So, after working with meads and an experiment with coffee wine, I started to try my hand with fruit wines today – and realized I don’t really know my stuff. I prepped two gallons tonight, one with 4lbs (U.S.) of black cherries and the other with about 4lbs of blueberries. I mashed each batch of fruit (and pitted the cherries) to get the juices and pulp, added a bit of water to get to about 3 quarts (that meant adding maybe one quart to each), and then added syrup to bring the gravity of each to 1.090.

For the first (possible) issue, the blueberry must wound up fairly viscous; there’s definitely liquid juice, but there’s also a decent amount of pulp and the liquid itself seems almost syrupy. Is this normal for blueberry must, or did I use too much fruit for a one-gallon batch?

Then, for both wines, I put the musts into glass carboys which were all I had on hand, along with the pulp and skins. Should I be expecting any issues to result from this other than that the carboys will be difficult to clean out? At the moment there’s fruit in each in contact with the surface which I figured would settle to the bottom, but if it doesn’t then would this be at risk for developing mold or infections? It also occurred to me that part of the space within the carboys is taken up by solids that obviously won’t get into the final bottles, and lo and behold at least one source online told me to use primary fermenters slightly larger than my intended batch size to account for that; should I be expecting a significant difference, would it be worth it to buy 2-gallon buckets and transfer the contents from the carboys into those, or is this a trivial issue?

And finally, if you have any advice for a hapless vintner feel free to leave it. I went into this particular project fairly confidently and have left it feeling like I know less than when I started.