Melon Wine

hello all,

I'd like to share my first real fruit wine experience with you.

About 1 month ago I decided to make melon wine. Bought 90 kgs of melons for very cheap price. managed to extract about 45 liters of juice through a juicer. Added some water and sugar to bring alcohol levels to about a potential alcohol level of 16%. I put an correct amount of potassium metabisulfate to kill any unwanted yeast/bacteria in the solution which might have got in.. left it for 2 days covered into a fermenter bucket with some pulp in each. 2 days later added champagne yeast.

3 weeks later finished fermenting. by the end of fermentation the pulp which was floating, has sunk in the bottom.

i cleaned and sanitized 2 demijohns with air lockers and racked it onto two 25 liter demijohns.

in the meanwhile i was reading that i should have added campden tablets. after 4 days i decided to added the instructed amount of crushed campden tablets in fear of any oxygenation or contamination which might Have occurred during siphoning.

equipment has been sanitized in every stage

I would like have your views, comments and suggestions where i could improve.

thanks

its probably fine but honestly 16% melon wine sounds like rocket fuel...i would have done something like 11 or 12 percent. next time when your sg goes below 1.000 and stays there for a couple days,, add campden.

I made a melon mead which smelled amazing during fermentation. I backsweatened and after about 3 to 6 months I think I opened a bottle and it was really acidic tasting, no one was able to drink it apart from me. Coming up to a year its much nicer, even my parents were happy to finish their glasses, though still has an acid bite on the back end. I will probably wait a while again before opening any more. I only did a 5 litre batch.

after how many weeks, after 1st racking, you think i should bottle it?

satboy said:

after how many weeks, after 1st racking, you think i should bottle it?

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Wait until the wine clears. Plan on 2-3 months, unless you want to bulk age longer.

A couple of days ago, i remembered i did this wine. Inserted a sterile tube and extracted some of the wine. Its turning out fabulous. I do not know how i can wait to bulk age.