PeacWine

[Greydog]

Got a great deal on 25lbs of not quite ripe Georgia Yellow Peaches today so I decided to try my hand at peach wine. Most of the recipes I've seen call for about 2 1/2 pounds per gallon so I'm assuming that means after de-stoning and cutting off any bruising. I found what appears to be a good recipe but I'm going to substitute 2 gallons of Welch's white grape/peach juice for some of the water. The recipe appears to be pretty straight forward but 15lbs of peaches sounds a little light on the fruit for 6 gallons of wine.
I read up on how to ripen the peaches on-line so we'll see how that pans out
Never did peach wine before so I don't know what to expect regarding body or mouth-feel in the finished product. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Julie]

15 lbs is no where near enough peaches. Actually, you should use all peach juice and no water at all. If you freeze the peaches first, this will help break them down more.

 

[bkisel]

A favorite of family and friends has been a DB peach variant. Approximately 15 pounds of hand picked, then ripened, then cut, then frozen, then thawed peaches was substituted for the normal 6 pounds of mixed berries that is in the DB recipe. Also added a few ounces of peach extract before bottling.

My DB peach wine (I called it lemon peach wine) came out great and I will make it again with about 20 pounds of peaches this time and skip the extract.

 

[Greydog]

15 lbs is no where near enough peaches. Actually, you should use all peach juice and no water at all. If you freeze the peaches first, this will help break them down more.

That's what I thought but every recipe I found called for 2 1/2 pounds per gallon. I'm gonna use the whole 25 pounds. The only other wine I have made from real fruit was strawberry and I froze them first so will do the same with the peaches.
I have 6 gallons of a Welch's Grape juice/Blackberry Jam in secondary now that I call "Il Mio Paisano DeMarco, (named that after a friend I served in Vietnam with) 6 gallons of Angel Blanco and 6 gallons of Muscat clearing, and 6 gallons of black Cherry in primary. I have an extra primary bucket so I'll start the peaches as soon as they ripen enough. The Angel Blanco is ready to bottle so I'll have a carboy freed up too.

 

[Greydog]

I started the peach wine and used two primaries. Used all 25lbs (4 1/2, one gallon freezer bags) of cut up peaches and eight 64oz bottles of Kroger brand white grape/peach juice. I used two sanitized nylon paint strainer bags to hold the peaches. Divided everything equally between the primaries. Used 4lbs of sugar per fermenter. Initially the OG was 1.150 but after 24 hours I mashed the peaches by hand and it dropped to 1.110. I added about a pint of water to each bucket and got it to 1.092 and pitched the yeast. Wound up with around 4 gallons per bucket but once the pulp comes out and it's racked off the gross lees I'm guessing I should be close to the 6 gallon volume. If I have extra I'll rack it to a suitable container under airlock and reserve it for topping up or whatever.

The must tasted really great so I'm hoping this will make some good wine.

 

[Greydog]

Went down to stir my wine and found the pectic enzyme, in conjunction with freezing the peaches, had done its job. The peaches were almost a slurry with very little solids left. I drained both fermentation bags into the fermenters and was left with less than a gallon of pulp. Combined the two fermenter contents and wound up with right at 7 gallons of liquid.

It now appears as if the wine has stopped fermenting or at least got real sluggish. I may have tossed out my active yeast with the pulp. If jt hasn't perked up by tomorrow morning I'll have to run over to Ohio to the Merry Family Winery and pick up some EC-1118 as all I had when I started was two packs of some kind of "Fruit Wine Only Yeast" and I used both in the primaries.

 

[Greydog]

Well, it fermented down to 1.025 so I racked to a carboy. It still smells like peaches and looks "peachy" so I guess it's progressing as intended. I have read that some peach wines don't smell so good while fermenting but I haven't experienced that with this batch.......yet?

 

[spaniel]

I have a peach wine I expect to do well in competition this year. No water was added; it was about 80% peaches and about 20% Ontario grapes (ripened at the same time). The grapes help with the balance.

I would never dilute a peach wine.