How to make a quick brew lychee wine with vanilla and rose?

[Savy~Rivka]

Greetings, new brewer here. I'm hoping to make a lychee wine, but I will likely only be in the country until October (the next 5 months). Would this be enough time to have a finished wine? Is there a way to help things move along a bit faster (like adding extra yeast or something?)? Forgive me if this is a ridiculous question, I'm very new to this!

I would also like to add vanilla and/or rose to flavour the wine. Any ideas on how to do this (rose petals or rose water, vanilla beans or extract?)?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Savy~Rivka, and welcome. No such thing as ridiculous questions. Answers can be ridiculous but every question expresses uncertainty and curiosity.

Any wine will finish faster if the starting gravity is lower rather than higher and the yeast colony you pitch is very active and very viable and you provide the yeast with all the nutrients they need. That said, you might aim for say, 9-10% ABV rather than 12-14% and you might use 1 pack of yeast/ gallon*** and you might create a yeast starter before you add (pitch) the yeast into the must (the solution you are fermenting). Some yeasts prefer cooler rather than warmer environments but a warmer environment will help the yeast finish faster (so you might aim for a temperature that the yeast prefer towards their tolerance for higher heat) BUT warmer fermentation (faster fermentation) can create flavors that you might not expect /want.

All that said, active fermentation under good conditions can take about two weeks and clearing can take a couple of months as long as you degas (remove the CO2) by stirring or pulling a vacuum). By September you could be bottling.

If time and controlled flavors is critical then I would go for extracts and essences and I would bench test before bottling (that is after you have clear wines ready for bottling. You have a great deal of control if you add essence /extracts. You may have more complexity if you add petals and beans to the secondary (using the alcohol in the wine to extract alcohol soluble flavors rather than use water to extract water soluble flavors: both water and alcohol are good solvents but they extract different compounds)

***Home wine makers can never really over pitch yeast. You can (and many do) under pitch. I wouldn't necessarily use 5 packs for 5 gallons but you could reasonably use as a rule of thumb 1 pack per gallon when the potential ABV is 12% or higher.
Good luck