Watermelon woahs

[Plato]

I have 10 gallons of watermelon wine that has finished. Added my Camden and Sorbate and its cleared. It tastes horrible. Very yeasty and bitter taste. Is this toast?
I started at 1.085 and its .990 final. I have not back sweetened yet due to the awful taste. No watermelon taste what so ever.

 

[Julie]

What was your recipe? Try taking a glass and adding some sure and see what that does.

 

[Plato]

I will give that a shot

 

[Julie]

Do you have access to any more watermelon, when I made mine I added more juice when I backsweeten

 

[Rocky]

How would you describe the "horrible" taste? Is it a chemical, metal, vegetable, etc. taste? There may be another problem. If you can clear up the "horrible" taste issue, you might try a few drops of something like this:

http://www.olivenation.com/Pure-Watermelon-Extract-P547.aspx

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Details wold help! WVMJ

 

[Plato]

forgive me as I am horrible at explaining taste. I would say it has an almost taste of Cheerios with a sharp alcohol bite with a yeasty finish. The smell is that of strait rubbing alcohol. The bitterness is very sharp. my log book is in my building as we just moved and trying to unpack. I have thought about adding a few cans of white grape concentrate to salvage the run. I have not tried any extracts but definitely not opposed to them.

 

[Plato]

Julie, I could get some more watermelon at my local supermarket. I could use my juicer to extract the juice and possibly freeze off the water. Any thoughts on that or would you suggest not concentrating the juice to lessen the alcohol bite?

 

[Plato]

I will look into that rocky, thanks for the suggestion

 

[BernardSmith]

I have 10 gallons of watermelon wine that has finished. Added my Camden and Sorbate and its cleared. It tastes horrible. Very yeasty and bitter taste. Is this toast?
I started at 1.085 and its .990 final. I have not back sweetened yet due to the awful taste. No watermelon taste what so ever.

Not made any watermelon wine but watermelon does not strike me as having a very pronounced flavor except for its sweetness, and I can imagine that once all that sugar has been fermented out the flavor will be very .. um... subtle.
Do you recall the recipe you used? May I assume that you did not dilute the thin flavor with water before you pitched the yeast...?

 

[Julie]

Julie, I could get some more watermelon at my local supermarket. I could use my juicer to extract the juice and possibly freeze off the water. Any thoughts on that or would you suggest not concentrating the juice to lessen the alcohol bite?

Yes give that a try, bring your sweet level to a hydrometer reading of 1.010 taste and go from there. Watermelon is a sweet fruit so the wine needs to be a sweet wine.