To Puree or not to Puree.

[Punkjah007]

New to winemaking, but I have made many beers. I often have access to freshly grown fruit, which is why I am starting the hobby. I am wondering if it is harmful or beneficial to puree the fruit?

I do my footwork first, so after some research I have read that you probably don't want to puree seed-fruit as you will puree the seeds as well and get off flavors. But not all fruit has seeds (stone fruit), or has easily removable seeds (apples, pears). What do people recommend?

2nd question, I have read some recommendations to blanch some fruit (like peaches) before using in wine, but the wine color comes from the skin of the fruit. What are people's experience with this technique?

 

[keystonehb]

Puree will definitely give you the most surface area to extract flavors from in wine. However, we find a lot of people like the finely chop fruits, by keeping them slightly solid it is much easier to remove it from the wine once done, and you will still get a lot of flavor as you still have a lot of surface area. I do not worry much about the skins and their color for things like that, but what i will do is chop everything, then freeze it. Freezing helps the fruit break down better as well as killing bacteria, then thaw when I am ready to start.

Also if you are hoping for a fruit bomb (having a heavy flavor of what ever fruit you're using) I also recommend adding a bunch more fruit in secondary. You will get a lot more flavor than if you just did it in primary.

 

[hottpeper13]

I used peach puree in a mead and lost about 2 gal due to sludge. I now put fruit in chunks or leave berries whole and freeze them to explode the cells. I also use a mesh bag and ferment in a bucket.

 

[AzOr]

Do yourself a favor and use a giant nylon hop bag.

Place your berries or cut fruit in it and let it ride. You’ll notice that your fruit will take on a very pale color. At this time start tasting the fruit. Once the fruit has zero flavor, gently squeeze it in your fermenter and continue with your process (you’re squeezing mainly for liquid volume not flavor).

I do this with all my meads; cherry, mango, blueberry, raspberry etc.

Remember- meads and wine ain’t beer. Don’t be afraid to get in there.

Also- I use a large stainless bowl to set the the bag in while I’m doing other stuff. I’ll give the bag a few final squeezes and then dump that liquid back in the fermenter.

 

[Punkjah007]

So I am hearing it is easier for clarity and cleanup to leave the fruit in very small chuncks, than to puree.

How small? Like 1" or do you go smaller? Do you mash it by hand or no mashing and leave it as chucks for easy extraction? I suppose the pectic enzyme is going to break down the fruit and make it soft no matter what, so maybe mashing is the way to go?

 

[hottpeper13]

Cut into around 1" chunks and freeze to rupture cell walls without mashing!

 

[ICanSeeBeerlyNow]

Do yourself a favor and use a giant nylon hop bag.

Place your berries or cut fruit in it and let it ride. You’ll notice that your fruit will take on a very pale color. At this time start tasting the fruit. Once the fruit has zero flavor, gently squeeze it in your fermenter and continue with your process (you’re squeezing mainly for liquid volume not flavor).

I do this with all my meads; cherry, mango, blueberry, raspberry etc.

Remember- meads and wine ain’t beer. Don’t be afraid to get in there.

Also- I use a large stainless bowl to set the the bag in while I’m doing other stuff. I’ll give the bag a few final squeezes and then dump that liquid back in the fermenter.

Hey can you explain the “meads and wine ain’t beer” thing? I make wine & I don’t know anything about beer

 

[AzOr]

What I mean is that beer is much more prone to oxidation. Once you close the lid to your beer fermenting, you wouldn’t open it up unless there’s some sort of emergency.
I ferment mead and wine in plastic buckets. I’m constantly opening the lid to add nutrients, take hydro readings, add or subtract ingredients such as fruit or spices etc

 

[Raptor99]

So I am hearing it is easier for clarity and cleanup to leave the fruit in very small chuncks, than to puree.

How small? Like 1" or do you go smaller? Do you mash it by hand or no mashing and leave it as chucks for easy extraction? I suppose the pectic enzyme is going to break down the fruit and make it soft no matter what, so maybe mashing is the way to go?

I usually freeze my fresh fruit until I am ready to make wine. That has the added benefit of breaking down the structure of the fruit to release more juice. Then I thaw it, mash it with a potato masher, and put it in a nylon mesh bag, along with some pectic enzyme.

I used peach puree in a mead and lost about 2 gal due to sludge. I now put fruit in chunks or leave berries whole and freeze them to explode the cells. I also use a mesh bag and ferment in a bucket.

I do the same, but peach wine still leaves quite a bit of sediment. I plan for that in my initial ferment. If I am going for 3 gallons on a carboy for bulk aging, I will start with a total volume of 4 to 4.5 gallons.

After your first ferment, put the sludge (gross lees) in a bottle or jug and put it in the fridge for a day or two. The colder temperature will cause the lees to compact further, allowing you to recover more of the wine. You can pour that back into the carboy or save it in smaller bottles for later topping off.

@Punkjah007 If you want a strong fruit flavor, use lots of fruit. For peach wine, I use at least 5 lbs. of peaches for each gallon of must. That is, 5 lbs. peaches + water to bring the total to 1 gallon. Fermenting at a lower temperature slows the fermentation, which helps to preserve fruit flavor. You can also add more fruit in the secondary to increase fruit flavor.

A lot of the recipes online use less fruit, so the wine ends up tasting watered down because it is mostly water. If you make your wine from mostly water, it will taste mostly like water.