Pomegranate Wine

[iridium]

I wanted to share the results of my latest fruit wine journey. I just bottled a one gallon batch of pomegranate wine. It took 6 months to make but the end results are really nice.

Synopsis:
I started with 20 pounds of pomegranates. I peeled these and pulled the seeds away from the pith and membrane inside the fruit. Not going to lie, toward then I was bored with this. Once I only had the seeds, I wasn't sure how to extract the juice. I tried mashing with a potato masher and had some limited success. I also tried freezing, and then mashing, but again with limited success. However, once I added pectic enzyme that seemed to work. By the time primary fermentation was done I only only seeds left in the bag. I had a starting SP of 1.090 and a starting pH of 3.23. I added 3/4 cup of sugar and also added a little bit of water. I used the yeast strain of MA-33 from the Vintner's harvest line of yeast.

Primary fermentation took 6 days. Because I started in December I used a warming mat to start the fermentation but that got a little too warm (80 degrees) so I stopped using that midway through the fermentation. I racked the wine twice and at the second racking added some more pomegranate juice to top off. I used POM wonderful brand because it is 100% juice with no additives.

At the end I did back sweeten the wine. I used a syrup made of 1 cup sugar to 1 cup of pomegranate juice. The ratio I ended up with was 4 ml of syrup to 30 ml of wine. Over time, it might even be a little too sweet so glad I didn't add anymore.

Overall this was a nice project. I agree with many on this board that if you get pH and SG right at the beginning it helps to make the process easy in the long run. This will be a nice light wine just in time for summer.

 

[JB005]

Hi. Just saw your posting here. I've got a pomegranate tree and de-seeded a bucket of pomegranates and ended up with 2- 1 gallon bags, a little over 9 lbs of seeds. I'm planning on buying frozen blueberries and making a pom-blueberry wine mix.

How many days did it take to break down the seeds (and did it need to be frozen first)?
After 7 months how does it taste?

 

[iridium]

So far the wine tastes really nice. It has a good flavor of pomegranates and is not too sweet. It has been a few months since I opened another bottle which means I need to do that.

As far as the seeds I did freeze the seeds first. Once they were thawed, I tried to crush them with a potato masher to jump start the process. Surprisingly neither of those really worked well. The seeds did not burst like other fruit does after being thawed, and the potato masher didn't seem to help. However, I added pectic enzymes and that did the trick. By the end of primary fermentation, there was just the seeds left and all of the juice had been fermented.

Good luck with your mix. I have not done that before so curious to hear how it turns out.

 

[JB005]

Thank you for the info! I'll reply to the thread on how this comes out. My plan is to use this blueberry wine recipe (Blueberry Wine Recipe - Full-Bodied and Beginner Friendly) upping it to make make a 5 gallon batch (about 1/2 blueberry, 1/2 pomegranate). I've seen on other threads that I'll need more fruit/gallon that what is used in the recipe. I've seen something like 5-7 lbs of fruit/gallon of wine. I plan to start it this upcoming week and let it bulk age for a few months and bottle around September.

 

[iridium]

I look forward to it. Are you going to do a 50/50 split on the fruit? Also are you going to blend pre fermentation? I am curious to know because there is lots of discussion about how strong the blueberry flavor is and also whether it is better to blend pre fermentation or after.

 

[JB005]

I’m not sure. I haven’t seen too many recipes for blueberry-pomegranate wine where they’re using seeds and not concentrated so I may end up buying a couple of Costco bags of blueberries and with the 9 lbs of pomegranate seeds adding some Pom juice too.

This will only be my second attempt at non-kit wine so any advice you have is extremely welcomed. I’m also not familiar working with ph levels.

 

[iridium]

It sounds like there are two questions there: 1. How much fruit to use per gallon and 2. What to do about pH.

1. I have read multiple times on here and found it to be true in my own wine making journey that blueberries is best at 4-5 pounds per gallon of wine. Other fruit works best close to 10 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine. Without having done a blended experiment I would start with 2-3 pounds of blueberries and 5-6 pounds of pomegranate seeds per gallon of wine. As far as the concentrate vs seeds, I would start with just fruit. I would add concentrate if you are finding one flavor overpowered by the other. Maybe taste the must at this point?

2. pH for fruit wines (non-grape) should be between 3.4 and 3.8. You can play around with the exact number as you get more experience and refine your tastes. I know a lot of recipes call for adding acid bled as part of the recipe. Don't automatically add acid blend (or calcium carbonate) to change the pH. Measure first. Blueberries can be very acidic and so you may not need to adjust your pH down, you may need to adjust up, thus the calcium carbonate. Make sure you adjust your pH pre-fermentation as that is much easier to do than post fermentation. Add a little bit of either acid or carbonate, depending if you want pH to go down or up, stir, measure, and then adjust again.

Also make sure that you get your fruit ratios done, then add your k-meta. Wait a day, adjust pH, add pectic enzyme. Then you can either wait another day to pitch the yeast or pitch at the same time as the pectic enzyme, assuming temperatures are correct for pitching yeast.

I also put all of my fruit in a mesh bag (or as much as possible) and during fermentation would, after thoroughly cleaning my hands, squeese the bag at least once a day to help get the juice out. That has helped me as well.

Good luck!