Frozen pineapple wine

Hey all,

I am trying to make a pineapple wine out of frozen fruit. I have about 15 lbs of the stuff, figuring on 5ish gallons, as I don't have smaller carboys.

All of the recipes I've found are for concentrate or juice or don't really say anything about batch size.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

My simple knowledge says you are starting in the right right direction.

Things to think about are desired abv... Type of yeast you will use... How long you will age it..

But 15lb is decent for 5gal. Might end up light in flavor.

I found something that said I need about 9 lbs of sugar - does that sound right? I doubt I will need tannin or acid blend, but maybe I'm wrong?

Mmm a little under 2lb a gallon sounds about right for a med to high strength. I would look more into the need for tannins though.

I just bottled about 8 gallons of pineapple wine made from canned juice. I envy you having the frozen fruit!!! I used raisins as a yeast nutrient and when I racked it for the second time...I HATED IT!!! So much so, I put in my wine recipe book NEVER to use raisins again!! But a month later when I bottled, the flavor was quite nice. Anyway, as I am an unconventional winemaker, my advice, is not to let it sit on the lees very long. There are many experts that can tell you what happens, I am NOT one of them. All I know is that it gets a funky taste that I do not like.

So when I do my initial mashing up of the fruit, I just put it in a strainer bag and let it thaw, then crush it up a bit?

How do I add the sugar? In water? How much water for a 5 gallon batch at 15ish lbs pineapple?

I make a simple syrup by boiling 1 pint of water and 4 cups of sugar and dissolve it. I pour the boiling syrup right in the bucket and let it sit for 24 hours before adding yeast. But like I said, I do that with the canned juice. More water equals less body.

Hmm, the recipe I'm seeing calls for about 9 pounds of sugar added to make a medium body wine at 5 gallons. I am mostly just unsure if I am to count on just the juice from the pineapple or if I am supposed to add water with the sugar.

You have seen this right? http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request103.asp

Halbrust said:

You have seen this right? http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request103.asp

Click to expand...

Ahhh I did see this site one time. I think I shied away from the recipes because they didn't say what the batch size was. I guess I can scale from the 4 lbs of pineapple, though. Thanks!

cotillion said:

Ahhh I did see this site one time. I think I shied away from the recipes because they didn't say what the batch size was. I guess I can scale from the 4 lbs of pineapple, though. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Or maybe not. Scaling that puts me over my batch size just with water added.

Batch sizes are all one galleon on Jack Kellers web site.
I would add 4.5-5 galleons of watter. I also just dump in my suger and stir untill disolved. If you do not have a way to measure the sg then it does not matter if the suger is all disolved. The yeast will find it anyway. If the flavor is too mild you can always add frozen pineapple juice concentrate at any point. I would add it after it has fermented dry as a sweetner. Better flavor that way!
Also really ripe pineapples will have a higher suger content and more flavor. If your pineapple is not fully ripe you may need more of it and
more suger. You can add a few ripe bananas for mouthfeel and for their suger content. I plan on 3-4 pounds of ripe fruit per galeon. I also mix and match if I am just a little low with my intended fruit. ( I don't follow recipies exactly, can you tell?)

Jenny