Channeling BigDaveK

[ratflinger]

Made a pindo wine last summer. If you don't know, pindo is a palm tree that makes a sweet, tasty fruit that can be made into a jam. You can taste the pindo, but it's not really good. I just mashed up a bunch of the fruit in a water/sugar mix and fermented it. Maybe I should have used a white wine base instead. Dave, any ideas?

 

[vinny]

What were your ratios? Dave is a strong believer that most recipes short the fruit.

Have you tried back sweetening?

I struggle with this stage. I have made a dozen country wines and all are still in bulk. Once I have made a wine I have no idea how to finish it. My tomato for example, the raw tomato tastes very good and I think with more time I will call it finished. just a nice white wine. The ones I roasted have a strong tomato flavor, not sweet, but biting, like tomato paste.

I have elected to give them more time to see what that does. I have some others, banana, rhubarb/kiwi, almond, that I have high hopes for, but the dandelions, and carrot are so far just ok. They are all drinkable, but I want something that I am excited to put in front of someone. A 'you have to try this', result. My triple berry is almost a year old. It is good, but not great. I have no idea how to push it further, or if I just need to give it more time.

I found some vanilla beans at costco the other day. I am going to try to add some (and other ingredients) to different batches and play around with broadening the flavors in secondary.

I have seen lots of comments that it was not good, and at 1.5 years I was amazed at the change. I wonder if my urge to tweak is just a lack of understanding of the value of time..

I'm not being very helpful with this batch, but as far as the WMT support group side of things goes.. I guess I'm just saying, I understand.

 

[ratflinger]

Ratio is hard to say, but I did use a lot of fruit, as the palm is prolific. I might back sweeten it just to see, worst case it goes in the still & gets recycled into port fortifier.

 

[BigDaveK]

@ratflinger I'm touched and honored that you think my opinion is worthwhile. Thank you. I've learned a lot by making a ridiculous amount of wines in a short time but I personally think I'll hit my stride in a couple years. But I'll try to help....

In general, we want good flavor right from the start. This past year I did not make wine with zucchini, charentais melon, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumber, dwarf tamarillo or luffa gourd because there wasn't enough flavor for me. It won't magically appear so I didn't bother. Though cooking the luffa first might make a difference. And I'm wondering about a 100% cucumber wine. Next year...

I've heard of pindo palms only because I like plants. Had to do some quick research and found they're also called jelly palm and wine palm. Hmm.. I read they fall when they're ripe and can have a sweet-sour flavor. Sounds interesting to me! Wish I had some!

So how do they taste raw? If I liked the flavor and thought it had possibilities I would treat it like other fruit and freeze it for a couple days. I read it has a hard nut inside. Did you remove that? I wonder if it would affect the flavor?
After freezing I would treat it like any other fruit wine - it has a lot of pectin so it would need pectic enzyme, adjust SG to what you like (I usually go around 1.090), and adjust acid to around pH of 3.5, and I think I'd go with citric acid rather than acid blend. Raisins, bananas, or concentrate? Flip a coin, I don't know if they're needed. Yeast? For fruit I would try 71B the first time. Oh, and quantity of fruit? I would do 6 lbs minimum. And maybe, maybe, depending on acid and flavor I might consider 100% fruit. If the wine turns out ok, make adjustments and do another batch.

That's what I would do. So where are you in the process? And what was your starting SG and pH?

Oh, one more important thing - I had two wines that didn't taste good after secondary. In fact, one was awful (my garlic scape). They completely transformed after bulk aging for 6 months. It's one thing to read about wines improving with time, but when you actually experience the change it is truly eye opening. Heck, it's almost a religious experience! So in other words, don't dump it - you might be surprised!

I'll help any way I can but there certainly are more experienced wine makers here.

 

[ratflinger]

@BigDaveK - Dave, yeah I cheated - just thew it all together and hoped for the best. Wife tells me that the only way to get pits out is to cook the fruit and then strain it. Might try that next year. 6 lbs is not hard to get and I'll check the pH & SG more closely. Think I used EC1118 cause I new it would ferment, but I have 71B so I can give that a shot. Thanks for your insight, I figure you know how to make wine from stones, so there's that

 

[BigDaveK]

Ratio is hard to say, but I did use a lot of fruit, as the palm is prolific. I might back sweeten it just to see, worst case it goes in the still & gets recycled into port fortifier.

So far all my fruit wines have benefited from back sweetening, even if it's just a little.

 

[ratflinger]

@BigDaveK - Back sweetened today, changed the character alright. I'll see how it goes - Thanks!