My 1st batch of Peach wine

[Bhushan Thatte]

Hello friends. Just this Sunday I bottled by 1st batch of Peach wine. It was a good experience. But some how it is a bit sweet. Can anyone help me about your peach wine making experiments?

 

[Rice_Guy]

Looks beautiful! very clear, ie good technique.
Flavor wise doing a bench trial I thought that low levels of sugar had a green grocery store peach flavor a n low aroma, ,, it was better at 1.010 with improved ripe aroma and ripe peach flavor, ,, and the finished batch was back sweetened to 1.014 since the wife liked that more.

My experience is I fought pectic haze and finally settled in the bottle. ,,,, good job ,,,,, and welcome to wine making talk.

 

[user 36973]

I made a trial batch of peach wine using 100% sliced peaches with minimal water just enough to dissolve sugar to 21brix. Smelled fantastically peach-like during fermentation, kind of like a peach cobbler. However, after back-sweetening, sorbate, filtering etc, and getting it eventually bottled, I was disappointed with the lack of peach aroma remaining in the wine. I don't believe oxidation was to blame. If I make another batch, I'll plan on reducing the sugar addition and shoot for a 9%abv wine and/or press earlier. I'm guessing that the volatile aromas I wanted to retain were blown off during fermentation and getting the wine into a secondary where I can control temp better would help.

 

[Venatorscribe]

I made a trial batch of peach wine using 100% sliced peaches with minimal water just enough to dissolve sugar to 21brix. Smelled fantastically peach-like during fermentation, kind of like a peach cobbler. However, after back-sweetening, sorbate, filtering etc, and getting it eventually bottled, I was disappointed with the lack of peach aroma remaining in the wine. I don't believe oxidation was to blame. If I make another batch, I'll plan on reducing the sugar addition and shoot for a 9%abv wine and/or press earlier. I'm guessing that the volatile aromas I wanted to retain were blown off during fermentation and getting the wine into a secondary where I can control temp better would help.

What yeast did you use

 

[user 36973]

What yeast did you use

I believe I used D47, but haven't successfully located my notes on that batch.

 

[Venatorscribe]

Your initial Brix and resultant abv is ok and that is a good quality yeast that you used. This may simply be a 'time thing'. Give it another nine to twelve months to allow the flavonoids time to relax and rearrange themselves to produce a taste and flavour profile. I experience similar issues with pear wine. The subtle fruit flavours take a good twelve months.

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

Looks beautiful! very clear, ie good technique.
Flavor wise doing a bench trial I thought that low levels of sugar had a green grocery store peach flavor a n low aroma, ,, it was better at 1.010 with improved ripe aroma and ripe peach flavor, ,, and the finished batch was back sweetened to 1.014 since the wife liked that more.

My experience is I fought pectic haze and finally settled in the bottle. ,,,, good job ,,,,, and welcome to wine making talk.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I personally don't know about peach flavour - how it comes (liquid or powder form). Can you suggest how much to add in 1 gallon batch?

 

[Rice_Guy]

how much per gallon?
* The larger grocery in town has frozen peach juice concentrate which has a good flavor. It can be used like an F-pack by adding potassium sorbate. ! it does not have apple mixed in ! Usage one can in a five gal carboy. ,,, note this has sugar and you said you were sweet!
* Your original post said you were sweet, we can frequently fix sweet by adding acid blend. As a test a pinch in a glass of your wine. When I add chemical acid (usually primary) I aim for a pH of under 3.5/ TA about 0.65% and I go slow as 2 grams per five gallon.

View attachment 64995
the key is TA is a tool which is useful in producing balanced consumer product (aug’20)

* The peach flavor concentrate which I found at the wine toys store is Brewers Best; all natural flavor. It is not a balanced peach extract so is relegated to cooking. Mixed in at the beer usage level I had bitter and biting in the throat notes.
* Looking at notes my last batch of peach was 16 lb of pitted peach (for aroma), 13 lb of rhubarb (enough to acidify must) 2 lb of cornelian cherry (for orange color). Like Venitor I ran as cool as I could to not blow off aroma compounds and pressed the pulp/ put it under air lock at 50F at about 1.020. It was filtered with BuonVino #1 pad and still had pectin that settled in the bottle.
* there are no sugar commercial peach flavors which are balanced BUT I don’t know any retail outlets for them.

 

[Scooter68]

Last week I bottled my 4th batch of peach wine in 5 1/2 years of wine making. Except for the first batch (Made with about 5 lbs of peaches) Peach wine has always been the most fragrant wine I've made.
The only water I try to add now is that required to create my 2:1 Simple Syrup. I use peach skins and mash the slices well. Tried an Omega Slow Juicer once and it was so slow as I had to take the juicer apart after about 1-2 lbs of peaches - Gave that up) Now I use frozen sliced peaches bagged up with Pectice enzyme so that it's present and able to start work until the peaches freeze and then after they thaw. (At least that's my approach which may be flawed in reality) Typically if I buy a bushel of peaches (Roughly 40+ Lbs) from our local peach orchard I get 1x 3 gallon batch and about enough for another 1 -1.5 gallon batch and some to enjoy. I ask for the overripe peaches as those are the sweetest. I lose at most about 3-4 lbs to pits and moldy spots. (If it's just bruised an mushy - it's still good for wine) My notes show that I used the Omega juicer on the last batch and that it had 28 lbs for peaches. Of course my starting volume was somewhere above 4 gallons due to the expected Massive Lees from peach. I will say that the residue is great on vanilla ice cream if you don't mind the yeasty smell and flavor. It was using it as a ice cream topping that gave me the idea for a peach vanilla batch with about 1/4 stick of vanilla bean for 2 gallons. Really only needed about 1/8 bean to do the job.

The two biggest problems I have are getting an accurate SG reading as the must is the consistency of pudding for about 48 hours (So K-Meta is seriously important) and then getting the haze out of the wine. I've hit it with Bentonite, triple doses of Pectic Enzyme, Chitosan but still it just take a L O N G time to clear. This batch just bottled last week was started in August of 2019.

But back to the wine characteristics Fragrance is the best part of the wine. Just sitting there sniffing it is the closest I can get to eating a fresh, run down your chin juice peach. My yeast choices are either K1-V1116 or EC-1118 Sorry but I don't know which I've used on all of the last three batches but my 2017 batch was excellent and I used K1V-1116 for it.
I am going to try Vintner's Harvest SN9 yeast this summer - assuming that we have a local peach crop (Didn't have ANY local peaches in 2018). They tout it as excellent for Country wines, High ABV and for restarting stuck ferments amoung other things. It's expensive but thought it would be worth a try. Oh and NO foaming at all is claimed too. Will see about all of that.

SORRY for the long and wandering post but hope the info is helpful to someone.

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

how much per gallon?
* The larger grocery in town has frozen peach juice concentrate which has a good flavor. It can be used like an F-pack by adding potassium sorbate. ! it does not have apple mixed in ! Usage one can in a five gal carboy. ,,, note this has sugar and you said you were sweet!
* Your original post said you were sweet, we can frequently fix sweet by adding acid blend. As a test a pinch in a glass of your wine. When I add chemical acid (usually primary) I aim for a pH of under 3.5/ TA about 0.65% and I go slow as 2 grams per five gallon.

* The peach flavor concentrate which I found at the wine toys store is Brewers Best; all natural flavor. It is not a balanced peach extract so is relegated to cooking. Mixed in at the beer usage level I had bitter and biting in the throat notes.
* Looking at notes my last batch of peach was 16 lb of pitted peach (for aroma), 13 lb of rhubarb (enough to acidify must) 2 lb of cornelian cherry (for orange color). Like Venitor I ran as cool as I could to not blow off aroma compounds and pressed the pulp/ put it under air lock at 50F at about 1.020. It was filtered with BuonVino #1 pad and still had pectin that settled in the bottle.
* there are no sugar commercial peach flavors which are balanced BUT I don’t know any retail outlets for them.

Great info . I will check whether this is available in India, else I have to find out some work around.

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

Last week I bottled my 4th batch of peach wine in 5 1/2 years of wine making. Except for the first batch (Made with about 5 lbs of peaches) Peach wine has always been the most fragrant wine I've made.
The only water I try to add now is that required to create my 2:1 Simple Syrup. I use peach skins and mash the slices well. Tried an Omega Slow Juicer once and it was so slow as I had to take the juicer apart after about 1-2 lbs of peaches - Gave that up) Now I use frozen sliced peaches bagged up with Pectice enzyme so that it's present and able to start work until the peaches freeze and then after they thaw. (At least that's my approach which may be flawed in reality) Typically if I buy a bushel of peaches (Roughly 40+ Lbs) from our local peach orchard I get 1x 3 gallon batch and about enough for another 1 -1.5 gallon batch and some to enjoy. I ask for the overripe peaches as those are the sweetest. I lose at most about 3-4 lbs to pits and moldy spots. (If it's just bruised an mushy - it's still good for wine) My notes show that I used the Omega juicer on the last batch and that it had 28 lbs for peaches. Of course my starting volume was somewhere above 4 gallons due to the expected Massive Lees from peach. I will say that the residue is great on vanilla ice cream if you don't mind the yeasty smell and flavor. It was using it as a ice cream topping that gave me the idea for a peach vanilla batch with about 1/4 stick of vanilla bean for 2 gallons. Really only needed about 1/8 bean to do the job.

The two biggest problems I have are getting an accurate SG reading as the must is the consistency of pudding for about 48 hours (So K-Meta is seriously important) and then getting the haze out of the wine. I've hit it with Bentonite, triple doses of Pectic Enzyme, Chitosan but still it just take a L O N G time to clear. This batch just bottled last week was started in August of 2019.

But back to the wine characteristics Fragrance is the best part of the wine. Just sitting there sniffing it is the closest I can get to eating a fresh, run down your chin juice peach. My yeast choices are either K1-V1116 or EC-1118 Sorry but I don't know which I've used on all of the last three batches but my 2017 batch was excellent and I used K1V-1116 for it.
I am going to try Vintner's Harvest SN9 yeast this summer - assuming that we have a local peach crop (Didn't have ANY local peaches in 2018). They tout it as excellent for Country wines, High ABV and for restarting stuck ferments amoung other things. It's expensive but thought it would be worth a try. Oh and NO foaming at all is claimed too. Will see about all of that.

SORRY for the long and wandering post but hope the info is helpful to someone.

I think this is the result of all pulpy fruits while making wine. I also tried mango wine but it was disaster.
Well about peach wine, I boiled peach puree in water along with sugar added. Then I strained through cheese cloth. By this some how I got clear wine (of course I used heavy dose of Bentonite).
About yeast, I normally use EC-1118

 

[Bossbaby]

I found my 1st batch of peach to be way to sweet for my taste but after blending unsweetened cranberry wine I was amazed at the difference and how much I enjoyed this transformation, many others liked it as well.

 

[Scooter68]

I like my peach wine just very slightly sweet 1.008 is normally about right. The aroma from fresh peaches is absolutely the best of any wine I've made. One batch got about 20 Sweet Cherries added to increase the color a little. I couldn't taste the impact on a 3 gallon batch but it did just improve the color a little.

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

I like my peach wine just very slightly sweet 1.008 is normally about right. The aroma from fresh peaches is absolutely the best of any wine I've made. One batch got about 20 Sweet Cherries added to increase the color a little. I couldn't taste the impact on a 3 gallon batch but it did just improve the color a little.

interesting to see you added cherries to add colour.

 

[Scooter68]

interesting to see you added cherries to add colour.

They were at a roadside stand near our home and I thought why not. A few for the wine and the rest for me to enjoy fresh and a totally natural color source.

 

[pillswoj]

I do fresh peaches with minimal water much like Scooter68 does, takes about 50 lbs to do 5 gallons with the only water being in the 2-1 sugar syrup. For color I use about 1 pound of Coronation grapes which gives it a nice orange / pink color. I aim for a starting SG of 1.075 and after it has cleared will sweeten it to about 1.008 which balances the acids and brings out the peach flavor and aroma.