V shaw
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- Jul 5, 2018
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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