Tomato Wine

[GTG]

Has anyone ever done this with honey? Something akin to a tomato melomel? I have a plethora of great tomatoes and some great honey too. I have a special yeast in mind too. I may start this over the weekend. I will keep notes updated if I do.

GTG

 

[rathabsurfin]

Can a cheese cloth type bag be used instead of nylon with good results?

 

[macshomebrew]

I do it with the skins on. No heating. All the color drops out. My recipe is a little different but similar. A great cheap wine. You wouldn't know it was made with tomato's. My wife says Cardonay like. I give mine at least 6 months before drinking.

 

[RegarRenill]

What was the verdict on using frozen tomatoes? Doable or nasty?

 

[Hansbrew]

My first post. I have been reading and using hbt for a while. I was wondering about tomato wine with chili or habenero peppers. Does it make sense? If so how much in a one gallon batch?


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[waarhorse777]

Hey all!

Has anyone tried using a juicer vs smashing them? Thought this may get more juice in the long run. Any thoughts?

 

[raychel162]

I've been freezing my tomatoes as they come out of the garden. I'm assuming its ok to use them frozen, as it helps break down the fruit better.

Has anyone tried adding basil to their tomato wine before? I love tomato wine (it tastes like an Italian meal), so i'm thinking that adding basil will make it more hearty.

 

[raychel162]

My first post. I have been reading and using hbt for a while. I was wondering about tomato wine with chili or habenero peppers. Does it make sense? If so how much in a one gallon batch?


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I would use the normal amount of tomatoes (5lbs) and add 2-5 peppers per gallon. It just depends on how spicy you want them.

 

[ThatChefGuy]

Giving this a try now! I was donated around 2.5 lbs of cherry tomatoes today, so i figured i would try bulking the remaining 4 lbs out with a gala melon. Other than that i have all other ingredients ready

 

[Ms_Goodlife]

I have a one gallon of tomato wine I racked last week after a week in primary. It too is a golden colour already. I used the recipe from the joy of winemaking. Looking forward to the first taste mm mmm. Smells yeasty at the moment

 

[ThatChefGuy]

Well i should've transferred to secondary a few days ago. It is golden in colour and smells like a wine (Thats a good sign ). OG was 1.110, finished at 0.990! Tastes very dry however not as unpleasant as i was expecting, some depth of flavour, just a little like rocket fuel at the minute, another 60 days in bottle, and perhaps try to take the edge off with a touch of something.

 

[stella_tigre]

Just put together a batch, pitch tomorrow. Probably use Montrachet, although I have Premier Cuvee....hmmm...any opinions on the better choice?

 

[Yooper]

Just put together a batch, pitch tomorrow. Probably use Montrachet, although I have Premier Cuvee....hmmm...any opinions on the better choice?

Either would work. Premier cuvee is a champagne type yeast. I rarely use montrachet, but there should be plenty of nutrients in this recipe so that it should be fine.

 

[captainnibby]

Neighbors gave me about 40 pints of grape tomatoes... think I'm gonna use some to try this out. Made some spaghetti sauce with some of them and had to use a lot of salt to cover the sweetness, so hopefully that lends well to wine.

 

[stella_tigre]

Finally gave it a racking to get it off the secondary lees - pretty clear. And smelled better than it tasted....We'll just wait and see!

 

[Firewalker11]

SHMBO and I had a bottle of this with my brother and sister in-law this last fall and I thought it was a chardonnay! Only the nose gave it away. Thanks for the recipe, Yooper, we will try this one this summer.

 

[brewman551]

Anybody pay attention to this thread anymore? I just made a two gallon batch according to the recipe, but only had 2.5 tsp of acid blend, instead of the recommended 4. Will this hurt anything? Thanks in advance.

 

[stella_tigre]

Anybody pay attention to this thread anymore? I just made a two gallon batch according to the recipe, but only had 2.5 tsp of acid blend, instead of the recommended 4. Will this hurt anything? Thanks in advance.

Well it showed up for me. I made it last year, bottled a few months ago, waiting to see.

Acid blend can be added at any time up to bottling, so you can get more on order and add it later. Or at least that's how I understand it.

 

[bwalker187]

I just stumbled across this and I'm super excited to give it a try. Has anyone tried it with honey instead of sugar? I make lots of mead and am generally inclined to use honey wherever possible.

 

[conpewter]

Well its that time of year and I have a pile of roma tomatoes sitting on my counter, I may need to make some of this up.

Anyone have recommendations on racking from 1 gallon jugs? All my stuff is set up for 5 gallons and seems a bit cumbersome with a 1 gallon jug.

bwalker - i've not tried with anything on this wine but I'm sure you could do this with honey, just have to calculate it out.

 

[Jim311]

I love tomatoes but hate tomato juice. This recipe sounds gnarly but at the same time I have to admit to being pretty curious about how it will taste. Considering apple and blueberry wines have turned out tasting nothing like their original form I bet it tastes great.

 

[Yooper]

Well its that time of year and I have a pile of roma tomatoes sitting on my counter, I may need to make some of this up.

Anyone have recommendations on racking from 1 gallon jugs? All my stuff is set up for 5 gallons and seems a bit cumbersome with a 1 gallon jug.

bwalker - i've not tried with anything on this wine but I'm sure you could do this with honey, just have to calculate it out.

They sell mini- auto siphons if you want one of those. Otherwise, just some tubing with the old fashioned siphoning technique of filling it with water and then taking your finger off of the end to make it flow (into a pitcher and then moving it to the new jug once the wine flows). I did that for about 20 years, before I ever heard of an auto siphon!

 

[stella_tigre]

Well, it's official. The wine is exactly one year old today - which I did not realize until after we opened a bottle to taste it! I bottled in beer bottles with oxy barrier caps, not knowing if we'd want a whole big bottle at once.

The verdict? Not bad at all. Color is very pale yellow, it came in about 12.5%. I noticed when I bottled it was a little meh, so I added a pretty good dose of acid blend (1/3 tsp for a gallon.) It is crisp, pleasantly acidic, came in dry (0.996) but has a nice mouth feel from the alcohol. The boozy taste is mostly gone. You can tell it's not from grapes, but it's not tomato-ey. Maybe a hint in the nose. Some light bitterness, but pretty balanced.

It would be fun to serve to folks to see if they could guess what it is!

 

[ThatChefGuy]

Mine is not much over a year old now I recall, I shall dig out a bottle over the weekend!

 

[stella_tigre]

So we popped a (12 oz) bottle open the other night to taste while we were cooking dinner. At 17+ months it's pleasantly drinkable. But as we were cooking we needed a few ounces of wine for our pan sauce (seared pork chops are a bit boring without something.) And the revelation was, this makes an awesome wine for cooking. 4 oz per cook and 4 oz in the pan, just about perfect! At the cost of some sugar and a packet of yeast, you get a good quantity of white wine that works very well for cooking. When we have a bumper crop, we'll probably make more just for that reason.

 

[LissyNailsIt]

I hadn't even thought of that! Cooking wine! I cook with wine all of the time and now if I have a batch that isn't super great, but decent enough... I can cook with it! Did the tomato flavor come out in the sauce?

 

[stella_tigre]

I hadn't even thought of that! Cooking wine! I cook with wine all of the time and now if I have a batch that isn't super great, but decent enough... I can cook with it! Did the tomato flavor come out in the sauce?

No hint of tomato. It's sort of like a tart white wine with a hint of something else, before cooking, but there's nothing odd that came through in the sauce. Well chilled is quite drinkable, esp if it's being sipped while cooking!

 

[sfarion]

is it best to keep the skins on the tomatoes or remove them when making the wine?

 

[Brewbuzzard]

This is very interesting, I'm going to try this.

 

[Michael L Collins]

This might be a stupid question (so I have to ask), could you add the ingredients for salsa into this and make a salsa wine or would the garlic, onions and lime juice hurt the fermentation/taste?

Cilantro, peppers, onion, lime juice, garlic, and blood of my enemies (optional).