Lychee Tomato Wine - I'm going for it!

[BigDaveK]

Not a lychee. Not a tomato.
It has an interesting and unidentifiable fruity flavor but it's not really a snacking fruit. Juice has a brix of 5.0.
@CortneyD earlier you mentioned thorns. Yow! Of all my intentionally grown plants with thorns this is the worse. They are everywhere! And they have a habit of breaking off in your skin. Evil.

Grew to about 7 feet tall and from 6 plants I harvested 17 lbs of fruit. Relatively hardy. Had a few nights recently with temps in the mid-20's and it's still going.


I used 7 lbs for a 1-gallon batch. Simmered for a while, hoping to extract colors, and then into the fermenter.



Robust ferment, thick cap, aroma and flavor changed daily.
Transferred this morning.
Mouth feel on the thick side, generic wine smell, flavor was instantly blueberry, quickly followed by pineapple and then a lingering banana. Alcohol taste not very noticeable at this stage. This is an oddball. The flavors changed so often that I can't even guess where it will end up.

 

[vinny]

This thing?

https://www.rareseeds.com/litchi-tomato-or-morelle-de-balbis

 

[BigDaveK]

This thing?

https://www.rareseeds.com/litchi-tomato-or-morelle-de-balbis

Yes, that's where I got my seeds!
I love "morelle de balbis" but researching the fruit I found a bunch more: jua de roca, puca-puca, sticky nightshade, red buffalo burr, jeweelie, mullaca espinudo, klebriger nachtshatten. And who can forget pilkalapis baklazanas?
I never knew it's grown all over the world.

 

[vinny]

Klebriger nachtshatten wine has a nice ring to it. I'll get some on order.

 

[Raptor99]

Now I have another new plant to try! I'll order some seeds for next season.

 

[BigDaveK]

Now I have another new plant to try! I'll order some seeds for next season.

They need to be started indoors. When moved to the garden I used large tomato cages because I wasn't sure of it's growth habit and I'm glad I did. Once they start growing you can't do anything with them - the thorns really REALLY are everywhere!

 

[CortneyD]

Oooh! I am SO excited to hear how this one turns out. And yes, those thorns are NO JOKING MATTER. Yikes!

 

[vinny]

They need to be started indoors. When moved to the garden I used large tomato cages because I wasn't sure of it's growth habit and I'm glad I did. Once they start growing you can't do anything with them - the thorns really REALLY are everywhere!

In Alberta, if it doesn't grow in the ground, it needs to be started inside. Unless it is fast growing. cucumbers, peas, and beans are a few of the exceptions.

Then for good measure we put fish/fish heads under the plants to get a good yield.

 

[BigDaveK]

Racked this morning.
Still has a generic fruit wine smell.
The overall mouth feel is quite nice!
Flavor is a noticeable raspberry/pineapple. It's good and I'm excited about where it might go. At this point I would back sweeten just a little to hopefully bring out the fruit flavor. I actually like it dry! HOWEVER....



If you look at the picture of the primary in the OP the sides have a yellow stain that I didn't discuss. There's some kind of oil in this fruit that rose to the surface in secondary.

Prior to racking I gave a little shake to disperse the oil slick just for show. I racked with just tubing, the eventual clean up being on my mind. Glass cleaned easily, all plastic is stained. And I threw away the piece of tubing. I'm REALLY glad this was a small batch in a glass jug and not one of my 3 gallon plastic carboys!!!

All indications are that it will be a good wine and I'm glad I made it. But unless it turns into an exceptional wine I'm not sure the extra and rigorous cleaning is worth it.

If you like the unusual and experimenting with new ingredients then, yes, try it! Me? I have at least 10 lbs in the freezer and I'll have to do some thinking before I try another batch.

I'll update in a couple months at next racking.

 

[vinny]

I have had staining issues, mostly carrot and tomato, but I think the dandelions did, too. Small amounts of oils in them all, nothing like the litchi tomato. I was planning to make a order... Nah, I am going to. The plant is cool. I can decide if I want to make wine with it later.

You should get yourself some PBW. It's lye based and you can make your own if you want to save some bucks (I saw it on a brewing site, sure you could search it out). It works really good on everything wine. Eats right through oils. Often all I do is dump a carboy, rinse, add PBW swish it around, dump and rinse. They are crystal clear with just that.

I dump the PBW back in my container, so you get lots of life out of it.

 

[vinny]

There is way more oil there than I got with the almond. You will likely find that easy to deal with. I wonder if you would get as much separation if you skipped the simmer and just used them thawed straight from the freezer.

 

[BigDaveK]

You should get yourself some PBW. It's lye based and you can make your own if you want to save some bucks (I saw it on a brewing site, sure you could search it out). It works really good on everything wine. Eats right through oils. Often all I do is dump a carboy, rinse, add PBW swish it around, dump and rinse. They are crystal clear with just that.

I have some PBW as a matter of fact. Liked the write up, sounded useful. Haven't had a real need for it but it seems like that will change now.

 

[BigDaveK]

There is way more oil there than I got with the almond. You will likely find that easy to deal with. I wonder if you would get as much separation if you skipped the simmer and just used them thawed straight from the freezer.

Good point, I wonder...
I simmer ingredients from the yard for two reasons. No, three reasons. Some things have anti-fungal properties which would interfere with fermenting and heating eliminates that property. Also, I hope to extract more color. And finally, the heat kills everything so I don't use k-meta.
Still new, still exploring, who knows how I'll do things a year or two from now.