Grocery store wine

[bitterbad]

I want to make a wine with fruits that I can buy in a grocery store. Due to some unique circumstances, I've come across a sum of money that must be spent on fruits, and this is how I want to use it. Which fruit is the easiest to make wine from? Which is the most rewarding? Seems to me like banana, lemon, lime, and pineapple have added challenges because of PH; blueberry and raspberry seems easy to mash and macerate; kiwi, apple, orange, watermelon, and strawberry are all also options. Or maybe I could try making a fruit punch wine? Or should I just make skeeter pee from a bunch of lemons?

 

[RevA]

Blueberry is a relatively easy wine to make and I pretty much always have some in a fermenter.
Dragon blood - mix berry Skeeter pee is an easy wine that tastes well young.
Apple wine is always worth making.
That said grocery stores generally have many types of juice that could be used to easily make a variety of wine.

 

[bitterbad]

Blueberry is a relatively easy wine to make and I pretty much always have some in a fermenter.
Dragon blood - mix berry Skeeter pee is an easy wine that tastes well young.
Apple wine is always worth making.
That said grocery stores generally have many types of juice that could be used to easily make a variety of wine.

Can't be juices, needs to be fruit.

What makes blueberry wine so easy?

 

[RevA]

Can't be juices, needs to be fruit.

What makes blueberry wine so easy?

You can put blueberries in a bag and press them dry, the blueberries have a decent amount of tannins and can make a decent red or rose wine without too much fiddling. It can be make quite simply, blueberries, water, sugar, yeast and nutrients or add grape or apple concentrate for extra body and acid balance. It also oaks well, so gives a few options with few issues.

 

[bitterbad]

You can put blueberries in a bag and press them dry, the blueberries have a decent amount of tannins and can make a decent red or rose wine without too much fiddling. It can be make quite simply, blueberries, water, sugar, yeast and nutrients or add grape or apple concentrate for extra body and acid balance. It also oaks well, so gives a few options with few issues.

Enlightening!
Do you have anything to say on if fresh blueberries vs frozen blueberries makes a difference? Would frozen blueberries mash better? And what yeast do you typically use?

 

[RevA]

Enlightening!
Do you have anything to say on if fresh blueberries vs frozen blueberries makes a difference? Would frozen blueberries mash better? And what yeast do you typically use?

Frozen work better for me, cell walls are already broken. Also they tend to be cheaper here where I am.
D47 or EC1118

 

[wood1954]

I’ve made blueberry wine a couple times and most people really like it when it’s back sweetened. I like it dry . The last batch of dry I made underwent malolactic fermentation in the bottle, the back sweetened did not. Good luck.

 

[Raptor99]

The best grocery store fruit for making wine is whatever is ripe and in-season. The freshest, fully ripe fruit makes the best wine.

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, berry season is just about to begin. Blueberry wine is one of my family favorites. I rinse and freeze the fresh berries, then thaw them to make wine. That also allows me to buy them at the peak of the season and make the wine later. The freezing/thawing process helps to break them down and make them easier to mash. It is great lightly oaked and slightly back sweetened. For my batch last year, I used Lalvin K1-V1116.

I have tried store-bought frozen fruit, but the flavor is not the same. If you buy fresh, ripe blueberries, do a taste test and compare them with thawed pre-frozen fruit. No comparison. But the berries that I grow or buy fresh and freeze myself are much better, because I can be sure that they are frozen at peak ripeness and flavor. Some brands of frozen fruit might be better than others, so you can do some taste tests.

If you can afford it, raspberries make a great wine. You probably need at least 7-8 lbs. per gallon to avoid a watery tasting wine.

Banana wine is surprisingly good. I would suggest organic bananas, partly because some of the recopies include the peel as well as the banana flesh.

 

[bitterbad]

If you can afford it, raspberries make a great wine. You probably need at least 7-8 lbs. per gallon to avoid a watery tasting wine.

Money is of no object for this project, honestly the more expensive it is the better. Your reminder that raspberries are expensive may make me consider them more than blueberries now. Does red raspberry really make a good wine though? I struggle to imagine how it would taste.

Banana wine is surprisingly good.

My intuition with banana wine is that it'd be very difficult to do right but very rewarding. Bananas are a somewhat bland, somewhat low PH fruit, and I'm also concerned with getting enough banana taste in the final product, or getting a wonky tasting wine.

The best grocery store fruit for making wine is whatever is ripe and in-season. The freshest, fully ripe fruit makes the best wine.

Perhaps I may get some young coconuts or mangos for wine in the summer then

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

Money is of no object for this project, honestly the more expensive it is the better. Your reminder that raspberries are expensive may make me consider them more than blueberries now. Does red raspberry really make a good wine though? I struggle to imagine how it would taste.


My intuition with banana wine is that it'd be very difficult to do right but very rewarding. Bananas are a somewhat bland, somewhat low PH fruit, and I'm also concerned with getting enough banana taste in the final product, or getting a wonky tasting wine.


Perhaps I may get some young coconuts or mangos for wine in the summer then

Forget the coconuts. Been there done that didn’t work. Mango is my go to fruit. Any frozen fruit or fruit combo works well also. Depends on what is in plentiful supply. Plums, pears strawberries, mango, peaches, heck even grapes make wine.

 

[bitterbad]

Forget the coconuts. Been there done that didn’t work. Mango is my go to fruit. Any frozen fruit or fruit combo works well also. Depends on what is in plentiful supply. Plums, pears strawberries, mango, peaches, heck even grapes make wine.

wine from GRAPES??

 

[BigDaveK]

@bitterbad whichever fruit you buy from the grocery store taste it first. Keep in mind that many fruits (and vegetables) will not ripen after being picked. Homegrown is best, farmer's markets a close second IMO.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Do you have anything to say on if fresh blueberries vs frozen blueberries makes a difference? Would frozen blueberries mash better? And what yeast do you typically use?

You will find that frozen fruit is easier/ has better juice yield. A press/ straining bag is useful and helps with yield. (My mom didn’t have a press so would squeeze twist the fruit in a flour sack hanging off a cabinet pull > collecting with a large bowl.) Hard fruit as apple and quince produce low yield without a press. Hard Freezing (2 days plus) can break down apples to transition them to a soft fruit. Fiber as in pineapple reduces yield.

All fruit wine can be made like a tea >>> steep and ferment on the pulp > press or strain through a bag at 1.020 gravity/ while still actively outgassing. Using 100% juice gives better flavor.
Acid balance is important. Every fruit is different, if you don’t have a pH meter I would follow a traditional recipe as Jack Keller or EC Krause which will guide diluting with water or adding acid blend. Sugar concentration also depends on the species and a hydrometer is useful or follow a traditional recipe.

 

[BigDaveK]

My intuition with banana wine is that it'd be very difficult to do right but very rewarding. Bananas are a somewhat bland, somewhat low PH fruit, and I'm also concerned with getting enough banana taste in the final product, or getting a wonky tasting wine.

It's important that the bananas are VERY ripe. I ferment with the bananas so once they're fully ripe, into the freezer, slicing is easy.

I like a little brown sugar when back sweetening banana wine, like <25%. It adds a nice touch without being identifiable.

 

[konradtacular]

I have made peach wine for 2 years in a row now. Granted I don't make it like other recipies that call for basically making a peach tea. I hand pit a tonne of peaches and then add some pectic enzyme, juice concentrate to up the brix and body, and then plain old table sugar. I add a yeast slurry and let that ferment for a day or two before juicing everything in a basket press lined with a fine cheesecloth. The only thing you have to watch out for is that there will be quite a bit of sediment that will fall out of suspension and you should rack it off the lees after fermentation. Adding some dry malt powder I've found adds some body without necessarily giving it a malty flavor so long as you don't add too much.

 

[Raptor99]

I make some banana wine as a random experiment. It was surprisingly good. As @BigDaveK said, make sure the bananas are very ripe, and use a little brown sugar. Another batch is on my list for "someday."

Peach wine is awesome, but like everything else the quality and ripeness of the fruit is very important. In the fall each year we have a place we can buy case lots of peaches. Unlike some fruits, peaches (and pears!) will ripen very well after picking, so we wait until they are at optimal ripeness, then rinse, core and freeze.

But berries won't ripen after being picked, so they have to be picked at the right time to be any good. I live in a blueberry growing area, and my local grocery store sources fruit from local farms. At the peak of the season, I have gotten some very nice blueberries at the grocery store. This year I plan to visit one of the local blueberry farms to see if I can buy them directly.

If money was not an issue, I would definitely try mango wine. Where I live, mangoes are all shipped in from somewhere else, but I have occasionally gotten some nice mangoes from the grocery store.

 

[bitterbad]

If money was not an issue, I would definitely try mango wine. Where I live, mangoes are all shipped in from somewhere else, but I have occasionally gotten some nice mangoes from the grocery store.

Yeah I only ever see mangos in grocery stores during the summer months, couldn't find any today.

I've decided on blueberry wine right now because the store ran out of raspberries. Late summer I might try mangoes too.

 

[bitterbad]

so i got 40 lb of blueberries which is apparently too much for just 5 gallons. i was thinking in terms of grapes. oops. I'm using around 27 lbs of them for this ~6 gallon batch, i'll try to get as much juice as possible, not add any additional sugar, and maybe my wine will be more blueberry than any other blueberry wine

 

[Ty520]

so one "trick" to consider is getting frozen fruit from a quality source.

with fresh fruit, you're at the mercy of the season; also, "fresh" fruit is often picked prematurely so that it can continue to ripen in transit - this is, on average, a 2 week journey.

so then you're contending with not only fruit that may not be in season, but not properly ripened, and possibly damaged in transit, and THEN you also have to weed through any bad produce in the mix.

whereas with frozen fruit, they pick it at optimal ripeness, and weed out the bad produce for you, and then the freezing process will essentially macerate it for you once it thaws.

of course, you'd still want to buy from a high quality source. personally, i like to get mine from a nice regional high end organic market, but even places like costco are a great source.

you may pay more, but i think the benefits far outweigh the cost.

 

[Raptor99]

I use at least 5 lbs/gal for blueberry wine. Some on WMT use more. You will need to add some sugar to reach an ABV of around 11-12%, which works well for most fruit wine.

so one "trick" to consider is getting frozen fruit from a quality source.

with fresh fruit, you're at the mercy of the season; also, "fresh" fruit is often picked prematurely so that it can continue to ripen in transit - this is, on average, a 2 week journey.

High quality frozen fruit can be very good. But cheaper frozen fruit is often not very good.

The best fresh fruit is locally grown fruit at the peak of the season. I try to focus on making wines using fruit grown in my area. Fortunately, I live in an area with a lot of fruit orchards. Some of the in-season fruit in the grocery store here has more like a 2-3 day journey, not 2 weeks. If you live in an area that does not have much local fruit, using frozen or juice concentrates is a good option.

Peaches and pears will ripen very well after harvest, but berries will not. If they are picked before being completely ripe, they will never be really good.

@bitterbad I suggest that you add the general area in which you live to your profile, so that we can respond appropriately for your region/climate. No need to be too specific, but you could at least include the state or country.