Cucumber Wine Taste

I am new at brewing, but because I have lots of fruit to harvest from my back yard amd trying wines... so far I have blueberry wine, red grape wine, peach wine, and cucumber wine going. All taste good except cucumber.

The cucumber wine has good color (kind of yellowish/greenish) but it is too bitter for my taste. Is that how it should be? If I add lots of sugar will it get less bittery or will it just ferment the sugar again?

Thanks for any tips...

btw-the recipe I used is as follows:

4 pounds cucumbers
3 campden tablets
2 oranges
2 lemons (I used lime instead)
7 cups sugar
pectic enzyme
nutrients
1 package wine yeast
water



Wash cucumbers. Leave skin on. Chop cucumbers and place in primary fermentor. (I used the food processor to slice the cukes real thin)

Wash oranges and lemons. Slice thinly and add to cucumbers (again used the food processor to slice). Stir in sugar and nutrients.

Pour 16 cups boiling water over mixture. Stir to dissolve sugar. Let cool. Add pectic enzyme.

The next day, check specific gravity -- it should be between 1.090 and 1.100. Add yeast. Stir daily for five days, until frothing stops.

Strain. Siphon into secondary fermentor and attach airlock.

Could be due to the cucumbers themselves being bitter. I've gotten cucumbers from the grocery store that when sliced for a salad were so bitter as to be inedible. I've been told that a cold snap, even a short/mild one, during growing can turn cukes bitter.
Also, the skin has a certain bitterness to it, I'd have peeled them before fermenting.
Here's a link to a cucumber wine thread on another wine forum, it might have some useful info for you: http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?/topic/1150-cucumber-wine/

You could've gotten some bitterness from the limes and/or any peel from any of the citrus, all citrus pith is bitter. Regards, GF.

I thought about the lime and the orange peel. The kukes themselves were tasted before hand- meaning that I ate one slice of each kuke before fermenting,they were not bitter. I also thought the cuke peel could add some bitterness. So am going to try the same recipe without any of the peels and see what I get. Thanks for you feedback and the link, it is very usefull.

I think removing the peel is a good approach to kicking some of the bitterness aside.

jogomez said:

I thought about the lime and the orange peel. The kukes themselves were tasted before hand- meaning that I ate one slice of each kuke before fermenting,they were not bitter. I also thought the cuke peel could add some bitterness. So am going to try the same recipe without any of the peels and see what I get. Thanks for you feedback and the link, it is very usefull.

Click to expand...

Be sure to post your results, I'm curious to see how it turns out. I'm wondering about a couple things in your recipe though: Why the citrus? Is it just to add acid? Why the boiling water? Is it just to dissolve the sugar more easily, or sanitize the fruit? I know a LOT of fruit wine recipes say to pour boiling water over the fruit, but I never really saw a need to do so.

One thing you might want to try: after you peel & slice those cucumbers, stick 'em in a ziploc bag & freeze them for a day or so, then thaw them out & refreeze them for another day or two. Thaw then out & let them come up to room temp before fermenting. This freeze/thaw freeze/thaw will really help to break down cell walls & extract more juice & flavour from the fruit...
Makes it easier for the pectic enzyme to do it's job too. I do this with all the fruit I ferment. Regards, GF.

Interesting, I will try the freeze/thaw, freeze/thaw process to see what a difference it makes... I have plenty of cukes coming. The citrus is just to add some acidity and it also is the only recipe I found so far, but like I said, I have so many cucombers that I will try different recipes and definitely post results here...