Pumpkin Mead VS Pumpkin Wine

My wife loves everything pumpkin spice so I thought I would make 5 gallons of wine for her. My mom has a pumpkin patch and I am up in the air on which recipe to use. Maybe both...

Pumpkin Mead or Pumpkin Wine?

 

Do you have a good source for large quantity of honey? As a first go pumpkin wine would be the easier if you don't have access to ~ 15 lbs of honey

 

I bought 17lbs of honey a month ago because it was a good price at the farmers market. Was just looking for a good recipe to use it with.

 

One of my best fruit wines was a pumpkin - will and might do it this year

 

What recipe did you follow?

 

I went off Jack Keller's website and followed it - I believe I used bowling ball size carving pumpkins. I did freeze them first and removed all the seeds

 

I made Keller's pumpkin once and after farting around with it for a year and a half tossed it out, it was awful.

I have since read that pumpkin wine is much better with 1/3 sweet potatoes and if you roast the flesh first.

 

This was my experience with pumpkin wine as well, except the wife made me toss it well before a year and a half. More like three or four months, it stunk to high heaven.

 

Now this is believable.

 

Sweet potatoes added sounds like compost.
LOL

 

Keller's doesn't have any cinnamon, nutmeg, or any other pumpkin spice blend that I was looking for either. The smell thing is starting to scare me, too. I guess I could always start with a wine since sugar is cheaper than honey, and if my wife doesn't kick me out by next fall, try the mead version.

 

I have a buddy who makes a very good pumpkin beer, I asked him what his secret was to making a good pumpkin beer and he said he gets 3-4 baking pumpkins cuts off the tops, turns them upside down on a aluminum foil baking sheet and bakes them at 350 for 15-20 minutes. He said the pumpkins gives off a pumpkin extract liquid when heated that he puts in the beer. I’ve never done this or seen it done but it sounds reasonable that this could be done for a mead or wine???

 

I believe that I read somewhere that in the early days of these here colonies beer was often brewed from squashes (including pumpkins) . But that said, canned pumpkin is more likely to be other squashes, AND, it is very likely that it is not the pumpkin flavor that people find so attractive about pumpkin beer (and perhaps wine) as much as it is the blend of spices. If it IS the spices that make the dish and not the vegetable itself then focus more on those spices and find a vehicle for using them in a wine IF (I say IF) you don't find that pumpkin wine works for you.

 

Very true, gotta get the spices right, excellent point.

 

Last year I made a delicious wine from zucchini (made another batch this year too but not yet ready for bottling) I am not really into pumpkin spices (Grew up in Scotland and pumpkin was not anything we considered as autumnal fare) but while I loved the fruitiness that I got from the zucchini I imagine that it would make a great vehicle for supporting those spices. And zucchini wine had no unpleasant off flavors in the primary - and I simply cover my primary with a towel to keep out flies and cats.

 

Is that recipe you would share? My wife loves Zucchini.

 

absolutely -
Three very large zucchini (total weight was about 8.75 lbs)
1 gallon of spring water
2.5 lbs of sugar
- Chop the vegetables into cubes and boil in the water with sugar for 20 minutes
Allow this to cool overnight
Transferred to food grade bucket. Increased volume of water to about 1.5 gallons (added a little more sugar to give me a gravity of about 1.090 (potential ABV = 12%
Add pectic enzyme (about 1 T)
Add 1/2 t tannin
I added peel and juice of 1 lemon
Rehydrated 71B and pitched after about 20 minutes
I cover the fermenter with a towel
Add 1/2 t of nutrient when the lag phase had ended.
Removed vegetables 4 days after boiling.
Racked into carboys when gravity was around 1. 005

The wine is now crystal clear but with a golden hue. Just tasted this as I wrote this out and it could do with some more acidity. I may add some acid blend or some more lemon... I am not sure. It's dry but has enough inherent sweetness to make this quite drinkable.
(started this August 16.).

 

Does It need aging????
Thank You for the recipe, very similar to the banana wine recipe I just made.

 

Most wines improve with age but I made a similar batch last year at the same time and gave a couple of bottles to a colleague and he served the wine at thanksgiving at his home and said that everyone enjoyed it. Does it need to be aged? It's zucchini - not Riesling. But that said, I cracked open a bottle I had a couple of weeks ago (from that first batch) so it was about a year old and I thought it quite delightful.

 

So does he use any of the pumpkin meat in his wort/must (i'm learning) for color and body or does he just use the oils? Does he use a spice blend?
Very interesting... thanks for sharing