vegi wines

[danroh]

I have been making fruit, grape and berry wines for quite a few years with good success. Just for fun I was thinking about trying some of the recipes for my excess vegtables from my garden. Carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and peppers. Can anyone tell me if any of these are worth the sugar

 

[Luc]

Carrots will prove difficult while they produce almost no juice. I tried them in my steam-extactor and even after several hours no good result. I think best way is to chop them in a kitchen machine and then boil them and ferment on the pulp for several days.

Tomatoes will do. There are several recipes on the net.
Never tried it myself though.

Potatoes are again something I never tried but wodka is made
from them. I think it will not be a very tasty or flavorfull wine.

And peppers are made into wine but results are mixed.

Sugar is pretty cheap so why not give it a go. You might be surprised or you can use it to keep the inlaws away

Luc

 

[Sacalait]

I tried a coushaw pumpkin wine once which turned out pretty good. I don't know the botanical name but they're crook necked and stripped green and white and likely weigh in at 5# +/-. As Luc stated, sugar is cheap so give it a go.

 

[danroh]

vegi's

As for the carrots I have a juice machine that I make carrot celery juice with. I really works well on both for juice extraction. I through together a gal of tomatoe wine yesterday from a recipe from Jack Keller site. Takes a year to age so I wont know until next year. Hope it works. My canning is done for the year and I still have hundereds of tomatoes still on the vines. I would make 5 or 6 gals of this if someone could tell me that they have had success doing this.

 

[Sacalait]

If you've got the tomatoes going to waste then by all means turn them into wine. I made this wine last year and it came out a white drinkable wine. It's OK but I wouldn't do it again because I rather other fruit wines.

 

[danroh]

Tomatoe wine

I bottled a gal of tomatoe wine this weekend and it really turned out great. Crisp, golden and well balanced. I am going to let some friends try it and guess what it is. No one will guess!!! Next year I'll be making 5 gals

 

[Helen]

Veggie wine question & answer

I have had some wonderful luck with pumpkin champagne -- it came out beautifully and was a complete surprise. I also considered a carrot chardonnay to be a success, but a sweet carrot and apple wine was not so great. About a year ago, I tried some beet wine and I have racked it numerous times, but not bottled it because it still tastes too earthy. Does anyone have a trick for getting the rooty-taste out of root vegetable wines? Anything you can add to make it more wine-like? I hate to bottle as is because I don't really think it will improve much in the bottle. Thanks much for any help.

 

[Luc]

There is a lot of discussion going on about the question which is better: carboy-aging or bottle aging.

Now I always need my carboys for new wines so I bottle as soon as is possible (fermentation done and stabilised).

My beet wine was made in may this year.
In august I bottled it and the earthly taste was overwhelming present
In october I opened a mini test bottle (I always bottle at least 10 pieces of 25cl mini bottles for testing purposes) the earthly taste was fading. I have not tried it since then, and put the wine far away in my cellar.

There are not many recipes for beet-wine on the net around. But the ones I did find told to age the wine for at least a year, preferably two. And that the earthly taste will fade away and you will be surprised with a wonderfull wine.
So I took this risk and tried it.

The moral is that I do think that this wine will age faster in bottles as in a carboy. But that is just my experience.

If you do not have any need for the carboy, leave it in there. Otherwise bottle it, and age it in the bottles.

Luc

 

[weltercat]

I am really glad to hear that Luc because I have the same needs as far as my carboys go. I try to bottle as soon as the wine is stabilized so I can start something else.

I little over a month ago I started two batches (5 and 6 gallons) of pumpkin wine from Jack Keller's website since I had several pumpkins left over from Halloween. I tried one spicy with nutmeg, cinnamon and raisins and the other just plain pumpkin. Apparently it takes a full year for it to be any good. If someone has some experience with these or similar recipes I would love to hear about it.

 

[Helen]

pumpkin wine

Some pumpkin wine I made last year (also with left-overs from Halloween) came out great. I used a recipe from Joy of Home Winemaking, used cinnamon sticks to spice lightly and then bottled it -- a little too soon as it turned out. When I saw a cork on the basement floor, I realized the pumpkin wine was sparkling and we'd better drink it soon. It was a really nice, very faintly pumpkin dry sparkling wine. It was a nice surprise. And as my son pointed out, pumpkins are not berries -- you can get a truckload real fast... Let me know how yours turns out.