Pumpkin

[caesar]

Hi guys! I'm new here, but have been getting into winemaking over the last couple of years. Currently have banana wine and sugarcane wine fermenting, perry and pear wine aging.

I am currently in the south of Brazil where fruit and veg are dead cheap, and pumpkins seem to be one of the cheapest things around so I thought I'd try a batch of pumpkin wine.

I've been looking at recipes all over the internet and at all the past pumpkin threads on WMT, but still have a few question's going round in my head.

Firstly, do I need to peel the pumpkins? Seems like everyone does, but it also seems like a lot of work... Does the skin contain compounds I wouldn't want in my wine? Would it impart too much bitterness perhaps?

Secondly, what about cooking the pumpkin? I had been expecting to do this, but most of the recipes I've seen don't do it. Cooked pumpkins are clearly sweeter to the taste so I assumed that this would give more sugars to the wine, and also extract more flavor perhaps. But maybe it makes no difference? Or is there a reason not to do it?

Finally, I am unsure about quantity of pumpkin flesh. I want to make 25 litres. Jack Keller and some other recipes want around 11kg flesh for this, which already seemed like a lot, but someone on one of the other threads on here said that would make a flavorless wine and recommended tripling it... Which by my calculation would make the pumpkin flesh at least 100% of the volume of the wine!

If anyone can give me any tips of be very grateful. I already have three medium pumpkins, weighing around 10kg (whole), but can obtain more if needs be.

 

[Stressbaby]

Hi Caesar,
I have made batch of pumpkin wine. It is almost 2 years old and still bulk aging. Why? Because it isn't very good. Every couple of months I taste it and I think it has "done the dandelion" and turned around then I go back a week later and change my mind. I think that ultimately it will be dumped. I did peel every bleeping one.
I have also read a lot about pumpkin wine and I've determined that if I did it again I would do 2 things differently. First, I would bake the pumpkin. Second, I would substitute 25% sweet potato. I can't say that it would be any better but it couldn't get much worse than what I have now.
You are in Brazil...access to tropical fruit? There are many tropical fruit that make better wine than pumpkin. Starfruit (carambola) makes a lovely wine, but don't follow Keller's recipe on this one. I've also made passionfruit and guava, each using different techniques, both were excellent. I've heard of people using jaboticaba, jackfruit, lychee. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, hoping to get enough fruit to make an annona wine this year (cherimoya and sugar apple).

 

[caesar]

Hi Stressbaby, thanks for that. I have come across a few people who were disappointed in their pumpkin wine, yet also several who loved it - so I'm wondering what the people with good results did differently from those with bad results.
I think if I had read the accounts of people for whom it didn't work out sooner, I would have given pumpkin a miss - but now I have the pumpkins I may as well give it a try (though I could always use them for pie... hmm...). I want to try a vegetable wine, and since pumpkin is cheap, sweet, and flavorful, it seemed a good choice (i think it's technically a fruit, but...)

Sweet potato is an interesting idea. I would never have thought about using it in a wine, but note I start looking at recipes it sounds like it's lovely and I'm half thinking of doing just sweet potato alone, and forgetting the pumpkins!

I'm interested to know exactly what is wrong with your pumpkin wine. Weak flavour? (I say this because I have seen recipes that use *a lot* of flesh, while others use comparatively little. How much did you use?)

I'm still puzzled as to why peeling the pumpkin would be necessary.
Also, why bake the pumpkin? My instinct would have been to boil it. (And use the boiling water in the wine, of course.) Would baking be better in some way?

I am currently in the south of Brazil, so not actually tropical, but I do have access to some tropical fruits. Hence the banana. There are also mangoes and passionfruit around, though not as cheap as in other parts of the country. I made a mango wine a couple of years ago when I was in the north of Brazil - it was one of my early wines - and was rather disappointed; it was too sour. But I blended it with a little bit of a spiced banana wine which had come out too sweet, and it was quite drinkable.
I'm definitely keen on the idea of doing passionfruit. It sounds lovely. But I may have to wait until I am somewhere a little less remote where they are a bit cheaper, since I'm in an isolated village at the moment.

(In case you're wondering how I am traveling and making wines... I live on a boat. Thus my home, and my wine, travel with me...)

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I have used smaller carving pumpkins in the past - all I did is de-seed them and freeze and add to primary. The first 2 years they were great !!

This last year - I used pie pumpkins and yes they are different indeed - I believe I overloaded on the pumpkin this year - but time is still on my side

 

[mike29]

I used this and it came out 18% and wasn't too bad.
Pumpkin Pie Wine

Ingredients:


20 lbs pumpkin gutted and chopped no stems (sugar pie pumpkins) they are the smaller ones
4 lbs raisins
sugar to SG 1.10
7 sticks crushed cinnamon stick
1 tbsp cloves
3oz. sliced ginger root
1 can frozen Welch’s White Grape Juice
4 tsp yeast nutrient
2 tbsp acid blend
4 tsp pectin enzyme
1 packet of Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast

Instructions:
Add pumpkin, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, ginger root, and Welch’s grape
juice to primary fermenter (add ingredients to large opening nylon bag).

Dissolve sugar in boiling water and Pour over contents of primary fermenter. Stir well and let cool to room temperature.
Add additional water if needed to reach 5.5 gallon mark on primary fermenter.
Add additional sugar to 1.10
Add yeast nutrient, acid blend, and pectic enzyme to mixture.
Cover and let sit overnight or 24 hours.
Add yeast to primary fermenter by instructions in the back.
Stir and measure daily until SG is 1.02 or less.
When desired SG is reached, strain and rack to secondary.
Stir daily and rack every 4 weeks to allow mixture to end fermentation

Note: Pumpkin is best frozen then thawed out; allows for more juice.


Mike