Dates vs sugar?

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dlight

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I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere, just not feeling witty at the moment. But I am wondering: has anyone tried fermenting dates? On their own, or in a wine/cider/beer?

It seems like they have a lot of natural sugar, and might add some caramel/fruit notes to something... Just not sure what.
 
Oh hell yea. I have a date palm tree in the front and have made it the last three years. Last year I used Crosby and bakers distillers yeast and it turned out like a port. It has been nick named date rape .

5 gallons
15 lbs sugar
3.5 lbs black grapes
Handful of rosemary
1jalapeno
Cinnamon sticks

Yeast nutient
Acid blend
 
Dates are loaded with sugar. But if you ever have access to figs, those have more sugar than one can ever imagine. I added dried dates in a fig wine and it added a nice golden finish to the wine, it now looks like sherry. I have several pounds of Turkish dates that are fried and I have vacuum packed them and stashed them in the freezer, and I plan on making a batch of wine using a combination of Flor Sherry and Champagne yeasts...just to experiment. Another winemaker cautioned that if you do opt to use dried dates to be careful because depending on the storage of the fruit you may end up with an oxidized wine.
 
dlight said:
Nice!! Jealous of your tree! That recipe sounds killer.

So is it 15 lbs of dates?

Haha, I'm so stupid, it was a date wine and I forgot to list them.

It was two grocery bags full so about 15 lbs? Same for the sugar 15 lbs. ( staggered additions )
 
Now I only need to get dates to grow in Iowa and I'm set. I think I'll try a 1 gal batch and see what happens. Thanks!!
 
I just bottled a Date/Fig Gewurztraminer mead. The figs and dates really do stand out and I think they were great for a mead, I ended up backsweeting too much so we'll see how that goes, but the honey/fig/date combo had some really nice complexity to it. I think I'll try doing a dryer batch and using a little oak.
 

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