Other Adding fresh fruit to a kit

[Spectre78]

Hi,

I'm still fairly new to the whole wine making experience. I've only attempted the 28 day wine kits so far and each one I've done has turned out great. Anyway, the first kit I attempted to make came with a lot of mistakes. I tried a white zinfandel kit from cellar master out of British Columbia. It turned out ok, but as I said, several mistakes were made but not bad for my first try. Today, out of pure redemption, I decided to try this kit again. I want to put a bit more of a fruity taste to it by adding some fresh pineapple. Would this be a good idea? If so, how would I go about adding it? Just skin it and add the fresh fruit to the primary? Or squeeze the concentrate out of it? Please help!

 

[fuse]

If you like pineapple, I'd say go for it!
Now I'm craving a pineapple wine...

 

[Dhaynes]

There are a lot of folks on here with far more experience that I have with fruit. Hopefully they will chime in at some point. I've only done one fruit wine and that was a batch of dragons blood. If you are planning to add the fruit as well as the juice you will probably want to put it in a mesh bag from your LHBS or a new clean pair of women's hose to contain the mess. Then squeeze it daily to release the juice.

A lot of people who add fresh fruit seem to freeze it for a day or two and then thaw it before adding it to break down the cell walls and release the juice. You may also need to add some pectic enzyme before starting fermentation. It helps break down the fruit and preventing a type of haze in the wine that can be difficult to clear. You'll need to research this or maybe someone else with experience can chime in.


Sent from my iPad using Wine Making

 

[DoctorCAD]

Put the fruit in a cheescloth bag so it doesn't mess up your siphon later, and you need to punch it down at least daily while it is in the must. That keeps it wet and protected. Agree with Dhaynes on peptic enzyme, fruit can cloud a wine.

 

[Boatboy24]

Good advice from the others.

On whether or not pineapple is a good idea: try adding just a touch of pineapple juice to your current white zin. While it won't match your results exactly, it will give you some idea of the flavor profile you can expect. There will be sugars present when you do this that won't be there if you ferment them. The beauty of this hobby is you can make wine any way you want to.

 

[bkisel]

Go for it!

I've used raisins and bananas in the secondary without issue. Right now I have an RJS VdV Riesling in secondary that had caned peaches and its syrup (about 5 lbs total) added to the primary. Added 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme at start and another 1/2 tsp when fruit bag was taken out and lid airlocked.

Between the added pectic enzyme, the clearing agents to be added later and if need be aging in my non-heated garage I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it clear. We'll see. Worst case next time I'll be able to answer a question like yours with some additional experience under my belt.

Good luck!

 

[joeswine]

adding fruit to a mix

when adding any enhancer to a base wine you should ask yourself this question? does the base wine have any of the tasting notes of the element that I'm going to incorporate in it?
if the answer is yes then proceed, if the answer is I'm not sure or no then DON'T .In this case DON'T....

 

[bkisel]

when adding any enhancer to a base wine you should ask yourself this question? does the base wine have any of the tasting notes of the element that I'm going to incorporate in it?
if the answer is yes then proceed, if the answer is I'm not sure or no then DON'T .In this case DON'T....

Joe gave me this advice a awhile back. I used raisins for tweaking an RJS VdV Italian Valpola ("...with hints of raisins."). Came out tasting great and in my opinion raised the level of this $75.00US kit to something like a $100.00-$125.00 kit. I hope my peach tweaked Riesling ("...with subtle hints of peach and apricot.") comes out nearly as well.

 

[joeswine]

adding fruit to a mix

RESILING,IF YOUR ADDING DRIED FRUIT THEN YES, IT CAN ONLY WORK TO ENHANCE THE BASE WINE,BUT DON'T ADD TO MUCH YOU CAN'T TAKE IT OUT ONCE IT'S IN.SOME TIMES CLEARING CAN TAKE A LITTLE LONGER,BE PATIENT...