"Left-overs" Mixed Fruit Wine

[klaus]

We needed to make space in the freezer so I decided to turn a collection of frozen fruit leftovers into a gallon.
About 1.5kg Crab Apple, 1kg of raspberries and blueberries. Started yesterday:
Step 1: frozen fruit in bucket covered with boiling water, left overnight.
Step 2: this morning mashed fruit and added 1 crushed Campden tablet and a tsp of Pectolase, leave for 2 days
next:
- add 750g sugar solution to make 1gal, add tannin, citric acid, nutrient, yeast, leave on pulp for 1 week.
- then strain into DJ to ferment dry
Just off the top of my head ... the pulp gives off a nice raspberry aroma which I hope to preserve by using less sugar than I normally would (1kg).

 

[ChrisT]

One of the best fruit wines I ever made was from the bottom of the freezer, couldn't 100% identify all of the fruit but all red/dark red/black. OK this was over 20 years ago but it was bloody marvelous. Only trouble was that I only got 6 bottles out of it.

Method as you describe, if I remember almost 3lb of fruit. Fermented on the pulp for 3 days, strained, sugar added to 1100 (ish), bentonite, pectolase and citric acid. Didn't use campden as they'd been frozen (?).

It should be good!

 

[klaus]

Almost a week on the pulp ... pre and post stirring/degassing. Looking good.

 

[ChrisT]

That's looking promising! If I was doing it, I'd get that strained but others may diasagree. What colour is the liquid, looking rose?

 

[klaus]

That's looking promising! If I was doing it, I'd get that strained but others may diasagree. What colour is the liquid, looking rose?

I will strain it off pulp at the weekend.
Yes it's rose type, from the raspberries & blueberries. Hope it stays that colour though I expect it will be a hint of rose, once strained and finished fermenting.

 

[klaus]

Well, off the pulp this morning, and what a nice colour so far. I'm hoping this will turn into rose once the solids have settled. Taste is very nice, raspberry aroma and taste with added tartness from the crab apples.

What's left of the fruit!

DJ full to the top:

And a "left-overs" bottle - perfectly fine to drink now but I leave it for topping up when racking:

 

[user 44889]

Love making friut wines. The colour looks fantastic, should make it a lovely Ros'e . Please keep us posted on how it goes.

 

[klaus]

Fermentation is stopped now, started clearing and now showing the real raspberry colour! Tastes good too! After the first rack in a week or two I will leave this for a few months before bottling.

 

[user 44889]

Looking good, that colour is getting even better. Nice one.

 

[klaus]

Finally bottled this batch. The colour is now a delicate rose. Only had one clear glass bottle so the remainder is in plastic bottles. Now all bottled from 2022. Let's see what fruit and juice I can gather in 2023.

 

[Yellow Car]

Looks good. Did you sneak a taste?

 

[klaus]

Looks good. Did you sneak a taste?

It is quite tart. On reflection I should have used more fruit and ideally some grape juice to give it more body.