Over oaked blueberry wine

[Brewkowski]

I'm not sure since I just racked it off the oak chips yesterday, but I'm worried about either 1) I added too much oak and 2) the blueberry wine is too light for the oaking, needs more body

I used 1.5oz Heavy Toasted oak chips for 3 gal of blueberrywine, aged about 1.5 weeks. The wine was basically 4lbs fruit per gal and .5lbs raisins, so I thought it would have more body to it, but it seems almost thinner since I added the oak.

I'm not sure if I'm just being too premature in assessing the oak affect and I'm sure some of it will mellow out over time, but will the body increase? I was almost thinking of adding a little honey (enough to get it to like .5-1% RS), right now it's dry. Not sure the honey would dissolve well without alot of stirring.

 

[Brewkowski]

Update- After about 3 months the oak has mellowed quite a bit. I'll probably bottle soon and wait another month or two to see how it's aged. It is still thin even though I did add a little sugar (still a dry wine) for some body.

 

[Yooper]

Blueberry wine tends to be very thin. It's too late now, but for next time, I found that adding bananas to primary helps boost the body of the wine. Not too much, as you don't want a blueberry/banana wine, but even a pound of bananas in a 3 gallon batch would make a big difference.

If you want to sweeten, don't forget to stabilize first or else the sweetening will just ferment out.

 

[Brewkowski]

Yeah I guess I"m stuck with the thin body, good information for next time with the bananas. I made a blackberry wine what has alot more body but I did use 1 can of Barbera concentrate, would something like that work for the blueberry too or would bananas be better? I did stabilize it before adding sugar, hopefully better than I did with my raspberry (which just restarted after a few months). The blackberry/barbera was aged on hungarian oak and it is a really nice dry red and I was hoping for something similar. Since I oaked the blueberry, not sure if I should blend it or just wait and see, might be a nice light red for summer grilling.

 

[Yooper]

Yeah I guess I"m stuck with the thin body, good information for next time with the bananas. I made a blackberry wine what has alot more body but I did use 1 can of Barbera concentrate, would something like that work for the blueberry too or would bananas be better? I did stabilize it before adding sugar, hopefully better than I did with my raspberry (which just restarted after a few months). The blackberry/barbera was aged on hungarian oak and it is a really nice dry red and I was hoping for something similar. Since I oaked the blueberry, not sure if I should blend it or just wait and see, might be a nice light red for summer grilling.

I'm not really sure adding concentrate would work that well for blueberry. Well, it would "work" in the sense it would fill it out, but blueberry is so mild flavored that it might cover it that's why I suggested the bananas in small quantity.

I'd probably wait and see at this point.

 

[Mizamook]

Since I found this thread while ruminating over oaking some of my blueberry and black huckleberry wines, I wonder if there is any result from the OP?

 

[Bourniplus]

I can't answer for the OP, but since I've started to add oak chips to my blueberry wine last year, I like the results and have added some to this year's batches.

 

[Mizamook]

What type (French, American, Hungarian) toast level, and amount per gallon + time would you recommend personally? As a starting point, I have no idea, as various recommendations abound!

I can't answer for the OP, but since I've started to add oak chips to my blueberry wine last year, I like the results and have added some to this year's batches.

 

[Bourniplus]

I bought what was at my LHBS: American, medium toast. I didn't take precise measurements, so don't take my word for it, but I think it would make sense to start with a small handful (1-2 tablespoons/volume of a golf ball) of chips for a 5-gallon batch. Then sample after a few days, weeks, etc. Eventually you can remove them or add more.

 

[Mizamook]

Cool, thank you much! I'll just wing it, and try a couple different ones ...

Cheers!

I bought what was at my LHBS: American, medium toast. I didn't take precise measurements, so don't take my word for it, but I think it would make sense to start with a small handful (1-2 tablespoons/volume of a golf ball) of chips for a 5-gallon batch. Then sample after a few days, weeks, etc. Eventually you can remove them or add more.