Peaches - yeast, acid, grapes.....

I've got two peach trees bent to the ground with fruit only days from ripening. Some pies, canning, and cobblers are in order, but I imagine this will only scratch the surface and I will need to break out the winemaking gear to handle the balance of them.

I've made a lot of fruit wine, but my first experience with peach was bad (added water and fermentation got hot) so I've never gone back to it.

I plan on going full fruit, no water. I read the recent thread where several people mentioned adding golden raisins. By coincidence, I have a seeded white table grape that is also ripening to perfection right now. Instead of raisins, how about using these grapes? I still have jam from last year so I'm already kind of looking for a use for them.

For yeast, I have Montpilier and Montrachet on hand (usually use Cote des Blancs for whites). I was planning to use up the Montpilier on the peach. Thoughts?

I read adjust pH to 3.3. I just use tartaric on grapes, should I use acid blend on the peaches or what?

Skins...leave them on? I was going to take them off (boil and strip) but leaving them on would make life A LOT easier.

Leave the skins on, yes to the ph, yes to the acid blend and most definitely no water. Bring sg 1.080, backsweeten to around 1.010 and age for a year.

I am curious of the pros and cons of the leaving the skins on for peaches. I skinned and de-stonned them and froze them and it was very drinkable at 6 months. You will see Julie when you are here in September because I am saving a bottle to share with you. Only a couple of bottles left from that batch from last year. Have peaches in the freezer for this years wine when it cools down here.

Forgot to add they were $5.00 a bushel because of being over ripe and bruises so that is why I skinned them.

I've never used Monpilier so I don't know anything about that yeast. We use Montrachet on our peach--does a nice job. Cote des Blanc is good too. I agree with the acid blend.

We always leave the skins on--no need to remove them unless you want to, or they are damaged and browned.

I filled a 7.5gal fermentor heaping full of halved, pitted peaches, then ran them through my homemade fruit chopper. I have 5 Ontario vines that are just short of full ripe...the peaches can use a tad extra acid anyways...I pressed out 1.5 gallons of juice from that and added it all together, into a mesh bag. 2tsp tannin, 4 of pectic enzyme, 7 campden tablets in the 6.5-7gal total volume.

Tomorrow when it is all mixed and the enzyme has had some time to work I will take measurements, adjust pH, and pitch yeast. I'll add some nutrient too.

Ferment at room temp (72-74) or do like I usually do with whites and put it in the kegerator at 55-60F? What say you?

Definitely do a cool ferment. If you can keep the ferment going and active at 55-60 degrees, go for it.

I thought I would post an update so you can all laugh at me.

I've got 3 little kids so after-work evenings can be frantic. As I was trying to throw this peach batch together I was in a hurry and apparently not thinking clearly. I tested the pH, it was high. Not wanting to take the time to run the TA test multiple times, I figured I'd bring the pH down a bit before I bothered with that. So I added some acid blend, mixed, and checked pH again. Still high so I added some more acid and mixed...pH STILL high. Then I had to drop things and go deal with my youngest.

When I returned about 30 minutes later, the pH had dropped substantially from the prior reading, down to 3.1. I immediately realized that with all that fruit pulp I should have given more time for the pH to stabilize. Oops. So I ran a TA test...and gave up to save my NaOH when it was obvious that it was higher than I wanted it.

So I want to lower the acid....what better way than to make ANOTHER batch, add no acid, and blend it with the first? Not a bad excuse to make more wine. I just threw together that must so that I can combine them in the secondary and see if I can fix it that way.

That sounds like a good plan. We like a PH of 3.3 or so on peach.

Here's another little trick we use when adjusting PH. Get the brix up to about half of the target brix so that you can taste the juice while adjusting the PH. When it seems to have nice flavor, with a touch of acid hit on the tongue, then you're probably in a good range even if you haven't hit the target PH. That bit of sugar in the juice makes tasting it a little more accurate for your palate.

It's always good to stir and stir and stir the must when making acid adjustments---and just walking away for 15 minutes or so. You need to give the kids an extra sucker today for helping you to understand acid adjustment better!!

Regarding adding the acid, do you use anything other than acid blend?