Now I know I'm hooked on this hobby. I was looking at the sad jack-o-lantern that we carved the day before Halloween thinking, "I could make wine out of this."
Here we have Ashton (10) with her Jack-o-Lantern. She gladly hands it over to dad after Halloween because she knows dad will make toasted pumpkin seeds from it.
I used the recipe on this web site. First step was to cut up and gut the sucker.
This was not an easy process. Raw pumpkin meat is tough. I found that using a potato peeler works good on the skin. If you want to toast seeds (as we do every year), wash and let them dry completely. Coat them with olive oil and sprinkle your favorite seasoning. We like garlic salt. Spread them out on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. If you don't let them dry, they will be chewy.
Then to the wine. I tried Waldo's idea of using the magic bullet.
This did not work well. I eventually overheated the thing. So I resorted to using the cheese grater to break up the meat. 4-5 lbs of Pumpkin meat takes up a lot of room in the 1 gallon bucket.
Next I boil a gallon of water, dissolved sugar to 1.1 SG.Added the other ingredients (Tannin, yeast nutrient and Camden. I also added pectin enzyme and a tsp. of pumpkin pie spice even though the recipe did not call for it.)
Poured the mixture over the pumpkin meat and then tied up the bag. This came out pretty full, but it never did foam up.
After 4 days of fermentation, we are at 1.02 SG. Good enough to rack to glass.
The bag was a bear to squeeze all the juice out of. I got a cramp trying to get my gallon of liquid back.
Had to have a taste as we transfered to glass.
I really liked it. This is definitely one I will want to sweeten back to 1.01 to 1.02 before I bottle. The spice adds a nice touch and did not turn the color at all. It is yellow, wish it was orange.
Here we are in the SECONDARY VESSEL for PRIMARY FERMENTATION.
I'll top up after we get to 1.0. The carboy on the left is merlot. I've had it on oak for almost 8 weeks now. It will go to bottles next week.
Yes, I know the primary is empty. I'm needing to save money for the Christmas shopping next couple of months. She'll be back in action in January. In the meantime, I'm having fun with the gallon batches.
I think the pumpkin will be great to pull out next Thanksgiving. Also planning to do Cranberry if I can find some on sale after Thanksgiving.
Here we have Ashton (10) with her Jack-o-Lantern. She gladly hands it over to dad after Halloween because she knows dad will make toasted pumpkin seeds from it.
I used the recipe on this web site. First step was to cut up and gut the sucker.
This was not an easy process. Raw pumpkin meat is tough. I found that using a potato peeler works good on the skin. If you want to toast seeds (as we do every year), wash and let them dry completely. Coat them with olive oil and sprinkle your favorite seasoning. We like garlic salt. Spread them out on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. If you don't let them dry, they will be chewy.
Then to the wine. I tried Waldo's idea of using the magic bullet.
This did not work well. I eventually overheated the thing. So I resorted to using the cheese grater to break up the meat. 4-5 lbs of Pumpkin meat takes up a lot of room in the 1 gallon bucket.
Next I boil a gallon of water, dissolved sugar to 1.1 SG.Added the other ingredients (Tannin, yeast nutrient and Camden. I also added pectin enzyme and a tsp. of pumpkin pie spice even though the recipe did not call for it.)
Poured the mixture over the pumpkin meat and then tied up the bag. This came out pretty full, but it never did foam up.
After 4 days of fermentation, we are at 1.02 SG. Good enough to rack to glass.
The bag was a bear to squeeze all the juice out of. I got a cramp trying to get my gallon of liquid back.
Had to have a taste as we transfered to glass.
I really liked it. This is definitely one I will want to sweeten back to 1.01 to 1.02 before I bottle. The spice adds a nice touch and did not turn the color at all. It is yellow, wish it was orange.
Here we are in the SECONDARY VESSEL for PRIMARY FERMENTATION.
I'll top up after we get to 1.0. The carboy on the left is merlot. I've had it on oak for almost 8 weeks now. It will go to bottles next week.
Yes, I know the primary is empty. I'm needing to save money for the Christmas shopping next couple of months. She'll be back in action in January. In the meantime, I'm having fun with the gallon batches.
I think the pumpkin will be great to pull out next Thanksgiving. Also planning to do Cranberry if I can find some on sale after Thanksgiving.
