Newbie to wine

[xpebrian]

Was wanting to make apple wine and pare wine have apple grinder and press and lots of fruit what is a good way to start looking at 5 gallon batches any info appreatchiated

 

[Yooper]

You could try using a recipe like my crabapple recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=51010, just subbing a mix of tart and sweet apples for the crabapples.

I haven't made pear wine, so I don't know from experience but I'd follow Jack Keller's advice (he's a wine guru) and make this one: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request203.asp

Those recipes all make 1 gallon, so just multiply everything by 5 (except for the yeast). I make about 5.5 gallon batches if I have a 5 gallon carboy, due to the need to top up later.

 

[edues]

If you can get your hands on fresh apple cider or if you can even make a cider,that's the easiest way to go. You'll save yourself on a lot of sediment issues. I did a pear. About to do another when pears get a little cheaper. I be Hurd pear doesn't like to clear but my first batch did. If you do a pear wait till they get really soft but not rotten. Slice them with an apple slicer put them in a straining bag an mash them in there. Let them seep like a big tea bag for 2 or so weeks.

 

[edues]

[URL="http://easy-wine.net/homemade-pear-wine-recipe.htm". What I did different was. I didn't stir I just squeezed the bag a few times.

 

[xpebrian]

If you can get your hands on fresh apple cider or if you can even make a cider,that's the easiest way to go. You'll save yourself on a lot of sediment issues. I did a pear. About to do another when pears get a little cheaper. I be Hurd pear doesn't like to clear but my first batch did. If you do a pear wait till they get really soft but not rotten. Slice them with an apple slicer put them in a straining bag an mash them in there. Let them seep like a big tea bag for 2 or so weeks.

do I need to steep the pears if I put them through my fruit grinder and press them in my fruit wine press

 

[edues]

I Hurd an great idea from another post but I will when the pears here come into season. It said just to freeze the fruit. That will turn it to mush the put in your must. Make sure you cut them with apple corer first. When I did my pear they already were froze first. I forgot them in my car an they froze. I used a bocc pear. At the time they were 99¢ a pound and there super sweet.

 

[edues]

An "ice" wine is made from grapes that freeze on the vine picked an pressed frozen. If you have a press Wonder if that same idea would work with pear or apple. Last season a winery/vineyard near my home had a superb ice wine harvest.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi edues, I think true ice-wine means that the sugar is more concentrated in the fruit before the fruit is harvested which is why ice-wines are so sweet. You can mimic this (but not perfectly) by freezing the fruit as you suggest but what you then need to do is not simply wait for the fruit to thaw so that you collect 100 percent of the juice available. Rather you watch the thawing juice and collect the first third as it liquifies. That third will contain about half the total sugar that was in the juice and just about all the lavor (meaning that what is still frozen is more or less water). Now, I have not tried this using whole fruit but I have done this with fruit juice. It means that you can boost the sugar and flavor content of the juice from a gravity of about 1.050 to about 1.090 with no addition of sugar (so it shifts from what I would call cider to wine)... BUT the cost is in a loss of volume - 3 gallons of juice produces 1 gallon of this version of "ice-wine". It works nicely with orchard pressed apple juice.

 

[edues]

If you look up ice wine and its production it does say there pressed frozen. But not like a ice cube. Its a softer freeze. If that makes since.