mashed fruit vs. fruit juice

[stlfan]

new to wine making and had a question. If a fruit press is available to me, what are the advantages and disadvantages to using mashed fruit as apposed to fruit juice from a press in primary fermentation? I am looking at soft fruits (peaches, strawberry, blueberry etc.). Just hoping to get some feedback on pro's and con's or preferences of either. thanks

 

[cintipam]

Hi stifan

I've never made a batch from just crushed fruit, but have often added fruit to juice buckets. From my limited experience I'd say that wine from juice will clear more quickly plus give minor lees to rack off. Crushed fruit on the other hand will take longer and will make less wine since most of the pulp just makes gross lees that need to be racked off of more quickly to prevent off flavors and smells. I'm sure there are many more factors but the enormous difference in the quantity of the final wine seems to jump to the top of the list.

Pam in cinti

 

[Scooter68]

A lot depends on the juice source. Canned, Bottle, Frozen Concentrates and in the case of canned was it prepared specifically for wine making?

"Real Fruit" will always give you the honest true flavor of the fruit - that seasons fruit with all of the plusses and negatives. As mentioned there will be more lees with a crushed fruit wine but you can plan that into your quantities. I recently made a 3 1/2 gallon batch of peach wine from 4 different sources including canned, fresh frozen and peach juice. At the end of the secondary fermentation when I racked it I lost that 1/2 gallons but that was fine with me I planned for that loss. The result now is that I can taste all of the peach flavor and the scent is beautiful. Unless you are prepared to extract the juice yourself, you won't know how much potential flavor was lost by whatever method was used. Peach skins for instance have a lot of flavor - check that out next time you bite into a good fresh peach those peaches that just melt in your mouth and run down your chin. That skin holds a lot - will the juice extraction method preserve or lose that special flavor?

Extracted juice that you produce will have whatever you can preserve of those flavors/attributes for better or for worse.

And of course there are those who want their wine to be 100% juice with no added water. Nice but from the wines that I have made with 4-6 lbs of fruit per gallon you don't always need it. I have a gallon Black Raspberry wine aging now that is remarkably dark and thick with just 5 1/2 lbs of berries. When you rack it their is a beautiful burgundy film left by the wine on everything it passes through. The taste right now is sharp and I cannot imagine what it would be like if it was 100 percent black raspberries - overpowering and not something folks would enjoy. My first peach is the only batch that I was at all displeased with the strength of the flavor with 4 1/4 lbs BUT it was just a light wine and definitely peach it just didn't blast the taste buds with the PEACH flavor.

So what's best for you may well be different from me or anyone else - it depends on what pleases your taste buds.

 

[stlfan]

i appreciate the input. I wondered if leaving the mashed fruit in the primary would add to the flavor or not. I also wondered if a recipe calls for using 4 lbs of fruit for a gal of wine and that 4 lbs of fruit ran thru a press would create say a quart of juice, would the quart be equivalent to the 4 lbs required for the recipe? might be a stupid question but I would rather ask than spend time and money on something that won't turn out

 

[NorCal]

If it was available, I'd opt for a combination of the two. Some nice clear juice and some mashed fruit in the fermenter. I did a batch of not so juicy grapes and the yield of starting fruit to finished, clear wine was really small. Good flavor and extraction, but small yield, which is why I'd opt for plenty of juice to start.

 

[Scooter68]

Four pounds of most any fruit will be a fairly lightweight wine with a few exceptions. As for the pulp - I normally mash my fruit (soft fruits like blackberry, blueberry, strawberry and peach and let the remaining pulp stay in the mesh bag through at least the primary fermentation time. (Haven't done any grape wines so I couldn't address that process.) I would shoot for at least 5-6 pounds of fruit if you use the real fruit. Keep in mind that some of the sugars may release slower from mashed fruit so you starting SG number might be low with sweeter fruit. So I would make sure that the yeast you use will permit at least 1-2 percent more ABV capability than your initial SG would produce (Fermenting to .995). That is one advantage in using a pure juice to start with - you won't get any additional sugars released during fermentation.