So I've read some horror stories about watermelon wine being very hard to get to bottle because of spoilage, so I took a recipe and decided I would process it as fast as possible to avoid the chance of must spoiling the batch.

I swirl-stirred my primary barrel as often as I passed it, getting fermentation almost stopped day 5.

I was also determined not to add any water to the mix so I added glass beads to fill out the volume after racking and keep headspace to a minimum. This turned out really nice and by giving the carboy a tiny little left right swirl every day, I found that most of the must settled between the beads rather than on top. Transfer was great and I got four completely clean bottles from the beaded carboy before starting to pick up a hint of must.

I forgot to do an initial ABV, but it is currently sitting at 0.98, so I assume the alcohol level is good!

I've never tasted watermelon wine so it was interesting to find out that it tastes nothing like watermelon, nor is it red, but I think it would make a very nice dry wine once chilled. Tasting some tonight!

Recipe:

Black diamond watermelon pulp and juice 2 1/8gal

4lbs granulated sugar

RedStar Premiere Classique

Yeast Nutrient

8 oz black tea

Sparklloid added to 2nd fermentation after 120 hours

Racked at day 7 to remove pulp

Racked and Bentonite added day 10

Out of the primary. Excited about this one! I used two bags of real lemons, flesh and zest, and 2 bottles of “Realemon” and a ton of sugar. I’ve had problems with my fruit wines not retaining their fruit flavors well so I’m hitting it hard this time.
It was so acidic I had to build a year starter and grow it to a full 2.5 gallons before the yeast could survive.

I learned a lot with my first two 2 gallon batches. Both tasted great at bottling time, and we are looking forward to serving both at our wedding next year.

Great community here, really appreciate all the great advice!

Recipes in comment below!

Gonna start up a banana mead soon. I'm modifying a Jack Keller recipe to use honey instead of sugar.

I admittedly just feel silly coming home with from the store with a ridiculous amount of bananas. It make me wonder just what the hell am I doing and how did I get here?

First go with bananas. Wish me luck. If you have any spice recommendations you've tried and liked in secondary please feel free to share. Also share if you have any experience with things to avoid with banana wine.

Hey wine-pros, complete newb here.

Pictured is strawberry wine. The vessel is 5l, I added around 2l of mashed strawberries and around 200g sugar. I bought Bayanus G995 yeast + yeast nutrient for 25-50l of wine and used a fifth of both.

I set the batch in evening, and when I woke up next day it was bubbling very vigorously, so much so that it filled the whole vessel, airstop, and was spilling all around. So I opened it carefully and poured some out to a separate vessel, to lower the liquid level to around what you can see in the photo.

And suddenly all activity stop!!! Nothing for 24 hours now. The mash did rise up a little, but there is no bubbling and while I see some foaming I'm not sure it's what I want.

Please help me, this is the third batch where I have to throw it out.

I sterilized everything with 90% alcohol, all utensils, vessels, airstops, everything. I even sterilized the airstop after wine got in there, I washed it thoroughly and sterilized and dried.

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong:

1. Can I fix this? This is just me guessing but maybe I could add more yeast and nutrients? Would that restart the fermenation? Or do i have to toss this?

2. How do I avoid this in the future?

Thank you for the guidance on taking a persistent haze in my 1 gallon plum recipe.

I ended up adding a two times dose of pectic enzyme, and here a month later (Edit: 20 days!) the result is spectacular!

https://www.reddit.com/r/winemaking/s/ihpEP4gYMP

Having made many bad grape wines, I have wanted to make a lackberry wine for a long time. Thoroughly enjoying the flavor at 7 days already. I think this may be my talent instead of grape.

Recipe used:

5 lbs blackberry

1/4 tsp superfood

2.25 lbs sugar in a simple syrup

Lalvin 71b yeast

Topped off with water to get to about 1.2 gallons

Targeted about 1.090 OG. After 7 days in primary, I am down to 1.000, so close to 12% abv right now. Yeasts are still bubbling pretty hard. Trying to decide how far to take it in secondary, but will likely go about 6 months. May have to stabilize and back sweeten, and I have a bunch of honey I could use for that. Will update later with the success or failure of my adventure.

So I remember reading here that it's mostly fine to give the ferment plenty of oxygen for the first 5-10 days, but it should be limited after that.

I started this 8 days ago and the bubbling is nice and steady, it slowed down quite but it's still there.

Is it okay to keep fermenting in this bucket? It's a 15l bucket. Or should I move to a different vessel with less headspace? I'm planning to bottle after around 30 days of fermentation.

So this wine is ... I just realized I don't know exactly how old it is but it's around a month plus a week.

20kg plums

5kg sugar

Yeast + yeast nutrients

Around 8l of water

Mashed everything and let ferment for a month. After a month I strained it, waited for the dead yeast to separate, and add around 1,5kg more of sugar, it needed it for taste.

Then I left it in the demijohn with waterlock for around a week, and clearly there is still some fermentation going on inside, but what worries me is that brownish foam ring. Should I be concerned about that?

I was planning to add pectic enzymes to help it clear out and let it be for another month at least but now I'm not sure what I should do. I have bought the fermentation stopper (potassium sorbate+ potassium metabisulfite) but I'm not sure if I want to use it now. I thought it would be fine to let it do its thing, but now I'm concerned it might be going bad and I should intervene.

Advice please

These bottles are samples of some of my first wines (they're mango, pineapple, etc.) that I bottled after 5 to 6 months of production and I'm letting them age for 2 years. Some of them are almost a year old, but I'm seeing that some of them have particles floating inside them, rings of residue on the edges of the liquid surface and on the bottom of the bottle as well. Is this dangerous, bad, should I be worried? Or is it not so bad? What could I do to avoid this in the future and do you have any other tips?

So its taken me since lockdown to create it, but I think she looks pretty good for an amateur.

20 summer fruit tea bags

15 litres of water

6kg of sugar

1 pack of yeast.

Throw in the tub, put it in between my kitchen and conservatory, gave it a spin everyday for the first week, crikey did it bubble.

1 month later transferred it to another tub removing teabags and excess, left for another month, added finings.

Voila

My fiance told me about an upcoming watermelon festival nearby that we should attend and I immediately started thinking about making wine. I ended up watching a YouTube where this was in the comments and right away I knew I was going to try it.

I picked up two large black diamond melons from the local farm for $5 each and immediately set about starting the fermentation, despite having more important things to do at the time, Sunday morning. The melon was about as sweet a melon as I can remember! I continually mashed the pulp with a potato masher while getting it up to a boil.

I had read about how watermelon juice in particular likes to spoil quickly and thus figured I would go aggressively to process this asap.

After 5 days of stirring it in the barrel by picking it up swirling in my hands many times a day, this morning it slowed bubbling from almost a nonstop stream day 2 to once every 3 minutes today.

I racked it and before adding 8oz of sparklloid solution today the specific gravity was at 0.98. it was a real surprise and the glass bounced on the bottom. From a starting gravity of 1.082, that puts it at 13.39%.

I figured I would be doing another racking soon, so I squeezed as much juice from the cheesecloth bag. After getting into secondary it shows a huge amount of pulp already settling out, so I'll probably look to rack it again in 2 weeks.

Recipe:

water melon pulp and juice 2 1/8gal

4lbs granulated sugar

RedStar Premiere Classique

Yeast Nutrient

8 oz black tea

Sparklloid added to 2nd fermentation after 120 hours

When I started making berry wines, the Dragon's Blood recipe was popular. Don't EVER put lemon in your berry wine. Berries are already more acidic than grapes, they don't need any more acid. Your stomach will thank you.

This recipe will fill a carboy and give you a enough extra to fill any headspace after. You could easily half it and use a single bucket and small carboy or water cooler bottle.

Aging your berry wine is very important to bring out the flavors. It will taste like watery alcohol when it's first ready, but be bursting with flavor 3 months later. Especially worth the wait aging with wild berries.

The general recipe is:
12 kilos of frozen berries
6-8 kilos of sugar (for regular strength or strong wine)
6 Table spoons of Cinnamon

Divide the contents between two 5 gallon pails. 6 kilos of berries per pail. Add a bit of yeast on the frozen berries in the pail, then add the sugar, then add the cinnamon. Let it sit like that 24 hours.

Next day, either mix it all together with a spoon before filling the bucket 2 inches from the top. Stir it all up well, and add a bit more yeast over the surface. Cover the buckets with a cloth, and stir at least twice a day for the next two weeks. *I have an immersion blender I use blend the berries and sugar together, LOVE IT.

Once the fruit stops floating and covering the surface of your bucket, it's ready for secondary fermentation. Top off the water level back to two inches below the top of the bucket.

Now the tricky part. Straining the fruit out of the wine prior to going into the secondary fermentation container. I have a large metal strainer I pour through into another bucket, then roll the sludge around in it once it gets full. This is a slow messy process. The yeast clogs everything up.

Then into the secondary. Fill to the point where the carboy begins to curve in on it's self, beyond that, you risk a volcano. Make sure you have no floating fruit leftover in your carboy. If you don't remove it, it could go moldy.

*fermentation can often stall out on berry wine after filtering out the fruit and moving to secondary. Make a good starter yeast cup and add it. Or if you have another batch that's active, you can swap a bit out.

Once things have settled down, wrack it and use the extra to fill the headspace.

If you opt to make it stronger, fermentation can linger on for an extra month or two without appearing to be active. Be patient and wait.

Never use Strawberries, they invite mold.

My, now annual, August Blend is usually whatever fresh fruit I have access to towards the end of the summer. This year it is mostly gravenstein apples, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, and the leftovers of a carton of cotton candy grapes. So far so good. 6 gallons and my biggest venture yet! It’s clarifying now as it settles in the carboy but the opaque pepto bubblegum look is kinda fun. My tip for apples is to use fruit bags. Straining liquid out of essentially settled applesauce took way too long and I’m sure the extra oxygen didn’t help things, but it is what it is.

(Yeah... note how I was too lazy to pull of the label from the bottle)

Recipe:

* For preparing mash*:

- 5kg honeydew melons only (only the flesh)

- 4 liters of Water

- 1kg honey

- 1kg White Sugar (you can also use 2kg honey straight though it will dominate the subtle melon aroma more)

- 500g Sultanas (green grape raisins, must be unsulphured!)

- 2 bags of black tea (brewed in 400ml hot Water)/ optional

- 100ml Lemon Juice ( for acidity)

- 5 ml pectic Enzyme in liquid form or 1,6g powdered form

- 1 gram yeast (champagne)

- 3 g yeast nutrient (DAP)

- 1g Multiactive nutrient salt (vitamins, minerals special for yeast)

*after Fermentation*:

following this order,

0.8g potassium metabisulfate (stabilizer)

1. 1.5g potassium sorbate (stabilizer)

2. backsweetening with 200g honey

3. 8ml silicic acid (clearing Agent)

4. 1g gelatin for winemaking (clearing agent)

Mash is undergoing primary and secondary fermentation by straining the liquid after a week at the latest. The enzyme must first act at least with the (optimally slightly pureed) seedless melon fruit flesh before the further steps for the fermentation are initiated

Hi all. This is only the second batch of wine I've made, so likely a newbie mistake somewhere. I picked apples from a local orchard back in late September and followed a recipe for a medium body apple wine from a winemaking kit I got a while back. Recipe and deets are as follows:

• ~8 lbs of apples (I used Honeycrisp)
• 4.5 pints of water
• 2lb sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp acid blend
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp Tannin
• 1 tsp Nutrient
• 1 Campden tab, crushed
• 1 pkg Champ. yeast
• 1 tsp anti-oxidant

I got the juice from the apples from shredding the apples (I don't have a press just yet and was worried about pressing them by hand - this seemed to work great, btw). I mixed all ingredients except the yeast anti-oxidant and let it sit overnight (about 24 hours). I then measured a starting gravity at 1.090 and added the yeast. Temps during this and the following few days were hovering about 70 F.

The gravity was 1.090 the following day as well, dropped to 1.050 the next day, and then down to 1.011 on the next (3rd day since adding the yeast). Bubbles and everything looked good and I racked (this was 9/24). After a few weeks the sediment was building up and I racked again (this was 11/9). I had a bit more headspace than I wanted during this time (Sorry, no pic for this one) but things looked good and the taste was a bit bland, but had a good aroma.

I've been keeping an eye on the carboy since, but just letting it do its thing. Then, a few days ago (11/23) I noticed some white specks floating at the top. It smelled okay (still has an apple scent, which I hoped for) but the taste remains bland. Definitely alcohol (my wife did get a slight vinegar bit, but I didn't get that - at least not strongly). But generally nothing particularly interesting. Out of concern that things may have started going bad I added another campden tab and bottled hoping that this would salvage things. I'm hoping that letting it sit at this point, bottled, could show improvement but as this is all so new for me I wanted to ask for any thoughts/feedback for what I could have done wrong (if anything - likely everything) and how to learn from this?

Hi all. This is only the second batch of wine I've made, so likely a newbie mistake somewhere. I picked apples from a local orchard back in late September and followed a recipe for a medium body apple wine from a winemaking kit I got a while back. Recipe and deets are as follows:

• ~8 lbs of apples (I used Honeycrisp)
• 4.5 pints of water
• 2lb sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp acid blend
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp Tannin
• 1 tsp Nutrient
• 1 Campden tab, crushed
• 1 pkg Champ. yeast
• 1 tsp anti-oxidant

I got the juice from the apples from shredding the apples (I don't have a press just yet and was worried about pressing them by hand - this seemed to work great, btw). I mixed all ingredients except the yeast anti-oxidant and let it sit overnight (about 24 hours). I then measured a starting gravity at 1.090 and added the yeast. Temps during this and the following few days were hovering about 70 F.

The gravity was 1.090 the following day as well, dropped to 1.050 the next day, and then down to 1.011 on the next (3rd day since adding the yeast). Bubbles and everything looked good and I racked (this was 9/24). After a few weeks the sediment was building up and I racked again (this was 11/9). I had a bit more headspace than I wanted during this time (Sorry, no pic for this one) but things looked good and the taste was a bit bland, but had a good aroma.

I've been keeping an eye on the carboy since, but just letting it do its thing. Then, a few days ago (11/23) I noticed some white specks floating at the top. It smelled okay (still has an apple scent, which I hoped for) but the taste remains bland. Definitely alcohol (my wife did get a slight vinegar bit, but I didn't get that - at least not strongly). But generally nothing particularly interesting. Out of concern that things may have started going bad I added another campden tab and bottled hoping that this would salvage things. I'm hoping that letting it sit at this point, bottled, could show improvement but as this is all so new for me I wanted to ask for any thoughts/feedback for what I could have done wrong (if anything - likely everything) and how to learn from this?

Recipe
20 grams of black tea
10 grams of cornflowers
10 grams of rose petals
1,5 kg of sugar
5 liter of water

1 grams of red star premier cuvee

Notes:
Brix: 28
Room Temp: 20-25 C

Steps:

Primary fermentation

Brew the tea, cornflowers, and rose petals first then add sugars, then strains.
After the brew got warm, then add the yeast. Let it ferment for 2 - 4 weeks until dry.

Plans

Secondary fermentation
- After the yeast settled, i want to move it to another vessel for the secondary fermentation then add 100 grams of sugar.

Any suggestions for the secondary fermentation? Is this still can be called a wine?

I don't know just figuring out here and there, lol, i just trying to find a way to get a good cheap alcohol for a good time alone and with my friends. Hahahaha.

Oh ya, behind that there is a bottle of strawberry wine that i made 1 month ago, kinda so so, it need more time to mature and maybe some vanilla extract or be made into a bloody mary, or a strawberry margarita.

These are tree tomatoes, or tomate de arbol as they are called in Central and South America. They are primarily used for making a delicious juice beverage. They are citrusy and sour. My very first attempt at making alcohol from fruit was with these and bread yeast. I did not know what to expect but the result was surprisingly good, I realized I had made wine! I have never seen a wine recipe using these. Has anyone used these before? I am still very new at wine making and maybe someone can give me some tips. My recipe is 1 kilo of this fruit, 750 grams table sugar, and wine yeast which I now have, EC118 or premier rouge. I cut each fruit in half and scoop out the pulp. I put the pulp and half of the skin in a pot and heat it to a boil then turn it off. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Use a potato masher to mash it up a bit. Put it in a fermenting tank, add water to four liters and pitch the yeast when the temp is right. It is usually done with fermentation 10 days and I rack it off. I know there are various ingredients used that I see in recipes but living where I do in Colombia I do not have easy access to supplies. I can order from Amazon but what is shipped to Colombia is limited. I have some "acid blend," "potassium sorbate," and "LD Carlson yeast nutrient." not sure if I need any of this. Any advice on my recipe will be appreciated!

I used about 12.5 pounds of rhubarb. I simmered the cut up rhubarb until mushy. I used 6 kg of brown sugar to bring it up to 1.060. Used the tea bags to steep the "tannins" out of them. I made a yeast starter with some agave syrup and used red star premier blanc. It smelled so good, the whole thing for 5 gallons.

Hello!

I recently came by a few frozen fruits, and am planing to make a wine out of them, but some of them are mashed. The fruit:

• raspberry
• strawberry
• elderberry
• cherry
• maybe watermelon (to be added later)

Normally I would just press the fresh fruit, take the juice, adjust sugar content, add yeast and nutrients, also pectinase for clarity and set it.

But here it would be difficult to take only the juice, so I'm thinking I'll just throw the mashed fruit into the fermenting vessel and add water.

And here's my question - how do I know how much water I should add? Should I go for a certain consistency? Or is there a trick to it - like for example I know cooking and if you don't have thermometer you can throw a toothpick or something wooden into oil and look for bubbling. Is there something like this but for wines? Or should I just eyeball it?

I do have this glass device for measuring sugar content but not much wine making tools other than that.

12L of Whole wild Blueberries

4kg Granulated Sugar

Light American Oak Chips (Primary Fermentation)

Topped with Chokecherry Wine

Up next to bottle is dandelion and cranberry

He says it in the video, it's written in the description and it's posted on the website.

Is it really OK to use 10g of fermaid O? Isnt that waaayyyyy too much?

Hello, all. In my last post, I described my Marijuana infused hard punch. I was very surprised to see how many people were interested. There were many questions, and so, there are many answers below. Enjoy, and tell me what your thinking. I'd love to answer questions.

IMAGES: https://imgur.com/a/kHtGHpo

Recipe And Process:

THIS MAKES 1 GALLON

MASH: 2 combined Lbs of Pineapple Chunks, Strawberries, Sweet Cherrys, and Raspberries. (Into a Fermenter Bag, then into the fermenter)

Fill to headspace in your 1 Gallon Fermenter with just about any 100% Fruit Juice. You may use water if you have nothing else, but ew, water.

ADD 3 CUPS OF SUGAR!! STIR, STIR, STIR UNTIL DISSOLVED!!! IT HELPS TO USE YOUR STIRRING TOOL TO PUSH MORE JUICE OUT OF THE FRUIT TO RELEASE MORE INITIAL FLAVOR!!!! Pop the Airlock on and let it sit overnight, then remove the ferm bag.

Add (depending on desired speed of fermentation) 1/2-1 packet of 71B Wine Yeast. This one is good for enhancing the fruit flavors in wine, counteracting the flavor of the weed.

Swirl twice a day, every day, throughout the whole ferm process. Around day 3 or 4, check the ABV with a Hydrometer. Once the beverage has reached 5% or 6% ABV, the fun part happens.

[CHEMICALLY SPEAKING, THE ETHANOL IN THE BEVERAGE IS ABLE TO BREAK THE CHEMICAL BONDS BETWEEN THE THC AND THE DECARBOXYLATED CANNABIS FLOWER ITSELF. THIS ALLOWS THE THC TO THEN REATTACH ITSELF TO THE ETHANOL! THIS IS WHY THE WEED CANNOT BE ADDED TO THE MUST! THERE IS NO ALCOHOL TO BE BOUND TO! (And would steep for a gross amount of time)]

If your wondering if this means you can just steep decarbed weed into an alcoholic beverage and make crossfade in a bottle, you might be right, however I have heard that in practice it removes less of the THC and is only doable with high prof liquors. (90 plus). I believe there is something different in the chemical process based in when the ethanol is being produced in the moment vs pre-made, distilled, beverages. I would try it the other way but weed ain't cheap sooo no. Do tell if it works the same however.

Add 1/4th a cup into a Ferm bag (or 1 Full Cup, if you plan for it to taste like regret and sadness but also take you to Mars) of Finely Ground, Decarboxylated Marijuana (Flower, NO KEEF ALLOWED, THAT IS GREAT FOR BAKED GOODS AND (maybe) INFUSED BEER, NOT FOR THIS [flavor tested]) Add to must.

Swirl and then continue fermentation as usual to your desired ABV. (I do not recommend going higher than 10%, harsh bite does nothing but make the weed easier to taste, yuck. Plus the longer you steep the, erm, weed teabag, the worse it will taste.) I stopped my fermentation at 8.5% using potassium sorbate.

TIP: This seemed to be the sweet spot between flavor and "oh fuck I'm in space". Mind you, you may always drink more to get there.

Rack to Carboy, repeat until clear. Let harsh weed flavors age out over about 2 weeks. They never fully disappear though.

TASTE: Base flavor is that of a deceptively low ABV Hard Punch, with a twinge of weedy regret as the after taste.

TIP: This drink is best enjoyed back sweetened with a wine syrup (entirely removes the after taste), I prefer grenadine.

[End of recipe and process]

Hope this was as neat for you as I. Open to tips and critique.

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/winemaking/comments/1o1ma8h/marijuana_infused_wine/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I was flipping though my wine recipe handbook and came across this intriguing option.

Would you make it? Would you drink it?

Hello everyone, ive got a few questions in regards to a brew im running rn. Its the first time ive ever done a fresh fruit mash, and im having bad issues with airlock overflow. Using cherries and nectarines with supplemental sugar, ec-1118, all in a 2 gallon fermenter. Its insanely vigorous even though the average temp in the room its in is 75°. Should I just keep cleaning it as it does so or move it to a location closer to the AC (which is set to 75 cuz I live in the south) i dont have a blow off tube because I have a cat and thats just asking for trouble and I have nowhere else to put it