Freezer Clean up!

Hi all,
I know someone did one of these just the other day. I'm more wondering other's thoughts on mixing it all up, or perhaps splitting into other batches?

5 Lbs Raspberries
5 Lbs strawberries
5 Lbs Nectarines
1.5 Lbs Pineapple
1 Lb Rhubarb
5 Lbs Tomatoes
6ish Bananas
Also available:
2 Lbs candied ginger
1/2 lb vanilla beans
cocoa powder

Should I mix them up into a 4-5 Gallon batch? Do a 1 gal Raspberry Chocolate? Nectarine Lime? Tomato-Pineapple-ginger? Strawberry Vanilla?

I'm feeling a bit low on the inspiration scale right now.

just a gut feeling that all mixed up might be too much, all canceling each other out.
Mike

chocolate strawberry sounds good. Don't ask me how but you might find a recipe on here somewhere if your willing to go buy some more strawberries

Mixed freezer fruit is always my best wine. 4-5 pounds of fruit per gal. Stone fruit and berries with a few grapes and bananas. I would make several batches of wine with what you have.
Adding a few bananas in each batch for clarity and mouthfeel.
A ginger wine is always good. I make mine as a mead. You only have a little rubarb so that could go with it.
Rasberry mead is the best, but rasberry with anything is good
I have not done any strawbery wine but they would go with the mixed fruit. Or use them as a mild filler for the stonger flavored tomato wine.

You could just toss it all intogether. I think just the tomato would not blend well. Save the spices out as well. Make a ginger tomato wine. Save the cocoa and vanilla for plain drinking hot with cream
Enjoy!

the_rayway said:

Hi all,
I know someone did one of these just the other day. I'm more wondering other's thoughts on mixing it all up, or perhaps splitting into other batches?

5 Lbs Raspberries
5 Lbs strawberries
5 Lbs Nectarines
1.5 Lbs Pineapple
1 Lb Rhubarb
5 Lbs Tomatoes
6ish Bananas
Also available:
2 Lbs candied ginger
1/2 lb vanilla beans
cocoa powder

Should I mix them up into a 4-5 Gallon batch? Do a 1 gal Raspberry Chocolate? Nectarine Lime? Tomato-Pineapple-ginger? Strawberry Vanilla?

I'm feeling a bit low on the inspiration scale right now.

Click to expand...

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Ok, so I finally got around to actually getting these out of the freezer. Due to the necessity of needing the freezer space for 65 Lbs of fresh-killed chickens

Final roll call into the primary:
1# Rhubarb
5# Raspberries
3.5# Manitoba Strawberries
3.25# Pineapple
1.25# Cantaloupe
1# Manitoba Ure Pears
3 Bananas
1/4" thick slice of ginger
2.25 Litres of syrup from canned peaches, pears, and cherries
1x440mL of RealLime juice
TBC of RealLemon juice

Total on actual fruit is 16 Lbs, but I'm going to count it as 20ish Lbs once you add in the lime and lemon juices. So if I add water to this to make it a 4Gal (UK) batch (19ish litres), I should be good...right?

I'm really hoping this comes out well. I love the idea of a fruit punch wine

the_rayway said:

Ok, so I finally got around to actually getting these out of the freezer. Due to the necessity of needing the freezer space for 65 Lbs of fresh-killed chickens

Final roll call into the primary:
1# Rhubarb
5# Raspberries
3.5# Manitoba Strawberries
3.25# Pineapple
1.25# Cantaloupe
1# Manitoba Ure Pears
3 Bananas
1/4" thick slice of ginger
2.25 Litres of syrup from canned peaches, pears, and cherries
1x440mL of RealLime juice
TBC of RealLemon juice

Total on actual fruit is 16 Lbs, but I'm going to count it as 20ish Lbs once you add in the lime and lemon juices. So if I add water to this to make it a 4Gal (UK) batch (19ish litres), I should be good...right?

I'm really hoping this comes out well. I love the idea of a fruit punch wine

Click to expand...

I would eliminate the lemon or lime juice - unless you are wanting a version of a skeeter pee ?
Not sure what you are after ??

Plan on making a galeon or two or seconds wine when this first batch is done. If you have not added the lime or lemmon juices yet you could use them in the seconds wine. Then combine later if wanted. Or use as a top off wine. (Both the rubarb and rasberres are high in acid. Adding lemmon and lime on top of that may be a bit much for the yeast to start. Just a thought.)
Mixed fruit wines are the best! I just bottled one, with two different batches still bulk aging. Keep us posted!


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Our chickens are just a week old, but I have two sheep and a goat just waiting for me to make room for them in the freezer! Sure wish these wines would hurry up no more room for carboys!
Good food and good wine. What more could we want!


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Lol, I'm with you jensmith! I wish we could raise our own meat here in the city, but it looks like it will have to wait until we can get our rec property. I'd love to have some chickens, pigs, and a cow or two. Oooh, and rabbits - yum!

Steve - I have no idea what I'm after - it's going to be a surprise! In my mind though, all of these things taste soooo good together, and the juice smells divine! It's macerating with some sugar, pectic enzyme and kmeta currently.

Since the lime juice is already in, I'll wait on the lemon juice. I'm going to attempt a TA test and adjust the acid if needed (likely) with some calcium carbonate. Thinking I'll use good 'ol EC-1118 or K1-V1116 - it's not going to be a hugely friendly environment with such higher acid. The fruit and juice just reaches the 10L mark on my bucket, no water added yet. The skeeter pee idea is a good one. If I keep the O.G. down, it's possible it would be drinkable for the summer! Hmmm, things to think about.

Right, so I added water to the 15L mark, sugar to 1.080 (mostly white, with a bit of brown), and pitched a re-hydrated 71B yeast. I figured it might assist with the acid. Surprisingly, the juice tasted not very tart or acidic at all. Interesting.

It did however, taste like awesome. I could actually pick out the canteloupe in there! Not a lot of raspberry, which is funny because that's the fruit there is the most of; and a nice sweet strawberry finish. I'm hoping those strawberries will be the ticket. Hand-picked by moi at the peak of their ripeness on the strawberry farm. They were dripping with juice and sweeter than they had any right to be.

Time will tell...

the_rayway said:

Right, so I added water to the 15L mark, sugar to 1.080 (mostly white, with a bit of brown), and pitched a re-hydrated 71B yeast. I figured it might assist with the acid. Surprisingly, the juice tasted not very tart or acidic at all. Interesting.

It did however, taste like awesome. I could actually pick out the canteloupe in there! Not a lot of raspberry, which is funny because that's the fruit there is the most of; and a nice sweet strawberry finish. I'm hoping those strawberries will be the ticket. Hand-picked by moi at the peak of their ripeness on the strawberry farm. They were dripping with juice and sweeter than they had any right to be.

Time will tell...

Click to expand...

My mouth is watering right now !!

I bet it smells divine. I love the smell when the ferment really gets going. Except in that batch of onion wine.

Mmmmm, Good!


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This one has finally dropped clear. Will post deets once I get to racking Still smells wonderful though!

sounds like it is going to similar to dragons blood. yum

Racked this one, and oh-my-goodness it smells incredible! Still predominantly melon in the nose.

I siphoned off 2 cups to test with. Thinking: acid blend, honey, sugar, and maybe lactose. We'll see how that plays out. Maybe a bit of vanilla too

Possible label idea:

How about "the big thaw" "fruit cold-thaw"
Looking good,
Mike

Here's me trying to be a responsible poster again (yeah, right...).

This one had mostly downs over the last year during taste tests. Not enough flavour (how?!?), should I add concentrate? Vanilla? Acid? When I tasted it with sugar it came along quite a bit, and once I added acid blend it really started coming into it's own. I gave it 3tsp of acid blend, and sugar to S.G. 1.030.

I bottled in March of this year, getting 15 x 750mL out of it. Still hoping it would come around more.

NOW...I see the error of my ways Sometimes you need to think out of the "crack a bottle and drink it" box of wine enjoyment. I brought some on our holiday, and was again disappointed with the lack of OOmph it had, then I had an idea:

"why don't I add some fruit kind of like sangria? I have fresh strawberries and cherries in the fridge...oh! and some limes! Ok, add another 1/4 cup of sugar and let marinate..."

Holidays have never tasted so good! After a day with the fruit and lime it was 100% more flavourful, and after two days it had breathed into this glorious wine-type-thing: sweet but not too sweet, with fruit and tart, with this amazing vanilla finish. No idea where that came from because I didn't add vanilla.

So, after about a year, I would call this wine a success. Perhaps not in the way I was originally thinking - but I am even happier with this result! This week, I've made enough to use two bottles of wine...

Cheers,
Ray