Costco has pomegranates in stock here in the NW, my wife and I picked up a few (36) a couple of weeks ago. They store really well so I'm OK with seeding them as I have time. 36 poms is ~55 pounds which results in ~18 pounds of arils, which I freeze to make juice extraction easy. I thought I would add this since I haven't seen many attempts using the fruit instead of POM juice.
Last year I used a recipe that was something like this (guessing, cannot find notes):
30 poms
3 quarts organic white grape juice (I hate raisins)
2 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
2-3 tsp acid blend
water to ~5 gallons
Sugar to 1.085
Champagne Yeast, I would have used Lavlin EC-1118
When bottling stabilize, sweeten to taste.
This was exceptional, but not what I expected at all. It was lighter and ready to drink quite fast, basically at bottling time (surprised due to the tartness of the must originally). I thought the overall flavor, etc worked really well with summer (what little we saw this year) and it was quickly consumed, we ran out in July I think.
This year I picked up 36 poms since I was able to empty a 6 gallon carboy (Hard in November!). I expect to run out about the same time of year next year, but seeding pomegranates is so much work that 2 batches is nearly out of the question.
I will start the same recipe in the next few days (thanksgiving weekend I guess), just scaled to 6 gallons yield. I may try sweetening some of it with pom juice instead of simple syrup as there was no overwhelming 'pom' flavor to the wine last year.
Last year I used a recipe that was something like this (guessing, cannot find notes):
30 poms
3 quarts organic white grape juice (I hate raisins)
2 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
2-3 tsp acid blend
water to ~5 gallons
Sugar to 1.085
Champagne Yeast, I would have used Lavlin EC-1118
When bottling stabilize, sweeten to taste.
This was exceptional, but not what I expected at all. It was lighter and ready to drink quite fast, basically at bottling time (surprised due to the tartness of the must originally). I thought the overall flavor, etc worked really well with summer (what little we saw this year) and it was quickly consumed, we ran out in July I think.
This year I picked up 36 poms since I was able to empty a 6 gallon carboy (Hard in November!). I expect to run out about the same time of year next year, but seeding pomegranates is so much work that 2 batches is nearly out of the question.
I will start the same recipe in the next few days (thanksgiving weekend I guess), just scaled to 6 gallons yield. I may try sweetening some of it with pom juice instead of simple syrup as there was no overwhelming 'pom' flavor to the wine last year.
