Wines from premade fruit puree?

Hey all,

We recently ordered 1kg each of 4 types of fruit puree: Pomegranate, lychee, rosehip, and fig. It comes out to a fair amount cheaper - not to mention a WHOLE lot easier, in some cases - than buying the fruit and preparing it ourselves.

Of course, our intent is to make a wine out of each of them

Our mango wine from canned puree turned out amazing, which is why we're going to experiment with these... I'm just wondering what others have done with premade purees. Any great hits or misses?

I'm hoping they turn out even half as good as the canned mango. Yum!!

Well, the purees arrived and we put on all for batches of wine last night.

We MAY have gotten a little too generous with the sugar amounts, because the gravity readings for each we off the charts.

Because the only one that came close to the highest gravity reading available was the fig, we figure our mistake was the addition of white grape concentrate, without tweaking the sugar levels as a result of that addition. The fig was the only one where we figured we wouldn't need the added ooomph.

Either way, at least 3 of the 4 wines have started fermenting overnight. The lychee one is the only one in a brew bucket - the other 3 are in carboys - so we're not sure what's going on there. It's also the only one with a layer of floating bits of fruit on top, so may take longer for us to notice fermentation. We may smell it later tonight, to make sure.

Taste wise... wow, I'm excited to see how they turn out. I think I'm most looking forward to the rosehip and lychee wines, they both tasted AMAZING pre-yeast. The lychee especially - it almost didn't make it to the fermentation stage, the 3 of us present would have happily drank it as-is!

From left: Rose Hip, Pomegranate, Fig wines

What brand of puree are you using and where did you get it from?
I've never heard of rosehip puree!! I do know it takes a heck of a lot of them to make ANYTHING!! I love their taste!

Debbie

I used Sicoly brand puree. I'm a pastry chef, so I'm always coming across cool food products that I'll use in home brewing or liqueur making.

Here is where I bought them from: http://www.lepicerie.com/catalog/category_287_FINE_FOODS_Fruit_Purees__SICOLY__Boiron_page_1.html - They have a TON of purees available!

With shipping, it came to something like $90 for 4 purees, at 2.5 lbs per puree. Definitely not the cheapest we've brewed, but for something cool and unique, totally worth it!

Some of the other ones we're interested in trying sometime, through that company:

Kiwi
Mirabelles
Papaya
Passion Fruit
Wild Strawberry
Yuzu

It's the first time we've ordered the purees from them, gotta say, was thrilled with the quality. I'm kinda regretting not ordering MORE to just play around with - that lychee in particular would have made amazing liqueur... or panna cottas. Oh yum!

Oh, and the other nice thing about the rosehip puree is that it was just so damn convenient. No worrying about seeds, hairs, or stems, etc. Just dump it in and go.

Looked at your site. How many packets of puree do you use to make say one gal of wine.???

We just used one packet per gallon.

The mango puree wine we've made before was a 30oz can, so I figure 2.5 lbs is close enough. The mango puree was pure fruit, so... I'm thinking it'll work.

Thanks might give this one a try...

THAT is a cool option... gets me thinkin'.

Debbie

These sound great. I just ordered the ingredients for your mango pulp wine, can't wait to try it.

Just to be clear - the mango puree I used in the mango wine was a different brand!

I don't know how the Sicoly brand stuff compares, but the canned stuff was FAR cheaper and worked wonderfully!

NerdyMarie said:

Just to be clear - the mango puree I used in the mango wine was a different brand!

I don't know how the Sicoly brand stuff compares, but the canned stuff was FAR cheaper and worked wonderfully!

Click to expand...

I didn't get the Sicoly brand stuff, too pricey for my blood.

jbrookeiv said:

I didn't get the Sicoly brand stuff, too pricey for my blood.

Click to expand...

I don't blame ya. For some things, it makes a lot of sense - the rose hips, for instance. Not worth hassling with picking / getting rid of twigs / taking seeds out / etc etc.

For mango, yeah... cheaper, great alternative makes more sense!

So, we obviously got a little too enthusiastic about the sugar additions, as all of the gravity readings are - literally - off the chart even a week later. They ARE all fermenting though, so... should be interesting to see what happens.

The lychee batch had the addition of a can of lychees, finely chopped in it, so it went into a plastic bucket for the first week. (The rest were smooth) We racked it into a carboy yesterday...

Good lord. I'd only cracked the lid - ONE snap - when the smell filled the room. REally, really delicious smell of lychees. It's gonna be hard to wait for that one.

you're making me hungry... and thirsty... if I can get the hang of brewing down to where I won't be so terrified of spending some $$$ on ingredients on something special, I'm definitely going this route! I'd like some recipes if you're willing to share =)

I will definitely write up what we did, once they're done. I write recipes for a living, so I like to make sure that what I'm writing up actually works first, LOL!

Cool, I'll be checking back every now and then for results and their recipe! :rockin:

Now that it's been a few more months, any updates?