Peach wine

[smokeskrene4207]

hello all;
Last night I whipped up a batch of peach wine. I used 14lbs of peaches. 9lbs of them where frozen. The other 5 were canned peaches in natural pear juice. I used 2 cans of pears in pear juice as well. I used 10 lbs of sugar. I noticed one of the canned fruits had a funny feet smell after I added it to the other fruits. I didn't have campden tablets on hand. So I ended up just boiling everything for about 30 minutes which negated that feet smell. I'm expecting the wine to be Cloudy since I do not have pectic enzyme but that will be fine under the circumstances. I put all fruits in a brew bag. After boil I removed the bag and placed it in the fermenter. I used a bleached potato masher to mash the fruit a few minutes before opening the valve on my kettle and dumping the contents into the fermentor. I topped up to 6.5 gallons. I airlocked it and popped it in a fridge til the temp got down to 65. I took an sg of 1.053. I pitched lalvin d47 as I am under the impression it works well with peaches. I am not trying to make a super high alcohol wine. And I really want a lot of peach flavor so I figured if I racked onto another 15lbs of peaches and 4 lbs of sugar it will be at a relatively low abv. It should finish the primary at 7%abv. If the second ferment gets it to 10% at the max id be happy.
Ok so I'm under the impression that with lalvin d47(never used it before) you leave the fruit in primary a bit longer and rack off the lees after its sit longer. Should I take out the fruit as soon as the primary finishes or leave a few extra days? I'm used to finishing ferment and taking out fruit quickly and then waiting a week to rack to secondary.

 

[smokeskrene4207]

I felt upon my initial sg test my readings were of by a lot. 1.054 seems very low in 6.5 gallon must with 9lbs frozen peaches 5 lbs canned peaches in pear juice and ten lbs sugar. So I did some math and estimated the actual sg was 1.092. After 5 days it fermented to 1.020. I removed the fruit from the must and upon tasting it I felt it did not have very much alcohol(9.5%abv) so I added another 6 lbs.
It's been fermenting about 4 days since the addition. The sg with the new addition of sugar which started at 1.020 ended up being 1.063.
If it ends at 1.020 again it will be at around 15 percent abv. It tastes like a slight alcohol taste at the present stage of my primary ferment. I'm going to rack off the lees Monday or Tuesday and let it settle a few weeks to clear then taste. If the peach flavor is lacking I will rack over another 9 lbs frozen peaches. It's sg this morning at 1.035 about 13% I'm thinking. It tastes of alcohol but no major bite. It literally tastes like I bit into a pear but ends strongly of peach. Very rounded and full so I might just call it good and not add more fruit. The pear is front and center on the taste but you almost immediately taste the peach and it finishes strongly.

 

[JB Elmira]

Anybody out there got an opinion on the better yeast to use to ferment some beautiful peaches. The resulting wine doesn't need to be super high alcohol content and I'd like to ferment it to only slightly dry. It's sitting in the primary fermenter right now cooling down to an appropriate temperature (I froze the peaches ahead of time). I have some packets of Lalvin K1-V1116 and Lalvin 71B yeast on hand. I'd like to preserve the beautiful peach aroma and taste in the resulting wine.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[lukebuz]

Cotes des Blancs from Redstar or it's equivalent. Classic fruit wine yeast.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Anybody out there got an opinion on the better yeast to use to ferment some beautiful peaches. The resulting wine doesn't need to be super high alcohol content and I'd like to ferment it to only slightly dry. It's sitting in the primary fermenter right now cooling down to an appropriate temperature (I froze the peaches ahead of time). I have some packets of Lalvin K1-V1116 and Lalvin 71B yeast on hand. I'd like to preserve the beautiful peach aroma and taste in the resulting wine.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I would choose the b71 over 1116.

 

[JB Elmira]

Thanks. I do appreciate your reply.
JB

 

[JB Elmira]

Cotes des Blancs from Redstar or it's equivalent. Classic fruit wine yeast.

Just ordered some at Amazon.ca and will hope it arrives soon. Wine is ready to have yeast pitched but I suppose can sit for a day or two. I added Campden tablets to kill any rogue yeast so I have a window where I can wait for the yeast to arrive, just not too long...
Thanks for your opinion.
JB

 

[Raptor99]

I use K1-V1116 for my peach wine. 71B is also a good choice.

One of the keys to preserving the peach aroma, besides the choice of yeast, is to ferment at the cooler end of the recommended temperature for the yeast. If it ferments too quickly it tends to drive off more of the flavor. For K1-V1116 the temperature range is 50 to 95 degrees F. Find the manufacturer's data sheet for your preferred yeast to look this up.

From the datasheet for K1-V1116:

When fermented at low temperatures (below 16°C / 60°F) and with the right addition of nutrients, Lalvin ICV K1-V1116 is one of the most floral ester-producing yeasts (isoamyl acetate, hexyl acetate, phenyl ethyl acetate). These esters bring fresh, floral aromas to neutral varieties or high-yield grapes

Note that to get the high production of floral esters you need to ferment below 60 degrees F.

Cote Des Blancs:

If fermented at cooler temperatures it will not ferment to dryness producing a sweeter wine with some residual sugar. For the production of Chardonnay use in conjunction with yeast nutrient. Sweet whites, fruit wines.

Temperature range: 64-86 F. Alcohol Tolerance: 12-14%.

To produce a sweeter wine, with residual sugar, you need to ferment at cooler temperatures, below 70 degrees F.

In the winter I can ferment at around 65 degrees F. I want to find a way to try even lower temperatures with yeast such as K1-V1116.