snowgirl, here is the recipe that i am using off of Jack Keller's website.
Native Americans have long used mesquite beans to make numerous delicacies and a few staples. The dried beans were ground into a flour that in turn made bread, cakes and bisquits. The beans also yielded candy, pudding and a wine-like beverage. Today mesquite jelly and mesquite wine are more common by-products.
The green mesquite bean pod, according to Euel Gibbons, contains a high percentage of natural sugars and makes a high energy survival food. This sugar would explain why the bean is known to naturally ferment under appropriate conditions. Once cattle taste fermenting mesquite beans, they will go to any length to get more if they smell the ferment.
Mesquite bean pods are typically 6-12 inches long and turn from green to yellow to brown. Gather the bean pods when starting to turn from green to yellow-brown, but before they start falling. They may be slightly freckled with dark red or may be plain. If the pods have already begun falling, check fallen ones carefully for boring insects.
Mesquite Bean Wine
3 lbs mesquite beans
11 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
1-1/2 to 2 lbs finely granulated sugar (to s.g. 1.090)
water to make up one gallon
1-1/2 to 2 tsp acid blend
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne wine yeast
Wash the bean pods and break them into one-inch pieces. Put them into a large cooking pot and cover them with about 3 quarts water. Simmer slowly for one hour, covered. Strain the beans off and discard. Pour the water into a primary and stir into it half the sugar. Stir well to dissolve the sugar, then add grape concentrate. Cover with cloth and set aside to cool. When at room temperature, add acid blend, yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme. Stir to dissolve these ingredients and set aside, covered, for 12 hours. Add activated yeast and recover primary. Stir daily for 7 days. Stir in remaining sugar until dissolved, transfer to secondary, top up, and fit airlock. Rack into clean secondary, top up and refit airlock every 30 days for next 4 months. Stabilize, bottle and allow to age one year before drinking. This wine will keep well, getting better as it ages.
That recipe of for a one gallon recipe, but I am making a 5 gallon recipe for my first attempt at this since we have so many mesquite beans in West Texas. I am pretty much following his recipe, just boiling 3 quarts of water in 3 quarts of mesquite beans to get the juice that you add to the grape juice concentrate to make a gallon. In this case I just multiplied the beans and water by 5 and got the must I wanted for the 5 gallon batch. I have not made this before so i do not know how it will taste...but I did make one recipe very similar to his using the Texas Sand burrs instead of mesquite beans. It turned out to be a very nice dry white wine that aged very well. I am hoping this wine will turn out very similar in body and taste. Good luck with yours and I will keep you updated on how mine is going.
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