Yes o frozen fruit

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gillonstewart

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I was wandering around Tesco the other day and saw they had bags of 1.5kg mixed "imperfect" frozen summer fruits. (I've frozen rasps etc. That are all broken). Appeared to be a mix of rasps, brambles,red and black currants and possibly strawbs. Was only a couple of quid per bag.

I wondering on a method.

Method one, press a few bags in my apple press until I get a gallon of juice add sugar to bring potential ABV up to 13ish percent and ferment out as if it was a grape wine.

Method 2, follow a random recipe using the fruit in water and add loads of sugar.

Method 3, press an amount of the fruit to get equivalent volumes of juice/water/sugar as WOW and follow that method

I'm curious to see how the pure juice one would end up. The general consensus on WOW made with 100% juice is that it ends up minging.

Any thoughts?
 
If it were me, I would steep the fruit in boiling water, add approximately the same amount by weight of sugar. When cooled, maybe add a little pectolase, then leave for a few days. Give it a little mash, strain, then ferment as usual...
 
My usual method with fruit - generally blackberries and elderberry - is to boil up the water and sugar and dump the frozen fruit in. Usually do 1.5kg fruit to 4l water and 1kg sugar.
Turn the heat off and let it cool to about 60c and the pour it in to a FV.
Give it a beating and add pectolase and yeast nutrient and leave it 24 hours.
Next day add yeast and seal it up for 2 weeks.
Then with a filter sock over your syphon tube, decant it in to demijohns and leave for a month. Decant again in to clean demijohns to get it off the last of the yeast and leave for another 3 - 6 months before bottling.
Generally comes out about 12% ish.
If its just bramble, then it's a very dark rose colour. If I mix it with elderberries then it's much darker.

I would imagine with a mixed fruit bag like you describe, it would make a good fruity rose. You could artificially darken it to a proper 'red wine' using a red grape concentrate.

Ps. Chose your yeast carefully. Red wine yeast will leave it drier than a witches ***. Go for a hedgerow wine yeast. Tends to make it a bit lighter on the palate and let the fruit cone through better.
Gratuitous wine pic
 

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If you are using supermarket frozen fruit it is sanitised and fit to eat.
I just let it thaw to room temperature then add
 
If you are using supermarket frozen fruit it is sanitised and fit to eat.
I just let it thaw to room temperature then add
Having worked in a fruit factory that did frozen raspberries I can say that it's not treated in any way differently from fresh other than the flash freezing.

Fun fact, the stuff that fell on the floor was shovelled up at the end of the shift and sold to the jam factory down the road (very well known expensive brand at that) so if any of the operatives had stood in dog poop, it went into the jam.
 

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