Lychee Wine Recipe?

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I've made lychee wine once and it was good even to medal. It was mostly canned and a handful of about 15 fresh.

As @sour_grapes said, you can't trust the refractometer once fermentation starts. If the initial reading before fermentation was 17 that is a little low. You may want to consider adding a little sugar to get that up a bit before it gets too far along.

As far as temp goes, lychee would be best if fermented at a lower temp. I would aim for 15C or less actually. That's not to say it won't turn out fine at higher temp, but it think you are likely to blow off more of the aromatics at higher temps. Consider reserving some straight juice to add back after primary fermentation is complete, but be sure you use SO2 and sorbate first. Rambutan should work well with lychee, did you end up adding those?

I actually live in Thailand which makes it very difficult gain access to certain wine making products.
I put the wine into a secondary fermenter a couple of weeks ago after about 5 days in the initial fermenter. This is the recipe I followed. I suppose all I can do now is suck it and see. Thanks for the reply.

  • 5 lbs fresh lychees
  • 1 lb 10 oz granulated sugar
  • 1/4 oz citric acid
  • 1/4 tsp tannin
  • 1 tsp yeast nutrient
  • water to 1 gallon
  • Chablis wine yeast
 
The recipe looks great to me. Should be enough fruit. Good choice on citric acid.

After a month or two, if there is not enough "lychee" flavor, you have a couple of options. You can just toss in some more lychees in what's termed a "secondary infusion." Another thing is to press some lychees and add the juice. This will sweeten it a bit more. Here in Missouri, USA, the easiest thing is to add some juice from a can of lychees though it doesn't really taste the same as fresh. Either way if you want to preserve the sugars you'd want to stabilize it first.
 
The recipe looks great to me. Should be enough fruit. Good choice on citric acid.

After a month or two, if there is not enough "lychee" flavor, you have a couple of options. You can just toss in some more lychees in what's termed a "secondary infusion." Another thing is to press some lychees and add the juice. This will sweeten it a bit more. Here in Missouri, USA, the easiest thing is to add some juice from a can of lychees though it doesn't really taste the same as fresh. Either way if you want to preserve the sugars you'd want to stabilize it first.
Thanks for the reply, but just to get back to my original question, the fruit is in the fermenter with the yeast and the rest of the ingredients. So does the fruit omit more sugar over the 5 day ferment, if it does as I said earlier, surely an initial reading won't be accurate, tricky one I know.
 
Thanks for the reply, but just to get back to my original question, the fruit is in the fermenter with the yeast and the rest of the ingredients. So does the fruit omit more sugar over the 5 day ferment, if it does as I said earlier, surely an initial reading won't be accurate, tricky one I know.

Yes, the fruit does have some sugar in it and it will release that over time, not instantly. Most often, I add the pectic enzyme and most of the sugar and let it sit for a day or even two to facilitate this break down, Then remeasure my SG, at that point I can add more sugar, if required. It will mean my volume has gone up slightly, but I can live with making a little bit more.
 
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