Don't ever boil watermelon

[eigua]

I had a watermelon sitting around that I finally got around to tasting and it wasn't super sweet, so I decided to make a simple wine out of it. I followed my normal procedure of squeezing the juice out, filtering, and boiling. I also wanted to try adding some tartaric acid I bought at the lhbs to get the PH down to around 4 (making sure it would be safe against botulism). It took about 1 1/2 tsp to get the PH to 4. In addition, I added sugar to target a 13% ABV.

Everything seemed fine until the juice reached about 190-200 f. The watermelon went from smelling familiar and nice to smelling like some kind of funky, meaty tomato sauce, but not a good tomato sauce. The smell almost makes me feel sick. Certainly not something I'd want to taste. The juice also separated into very red colored bits and a clear yellowish liquid on top. I can't decide if this was due to the tartaric acid, the boiling, or both. Either way, I think this is going to be the first batch of anything I end up tossing out.

 

[jerbrew]

Thanks for the advice. For future reference, pasteurization just needs to be held at 180 for 10-15 minutes. Doesn't need to boil. Sorry to hear about your disaster.

 

[Amadeo38]

I did this as well, minus the tartaric acid. It never separated into the two colors, but yeah, that smell is bad. I tasted it and it had a burnt flavor. Weighed in at 1.090 SG. I added it as a priming sugar and it didn't flavor the beer luckily.

 

[eigua]

Thanks for the advice. For future reference, pasteurization just needs to be held at 180 for 10-15 minutes. Doesn't need to boil. Sorry to hear about your disaster.

I'm not 100% sure it wasn't already changing at the 180f mark though. I think it would be much safer to go the campden route instead with this fruit. As for pasteurization, I believe 165f is sufficient... At least I hope it is otherwise all the pasteurized rice wine I have in bottles isn't pasteurized... This site says 165f for wine. Phew!

Perhaps this massive change in flavor due to high temperature explains why I've never seen canned watermelon.

I did this as well, minus the tartaric acid. It never separated into the two colors, but yeah, that smell is bad. I tasted it and it had a burnt flavor. Weighed in at 1.090 SG. I added it as a priming sugar and it didn't flavor the beer luckily.

I just tasted it and can't detect any burnt flavors, but then again it's hard to taste much of anything but sugar at 1.100. It still has the tomato vomit soup smell though, which I'm guessing is what it would end up tasting like once the sugar has been converted.

Was that SG without added sugar? 1.090 is 3x as sweet as my watermelon before adding sugar.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Never boil fruit for wine. It changes flavors and sets pectins that cause haze in wine.

A half a day in campden solution is all you ever need.

 

[Yooper]

Never boil fruit for wine. It changes flavors and sets pectins that cause haze in wine.

A half a day in campden solution is all you ever need.

That's what I was going to say. Change the line from "never boil watermelon" to "never boil fruit or fruit juice".

I think of it this way. An fresh apple is crisp, juicy and bright. A wine made from apples or crabapples tastes very much like a pinot grigio or other fruity bright white wine.

A cooked apple is a totally different flavor than a fresh apple. It's good in apple pie, but not wouldn't be so great in wine if you want a bright fruity flavor.

Cooking the fruit or juice makes the fruit or juice taste like "cooked fruit", and not what I want in a wine.

 

[jerbrew]

As for pasteurization, I believe 165f is sufficient... At least I hope it is otherwise all the pasteurized rice wine I have in bottles isn't pasteurized... This site says 165f for wine. Phew!

That's what I meant. couldnt remember the exact temp so thanks now i'll remember

 

[Amadeo38]

Was that SG without added sugar? 1.090 is 3x as sweet as my watermelon before adding sugar.

I did not add sugar at all. I just simmered it for 90 minutes then strained out the solids with a muslin bag, cooled to 60, and measured SG. Maybe our Florida watermelons are just sweeter?

 

[eigua]

Never boil fruit for wine. It changes flavors and sets pectins that cause haze in wine.

A half a day in campden solution is all you ever need.

That's what I was going to say. Change the line from "never boil watermelon" to "never boil fruit or fruit juice".

I think of it this way. An fresh apple is crisp, juicy and bright. A wine made from apples or crabapples tastes very much like a pinot grigio or other fruity bright white wine.

A cooked apple is a totally different flavor than a fresh apple. It's good in apple pie, but not wouldn't be so great in wine if you want a bright fruity flavor.

Cooking the fruit or juice makes the fruit or juice taste like "cooked fruit", and not what I want in a wine.

Generally, that's good advice, but I do think there are cases where some fruit can stand up to heat. For example, an apple pie cider or cyser might benefit from cooking if the cooked apple pie taste is what you're going for. I recently made a cyser with apple juice and honey and boiled the heck out of it. It's still young, but there's nothing vile tasting or smelling about it. Cherry, blueberry, blackberry, boysenberry, marionberry, I imagine may also be used in a similar way.

I've also got a "freezer burn" wine fermenting now which is about 8 random types of fruit I've had in the freezer for years all mixed together, pureed, and boiled. (There's a thread on it where someone has done this before and they confirmed the freezer burn taste disappears with age.) That fruit mix doesn't smell disgusting at all -- rather nice actually.

Peaches can be bought canned, as can lychees, longans, soursop, jackfruit, pineapples, cherries, plums, apricots, even grapes (in fruit salad), pumpkin, and more, none of which are turned into something seriously repulsive by the heating and canning process. I agree the flavors won't match exactly to the raw fruit, but they still seem to retain some good fruity character and flavor. Watermelon, on the other hand... Yeah... All I can say is it smells VILE and absolutely nothing like a watermelon... Maybe something more like a meaty cooked squash with tomato and some rancid undertones.

I did not add sugar at all. I just simmered it for 90 minutes then strained out the solids with a muslin bag, cooled to 60, and measured SG. Maybe our Florida watermelons are just sweeter?

That's amazing. I knew my watermelon was not the sweetest in the world, but it wasn't the worst either. I would have guessed a super sweet one would go up to 1.050 or 1.060, not 1.090. Was it a red seeded watermelon? I've read that the seedless ones are not as sweet as seeded ones. Mine was seedless.

 

[Jim311]

No reason to bother with seedless when you're just going to stuff it all in a muslin bag anyway.

 

[eigua]

No reason to bother with seedless when you're just going to stuff it all in a muslin bag anyway.

True. I bought what they had and it just happened to be seedless.

 

[Amadeo38]

Mine was seedless, but it was huge and I used almost the entire thing.

 

[eigua]

Mine was seedless, but it was huge and I used almost the entire thing.

I just noticed you said you simmered it for 90 minutes, so there was probably a significant amount of water lost concentrating the sugars. I didn't boil mine long at all once it reached boiling. So it's probably a combination of it being a sweeter watermelon and boil off. Anyway, I won't be doing that again!

 

[Wruckus]

I've concentrated watermelon juice by boiling it. Bad idea. Never boil watermelon juice. They are in the same family as pumpkin and cucumber and squash. I can't say about the other additives. But 1 campden tab per gal works just fine to sterilize the melon juice.

 

[eigua]

So I didn't throw out this wine. I let it ferment and clear and just racked it yesterday. The smell and taste is vastly different from what it was before fermentation, but it's really odd and unpleasant. I can't really describe it other than to say I wouldn't want to drink it. Still, I might as well go the whole way with it and see how it turns out a year or two from now.

 

[bernardsmith]

I've concentrated watermelon juice by boiling it. Bad idea. Never boil watermelon juice. They are in the same family as pumpkin and cucumber and squash. I can't say about the other additives. But 1 campden tab per gal works just fine to sterilize the melon juice.

Better idea might be to concentrate the sugars by freezing the juice and then collecting that frozen juice as it slowly (SLOWLY) thaws. If you freeze, say, 3 gallons and collect the first gallon then you will have collected just about all the sugar in the three gallons and will have left about 2 gallons of water as ice...