Fruit wines - how much fruit can you use?

[Mallerstang]

Hi all - summer will be here soon so time to plan the next round of fruit wines. Yay! This will be my third time making most of them - blackberry, strawberry, cherry, etc. and always dry.

Two years ago I followed recipes calling for 3-4.5 lb of fruit per gallon. Last year I increased to 5-6 lb per gallon, and I like these better but there is room for improvement. I've searched online but can't find any actual recipes/ingredient lists using more fruit. There are plenty of posts on the forum about not "diluting" your wine with water, but I've read elsewhere (ECKraus I think) that some fruit may taste too strong, or be too acidic, to ferment straight up.

Has anyone made dry wine from whole fruit other than grapes using 8-10 lb or more fruit per gallon? What recipe did you use? How did it taste? How long did it need to age for?

The wines with less fruit were still quite nice by the way - not tasteless or watery by any means. But I tend to like stronger flavours in food (garlic, hot sauce, curry, spices, blue cheese, anchovies, etc) so it follows that I'd want to make stronger flavoured wines.

Any advice or wisdom will be much appreciated!

 

[Kent88]

It really depends on the fruit.

I think the booklet I have recommends about 3-7 pounds per gallon, depending on what kind of fruit. If you have a local homebrew supply that also has wine ingredients and equipment, you might find a booklet or pamphlet with different varieties of fruit, how much fruit (that they recommend) to use per gallon, how much sugar to add, how much yeast nutrient, acid blend, wine tannin, etc., and variety of yeast. Those are some good starting points.

I've had the most success with acidic fruits, like blueberries (which I think they recommended 2.5-3 pounds per gallon) and rhubarb (which I believe was over 5 pounds per gallon) (I know, botanically it is a vegetable, but I think BJCP says to consider the culinary definition). I've also tried pear and peach wine and those just tasted like booze, not fruit. The plain strawberry wine my wife and I made was an absolute disaster, just tasted like moldy strawberries and we have no idea why.

The only time I've had my fruit wines not turn out dry is when I use the white labs sweet mead strain. I guess my blueberry wine might be a *little* sweet, and I think I used 1118.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

You might try juicing the fruit & using the juice to replace X amount of water, this will give you tons more flavor. Also, freeze/thaw the fruit before juicing/crushing/fermenting, you'll get a higher yield & thus, more flavor.
Regards, GF.

 

[bernardsmith]

Strongly agree with gratus fermentatio. But I would add that if your wines taste like rocket fuel that is either because of poor fermentation management - you are making fusels rather than pure ethanol - OR you are adding too much sugar so the fermentables are simply too much. Wine should be around 12% ABV and that means a starting gravity of around 1.090. Most fruit won't have a gravity higher than 1.045 -1.055 so you are adding the fermentables and you have 100 percent control over how much you add - unless of course you have a very shaky hand... sorry).. Me? I prefer to use as much fruit as I can afford and as little water as humanly possible. For me wine making is not an attempt to ask for a miracle of turning water into wine..and dilute fruit juice needs just as much of a miracle to make a decent wine. Ten pounds of fruit/gallon of expressed juice is typical (Jack Keller tends to use 1/3 to 1/2 of this but his fruit may be far more "juicy" than the fruits I can obtain upstate NY.

 

[Yooper]

Some fruits are so acidic that they need to be diluted- like concord grapes or catawba grapes and rhubarb. I've made rhubarb wine with 3 pounds per gallon, and with 7 pounds per gallon, and the 3 pound version was much more enjoyable.

My crabapple wine uses 6 pounds per gallon, as does my biggest blackberry wine, but my chokecherry wine uses 2.5 pounds per gallon usually.

So you can see that it really depends on the amount of natural acidity and sweetness for each fruit.

 

[Kent88]

I've made rhubarb wine with 3 pounds per gallon, and with 7 pounds per gallon, and the 3 pound version was much more enjoyable.

Just goes to show how subjective taste is. I love the rhubarb wine that I make that is more towards the 7 pounds end of the spectrum.

 

[bernardsmith]

But here are ways of reducing the acidity and ways of concentrating it - not to say that some rhubarb is more acidic than others - so unless we know the TAs of the finished wines we might be comparing apples to potatoes...

 

[Mallerstang]

Thank you Kent, Gratus, Yooper and Bernard for all those great suggestions and advice.

I also like my blackberry wine with 6 lb per gallon, wheras I think the blackcurrant with 3.5 lb per gallon (currently aging 6 months before we taste it) will probably be flavourful enough. With strawberry I'm up to almost 5 lb per gallon, but I think I'll increase it further to 6 lb this year. Cherries I've used about 5 lb twice and it's really good just like that - but I might go up a bit depending on the fruit price.

I'll continue to research, experiment, take copious notes, and learn more about how to assess the qualities of the fruit I start with. This year I'll freeze the cherries to get more juice out, and maybe the strawberries too, instead of starting the wine as soon as I get the fruit home.

And now I really want to try making a rhubarb wine - hope we get a big harvest this year! It's just started to emerge from the ground.

 

[Kent88]

I found my booklet with the chart of pounds fruit / gallon (along with other ingredients).

Turns out it recommends 5 pounds rhubarb per gallon, not 7. When it makes sense to me I usually add an extra half pound of fruit more that it suggests.

There are a few flowers that it lists, but I've never messed with that. As far as fresh fruit, lowest I see is 1.5 pounds fresh elderberry, and the most I see is apples at up to 8 pounds per gallon (for apple wine, not cider). This has about 11 varieties of fresh fruit that it lists. I've not tried elderberry yet, but I have tried apple. The first wine we made was actually an apple wine, and we thought it would be a good idea to put a cinnamon stick in secondary... so after a couple months it was basically cinnamon wine that was good for adding to apple juice.

Blackberry wine, it recommends 4 pounds per gallon and 4.5 cups sugar.

And no, I don't consider this booklet to be *the* authority on making fruit wines, especially since my peach, pear, and strawberry wines didn't turn out well. But it served me well for rhubarb and blueberry. I need to try raspberries someday...

 

[Mallerstang]

I found my booklet with the chart of pounds fruit / gallon (along with other ingredients)...

Cool! I've made dandelion wine twice, and it's fairly nice after a year or more aging. But I'm not sure if the flavour is coming from the flowers much, or from the citrus zest and juice that the recipe called for (along with Welches white grape juice). But my mum made elderflower wine once that was fantastic, so I've just planted some elderberry bushes. Have not been able to find any growing wild.

I found this chart a couple of years ago - ingredient lists for 5-gallon batches:

http://eckraus.com/wine-recipes/

It's a useful starting point, and recommends specific yeasts for the different fruits. I think I prefer to use 50% more fruit per gallon though.

 

[Kent88]

I started some elderberry plants in containers last year, and then crazy life stuff happened and we're selling the house so I can't plant them this year. Hopefully they'll survive.

I just bought a jug of elderberry wine base, so I'll make that up and decide if I like the wine enough to get a few more elderberry plants.

Dandelion wine sounds intriguing, but like a huge pain in the backside to get all the flowers without the green parts.

 

[jgmillr1]

Has anyone made dry wine from whole fruit other than grapes using 8-10 lb or more fruit per gallon? What recipe did you use? How did it taste? How long did it need to age for?

As you can see from the responses there is quite a lot of variation in style, preferences and processes. I prefer to make my fruit wines with 100% fruit and no water additions, if possible. For fruit wines, I've made blackberry, cherry, strawberry, peach, cranberry, and lemon. I don't follow a recipe but instead measure what each fruit gives me and adjust as needed. The wines turned out great too. Careful notes then produce a "recipe" that I use work off of again for the next batch.

So, you are going to have to often make up your own recipe but that is easy when you follow the general guidelines. I'd say the top things you will need to measure, check and adjust whether you make up a new recipe or are simply following a tried&true one:
* Add water if needed to reduce the intensity of the flavor, such as for concord or lemon.
* Measure your OG / brix and add sugar as needed to bring to ~1.09 / 21 brix
* Measure pH and adjust if needed (see TA note below). A good and safe pH is 3.2-3.6, where the yeast will be happy.
* Measure your acidity (TA) and adjust. Be sure to keep the pH in the "good" range!
-- wines to be finished sweet can take a TA up to ~10.5 g/L while dry wines are best 5.5-6.5 g/L
---- use only potassium bicarbonate for grape-based wine to lower the TA
---- use either calcium carbonate or potassium bicarbonate for fruit wines to lower the TA
---- note that some yeast can metabolize acid, so your final acid may be lower than where you start
---- also note that your acid measurement of fruit may not be accurate if there is a lot of acid still in the fruit flesh. You can adjust acid to taste after fermentation, so be careful to not over-do the adjustment at the beginning of fermentation
-- Acidity can be increased by additions of tartaric, malic or citric acid individually or as the "acid blend".
----- Do not add citric or malic acid if you plan to put the wine through malolactic fermentation
* Add sufficient sulfites
* Add yeast nutrients, pectic enzyme, tannin as needed depending on the fruit used
* Pick a yeast that compliments the fruit or style you are seeking

Anyone else have other things they monitor, add or adjust when working with non-grape fruit?

Again, these are just guidelines that will help get the must in the ballpark to ensure a successful fermentation. Your tastes, preferences and experience will fine tune your individual recipe. Good luck and happy fermenting.

 

[Mallerstang]

I don't follow a recipe but instead measure what each fruit gives me and adjust as needed. The wines turned out great too. Careful notes then produce a "recipe" that I use work off of again for the next batch ...
* Measure pH and adjust if needed (see TA note below). A good and safe pH is 3.2-3.6, where the yeast will be happy.
* Measure your acidity (TA) and adjust. Be sure to keep the pH in the "good" range!

Great advice - thanks! Since you seem like a practical sort, do you have any advice on how to actually measure acidity and/or TA? I find the low-tech colour-changing kit with the phenolphthalein impossible to use with red wines, but pH meters are expensive and seem like they are complicated to maintain and clean. Also I can't find a local supplier. Litmus test strips for pH have the same problem with the colour.

 

[bernardsmith]

The only effective way to measure both pH and TA is with a pH meter. And yes, good ones are not inexpensive but you can pick one up for about $30. They do need to be calibrated so you also need buffers that have a known pH. You can also use a pH meter to measure TA because the point at which the phenolphthalein changes color is at a pH of 8.2 so if you have a known volume of wine to measure and you have a known volume of the base then all you do is carefully drip the base into the sample until the pH hits 8.2 and then it's a fairly simple calculation that you make to determine the g of acid/liter of wine... Litmus papers are really not effective as the depend on a range rather than a simple reading...

 

[Mallerstang]

The only effective way to measure both pH and TA is with a pH meter. And yes, good ones are not inexpensive but you can pick one up for about $30. ...

Can you recommend a specific model that is reliable but affordable for winemaking? The ones I've seen online seem to be closer to $80 - and that's Canadian dollars, without the buffer solution, and before they charge a massive shipping fee for only buying one thing. Thanks!

 

[Kent88]

You think $80 is bad... check these out.

 

[jgmillr1]

Can you recommend a specific model that is reliable but affordable for winemaking? The ones I've seen online seem to be closer to $80 - and that's Canadian dollars, without the buffer solution, and before they charge a massive shipping fee for only buying one thing. Thanks!

You will certainly need a pH meter if you plan to continue on with winemaking. It's like a construction worker needing to invest in a miter saw and a nail gun. The pH meter is especially necessary if you are working with fruit other than grapes where the pH can be all over the map. Grapes are the "perfect" fruit for winemaking with nearly all parameters where they need to be!

The portable units you can from Amazon do a decent job. The precision is only +-0.1 but that is good enough for titrating and making sure your pH is good. Here is one for $50 that even comes with calibration standards.