Favorite wine recipes

[Moondog]

As I sit here this evening after the thanksgiving feast I am reminded of natures bounty. As I eat the pumpkin and pecan pie I have to give my favorite family wine recipe because I am enjoying it with the pie. We don't even grow peaches but it is without a doubt my favorite homemade wine. Please feel free to share similar recipes.

13 pounds of over ripe peaches. Pitted and frozen. Peels on - peache and bananas come on sale often   
       cheap.
10.5 pounds of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of peptic enzyme - paw never used this but it makes the wine clear better.
2 tablespoons of acid blend or the juice of 6 lemons and 3 oranges and about 100 raisins,

Wash, dice, and freeze. This breaks the cell walls and kills any wild yeast.
when ready to make wine take out of the freezer let come to room temperature.
Clean a 5 gallon bucket and use a campden tablet to sanitize.
Put in fruit and mash really well with a potato masher. Add sugar and enough spring water or bottled water to fill the 5 gallon bucket to within 2" of the top. Add all the other ingredients. Add 1 packet of montrachet yeast cover with the bucket lid and a towel. Don't seal the lid.

Stir 2 times per day for 1 week. Rack into 4 gallon demijohn. I use either glass or plastic- with an aiirlock. Paw used a mason jar airlock. I have bought ones. Rack after 30 days then again after 45 days. Bottle and drink.

This recipe will yield about  18 - 750 ml bottles of wine and cost about $2.00 per bottle.
About 16% alcohol content.

[nuggethound]

I will give it a try when the Peaches come back in.

Jerry

[Deertracker51]

6 cans frozen lime aid,6 cans frozen lemonaid 10 pounds sugar and yeast to 5 gallon water,13 to 14 percent alcohol,makes 22 to 24 750ml bottles ,great in summertime with a little ice

[pops]

Rack after 30 days then again after 45 days.

By Rack......Do you mean to pour into another jar?

[Moondog]

By racking I mean to siphon from one jug to another. This leaves the sediment in the bottom of the other jug.

If the wine is in contact with the sediment too long it tends to get a bad sulfury taste from the dead yeast rotting.

You siphon so you don't stirr up the dregs.

Dog.

[1tongarden]

Wow! i never even seen this spot on this site. HEY DEERTRACKER whats the process to make that recipe there,and MOONDOG is that recipe goodseemslikepeople always say it takes a year os so to get good stuff. I mademy second attempt at muskmelonwine andim  3 months into it say sit takes a year and a half to be the best quite a long time  especailly means i dont even really like wine im a trying to acquire a taste for it, but that stuff deer tracker is talkinabout sounds good for the summer though shoot maybe even winter

[Moondog]

1tongardener,

We make several different wines. Watermellon, Honey(Meade), Peach, Blackberry, Raspberry, Mullberry, Bananna, not to mention concord grape, risling grape, and Eldeberry. We have even made PawPaw wine. Any fruit can be used to make a fairly decent wine. I have been contemplating after christmas when the bananna's and canned pineapple will be on sale making my first attempt at pineapple wine.

Most Fruit wines are just fine at 3 Months from start. Will they get better with age. Sure up to 6 Months. After 6 Months they are about as good as they are going to get. But they are fully drinkable and enjoyable at 3 months and usually don't make it to 6 months around here. I try to not keep fruit wines over 2 years.

Meade, Grape, and eldeberry wine will definately benefit from age. Again most wines we do don't last past 2 years. They are made to be enjoyed. Watermellon and Bananna are best to mix with wines that may be too tart. I personally don't care for them by themselves but mixed with a tart wine like mulberry or blackberry works pretty good.

Dog

[1tongarden]

You mix watermelon and banana winewith mulberry  wines or blackberry wines? cause why the berry wines are tart and that watermelon and banana wine is sweeter?   Have you ever made a muskmelon  or cantelope wine before?

[Moondog]

You mix watermelon and banana winewith mulberry  wines or blackberry wines? cause why the berry wines are tart and that watermelon and banana wine is sweeter?   Have you ever made a muskmelon  or cantelope wine before?

I have tasted cantalope wine before and didn't care for it. I don't care for cantalopes. But it is just the same as any fruit wine except you need to add more acid.

Sometimes a batch of wine comes out either too tart or too bitter. They can leave a strong aftertaste. They would be ok if they didn't make your mouth pucker up (I.E. Persimmon wine) or leave a bitter aftertaste from low Ph.  So to remove some of that acidity or bitterness I add a little watermelon or bananna wine(they don't have much flavor but plenty of alcohol) to reduce either the acidity or the bitterness of a wine. This dilutes it some and conqueres some of those flavors. Better this than dump 5 gallons of saveable wine down a drain. I always do my in 5 gallon batches too. Too much work for one gallon of wine. Just as easy to do 5 as one.

Dog

[1tongarden]

Oh i see ok well thanks alot i'll let youknow if anyone likes it later down the road.

[mphymel]

Moondog,
maybe you or some of the others here can help me out on this one.
I have a couple of gallons of honey from last fall's harvest, and I want to make mead. I have never made any wine or beer, so you are dealing with a clean slate here. I have not even had mead before.

This is what I have:
A 5 gallon brew bucket from a brew supply store, with the lid.
One of those airlocks
Some brewers yeast  -Safbrew T-58
I have about 2.5 gallons of honey on hand, not sure how much I will need.

I did a lot of looking but the instructions are all over the place.
 Some folks boil some don't, some use fruit some don't some use spices some don't. Some instructions seem to simplified, others to many technical abbreviations for me to understand.

I guess I wanted to try this out, but wanted to shoot for an entry level end product, and would like to hear how it is done from somebody who has made this before, and that I can follow up with if I have any questions.

I figured I post instead of PM'ing you so others can benefit from it in the future.

Thanks,
Mark

[Moondog]

Mark,
One gallon of honey will make 4 gallons of meade. I like to use the plastic 4 gallon water jugs(demijons) to make meade. They cost like 5 dollars here. Sanitize it.  I don't like clorox it is bad for yeast and makes wine have an off taste the beautiful thing is all the water inside that jug is already sterile.Pour out 3 gallons in to a clean pot. Put 1 gallon of honey and 1 gallon of water into a pot and heat to just about boiling. Some say to boil it because of salmonella in the honey. If you eat the honey anyway then there probably isn't any.  The darker the honey the better the taste - really light honeys almost make meade flavorless. Go to the grocery and get 6 large oranges - I like navals. Wash them really good in antibacterial dish soap. Then rinse several times. Cut into wedges and drop into the demijohn then put in about 3 handfulls of raisins. Around here the dollar stores sells raisins in the little individual packs. Put in 3.

Then pour in the honey mixture and enough water to come up to the bottom of the neck after it has cooled to the touch. Get a number ten stopper and put on the airlock. This will also work with your 5 gallon bucket if you have a hole in the top for the airlock. When this all comes to to room temperature put in your safbrew - I like lalvin or montrochet... But hey I just have never tried Safbrew... Might be great. I have even seen some decent meades come from bread yeast. Put on the airlock. I put rum in my airlock. That way no beastys form in the lock. After 30 days you will need to  siphon off this stuff into another demijohn or bucket that is perfectly clean(leaving the crud behind). Then every 50 days after that.  It will be OK to drink after 3 months but will not be much paletable until about 6 months. (after 6 months no more racking bottle) It gets better with age. Most of my Meades I let age at least a year. (In a Dark Place)They can be kind of tasteless sometimes but aquire good taste with age. If they are bitter you went too long between racking.

PS. This recipe is what I do. There are a ton of recipes out there. If you have the honey and it is free. You know what I mean.

Dog

[1tongarden]

Welln i racked my muskmelon wine yesterday and  there was hardley any sediment at the bottom left. I taste tested it and the stuff;s like seriously strong and doest tatse to good, taste's like...like...like.... uhhhhh well not wine anyway just rerally strong. I'll prolly rack it once more maybe twice and see what happens

[1tongarden]

Thanks for that Hil it looks like a reallygood site

[Moondog]

1ton,

It will be really strong and not a lot of taste. Like most mellon wines. The flavor will either improve in 3 to 6 months or just be tastless and strong. That being said tastless mixed with a fruit drink makes a pretty good wine cooler in the summer. If it is still tastes and smells yeasty it is not done. But if it is really nasty you probably contaminated it at some route or it just went bad. 1 in 3 of watermellon wines of mine just go bad and I don't know why. I do the exact same thing every time. I think it has to do with the mellon and the ripeness. But am not sure. That is part of my experiment. But it takes years to get results so it is slow going.

Dog

PS I almost forgot as to strong. Most homemade wines are in the range of 12 to 16% alcohol. Considering most purchased wines are in the range of 6-8% the homemade ones carry a much greater punch if you know what I mean. One glass is like up to 2.5 glasses of purchased wines.

[1tongarden]

I betcha it got contaminated i wasn't cleaning stuff good enough i think. Could you give me an idea on how you clean yoursand what product you use. Im not sureifits contaminated but it taste like welli wanna say moonshine like my mom said, but i know better thatn that. a good farmer has a friend in virgina i think and WOOO! that stuff will get you by the bubu,. any how thanks moondog

[Moondog]

I use campden tablets. I clean everything really well with dawn and then rinse thoroughly. Finally, I use a campden tablet to make a final rinse solution. However, I do not put campden in the fruit. If it is good fruit and the outsides have been washed thoroughly I don't worry. Mellon wines are easy to go bad. Campden tablets in the mellon solution will put a stop to wild yeasts and bacteria.

If you are not used to drinking wine an unfinished wine will taste kind of yuky... Some folks never aquire a taste for it. Even plenty of folks that like beer and liquor don't like some wines even if they are not spoiled.

But, it has always been my opinion you would know a spoiled wine if you tasted it. It would not smell yeasty(an unfinished wine) it would smell like feet and vinegar.

Dog

[mphymel]

Moondog,
I will be trying another mead (melomel) recipe, which calls for apple juice. Is there anything special I should look out for regarding preservatives.  I'd like to go to Sam's and buy some large containers of apple juice, but don't quite know if that is a bad idea.

Mark

[1tongarden]

i did use one of those tabletsin the wine and been using the stuff that came with the kits, its a rinseless cleaner but i still kinda rinse it out.Maybe it just hasnt mellowed out yet. the recipe said 3months in between racks how does that sound to you. This stuff was mad in oct. i believe racked about 3-4 times reallyi cant remember

[Moondog]

Moondog,
I will be trying another mead (melomel) recipe, which calls for apple juice. Is there anything special I should look out for regarding preservatives.  I'd like to go to Sam's and buy some large containers of apple juice, but don't quite know if that is a bad idea.

Mark

If you are going to use juice I would get the kind with no preservatives. But apple juice really should be pasturized in my opinion.

[Moondog]

i did use one of those tabletsin the wine and been using the stuff that came with the kits, its a rinseless cleaner but i still kinda rinse it out.Maybe it just hasnt mellowed out yet. the recipe said 3months in between racks how does that sound to you. This stuff was mad in oct. i believe racked about 3-4 times reallyi cant remember

1ton,
3 Months between rackings is too long in my opinion 7 days to rack off of fruit pulp - 30 days first rack -45 after 1st. But I never rack more than 3 times. I let the 3rd rack be the last and if it is done - doesn't taste yeasty then I go ahead and bottle if I have the bottles. If not I leave it in the demijohn with and airlock till I have the bottles. Watermellon wine is best at 6 months. Meade best at 1 year. I would bet that muskmellon is somewhere in between. But again I have never made musckmellon wine just tasted it.

Mellons are a hard wine for the beginner. Berry wines are tons easier and taste better.
Hope this helps
Dog

[1tongarden]

I have 2 or 3 one gallon bags full of rasberry's in the deep freeze. If i drink wine i like a sweet wine (although i guess i've never had a real wine thats sweet) You got a reciepe forme for some thing like that. Have you ever made or tasted rasberry wine? Or do you have any advice for me on making something sweet. thanks dog

[1tongarden]

This may have been wine making attempt 2 a BUST We will see. I think were going on 4 months but my receipe said 1.5 years  LOL

[Moondog]

I have 2 or 3 one gallon bags full of rasberry's in the deep freeze. If i drink wine i like a sweet wine (although i guess i've never had a real wine thats sweet) You got a reciepe forme for some thing like that. Have you ever made or tasted rasberry wine? Or do you have any advice for me on making something sweet. thanks dog

The same recipe as the peach wine will work very well. However, do not substitute lemon for the acid blend use the acid blend berry wines are tart anyway the different acids affect the palete differently. If they are black raspberries you will need no tannin so no raisins either. Some yeast nutrient would be nice about 1.5 tablespoons for 5 gallons and you will need 15 pounds of raspberries for 5 gallon bucket. This will make about 4 gallons of wine after you take it off the pulp.. This will make about 16-18% alcohol content. Much stronger than others but should be fully drinkable in 4 months -3 racks max probably 2. But keep out of the light. that is a big mistrake that many make- light will make the wine tast skunky. 

Dog

[mphymel]

Guys, I just made a five gallon batch of Caramel Apple Mead.  I will start a new thread to post some pics.