise the abv of your spirit run.
You'll find some amazing flavors and aromas in the mid and late heads, you'll need to find a balance on blending these in, or not.
On the yeast side - I'd go with a commercial yeast and pitch at recommended rates. Not saying that trying to isolate your own cultures doesn't have merit, but to do it correctly, and maintain your own pure culture, is a completely different area of expertise. Fruit mash is very expensive, you don't want to lose a batch to infection or poor ferment. Run the yeast isolation as a separate project from this one. Only once you've mastered the yeast side would I gamble on the fruit.
The other thing to keep in mind is how the packers are treating the fruit. Are they washing the fruit with any kind of sanitizer? Ozonated water? Generally you'll find a significant amount of yeast on a blueberry. You may find that you don't even need to isolate it, it's going to start fermenting on it's own. Personally, I wouldn't allow a natural fermentation, but pitch my own yeast in a quantity high enough to out-compete the natural yeast. That's just my preference.
Thanks @grim, I have a local source and would love to have a crack at this. :-bd
Yeah, Grim, I won't experiment with new yeasts on this one! Possibly down the road. Blueberries aren't washed with anything; Washing will remove the bloom (powdery light coloring) and cause it to go to shit quickly so I don't have to worry about that.
The rig I am running isn't going to be ideal for this kind of run; My condenser is undersized and I have an almost impossible time collecting below 175 until near the tails. I have to run the water almost full on which keeps the reflux in full mode (don't ask). Our crop is in the Spring and I plan on getting either a CD or Dash in 4" so that will open up a lot of possibilities for me.
Was going to use the same yeast I always do; Red Star bakers. Should I go with more of a wine/champagne yeast?
I'm going to post something in a day or two about culturing wild yeast. Need to get some new sterile culture plates and make up more slants.
Funny. I just ordered that stuff last night. Agar, petri dishes, sterile swabs, centrifuge tubes, etc.
I know this was not directed at me...but YES.
Yeast selection makes a WORLD of difference in your final product. Look at the charactersitics of the yeast versus the characteristics of the product you are trying to produce and match the two.
You get the same quality in the spirits product like the fruits you used. If you use not so perfect or unclean fruits, you will taste it in the outcome. Just something to consider. It may not be worth the effort and disappointment could occur. :( High quality blueberry fine spirits are among the most expensive spirits here in Austria and very popular. Some blueberry farmers did change from selling only the fresh berry to completely distilling all their yield. It's more profit in it, when it is really good.
StillDragon Europe - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Europe & the surrounding area
The expense would likely come from the very low sugar content at around 10%...that's a lot of work. Anyone willing to go to that much trouble deserves a good return.
Since I'm just 'stillin for my own use, I always go with quality over quantity so the low yield will be OK. Anyone in Florida who wants to do this should visit their local packing house that handles berries. Most of the culls are sold to wineries but they will usually sell you a barrel if you want one.. I think the going rate last year was $.15 a pound. At the end of the season last year there were TONS just sitting on the refrigerated dock with nowhere to go. Hey Cotherman. Looking to expand your inventory?
@FloridaCracker I can only second what @Sunshine said: Blueberry is typically expensive due to the low sugar content in the berries. Have a book somewhere at home that shows typical yields, will post when I get home. Haven't been able to produce the quality of fruit brandy that I want (yet) but everyone that produces high quality product only uses very good & ripe (not spoiled) fruit. Otherwise the flavor suffers.
Blueberry Nukins are pretty dang tasty... ifn you haven't tried it its a must.... :D
FS
Another use for blueberries is to macerate them in neutral. You can make a very nice Danish schnapps that way:
Blueberry Schnapps @ Danish Schnapps Recipes
Might also be interesting to try dehydrating them first, and then using them in a gin basket to make an infusion.
@FloridaCracker - I would be interested in checking out some Florida Blueberries for either a fermentation, a maceration in neutral and redistillation, or a straight up blueberry moonshine... with the best method(s) increased for small commercial batch size (10-100 cases)
Sounds good to me. The best access to reasonably priced berries is toward the tail end of the season when the price drops. Culls can be had relatively cheap then. I will contact my marketer and see what they can do for me. I pack in Dover which isn't too far from you so maybe I could grab some culls and meet you somewhere convenient.
I've got a few kilos that just finished macerating recently. Since the blueberries were just one amongst many fruits I was testing at the time I was quite surprised to find the blueberries a little on the dry side. Not sure why I expected all fruits to be sweet but it was only a select few. I look forward to playing some more with the blueberries in the future, including a Schnapps and Gin.