Best Way To Flavor Juice In Primary?

[ridgeway]

What would be the best way to flavor wine juice with lets say peach? I am looking to get 6 gallon of Chardonnay or a Riesling this Fall and would like it to have some peach flavoring. I did a Riesling last year and just bottled it...it turned out awesome and I am simply looking to add a twist to some white wine.

I am thinking of adding crushed up peaches to the primary and simply rack into a secondary when ready. Am I on track or should I look at another way of doing it? Or maybe press ripe peaches and add the juice to the primary or secondary? What would be a common mixing ratio?

 

[rsmith179]

There are a few different ways to go about this. One, you could simply use extract as the flavoring. Extracts come in many different flavors and you can add in a little bit at a time until you get the desired taste. Nice thing about that is that it is very controlled.

You can also add fresh fruit or even fruit puree to the batch. One thing to consider with this is you don't really know "exactly" what you're going to get. The flavors may be too subtle or too strong for your tastes. Only way to tell is by tasting it along the way...

Also, you might just want to look into a kit that already has the flavoring as well. The Island Breeze kits are fun and easy to make and result in a nice, Arbor Mist sort of wine.

 

[summersolstice]

I personally have an aversion to using extracts in my wines and meads. I'm not saying it wouldn't work but it just somehow seems a little too artificial to me. When I backsweeten I like to use unreconstituted frozen juice to add that little burst of both flavor and sweetness so, the first thing I thought of was to use Welch's White grape/Peach concetrate.

 

[gregbathurst]

Flavours in fresh fruit depend a lot on the sugar. If you ferment out the fruit they won't have the same flavour - If you want to add peach flavour you might be better to do it in secondary after stabilising the wine.

 

[phished880]

I'm not sure if you'd consider this. Island Mist makes a "Peach Apricot Chardonnay"
Island Mist Peach Apricot Chardonnay - Island Mist - Winexpert - Ingredient Kits

 

[ridgeway]

Greg...that makes sense. I may just experiment in the secondary. Would it be wise to use pasteurized juice opposed to fresh pressed juice to minimize contamination?

 

[gregbathurst]

That would make sense. You could do small trials before doing the whole batch.

 

[mmadmikes1]

I personally have an aversion to using extracts in my wines and meads. I'm not saying it wouldn't work but it just somehow seems a little too artificial to me. When I backsweeten I like to use unreconstituted frozen juice to add that little burst of both flavor and sweetness so, the first thing I thought of was to use Welch's White grape/Peach concetrate.

great idea.

Now I hope this isnt a good Chardonnay or Riesling, I wouldnt want to waste a nice wine

 

[SeamusMac]

I've heard that using apricots will result in a stronger peach flavour in the final product than using actual peaches will. Just a thought.