Thinking about making pomegranate wine ....

[BernardSmith]

I am thinking about making a small batch of pomegranate wine and have found a number of recipes that look reasonable in terms of my understanding (very limited as it is) of wine making but what I cannot figure out is why many of these recipes (and they may have come form the same original source for all I know), call for the inclusion of barley. Is this in lieu of yeast nutrient? Is this to provide some different kinds of sugars? Was this something that people used to add to pomegranate but has no positive effect on the outcome. What is the barley doing here?

 

[DeniseHogemann]

Hi Bernard. I was thinking about doing a pomegranate wine myself. This is the recipe I found:
Here are the ingredients needed for this basic and simple pomegranate wine recipe for 4 liters of finished wine:

- 6 pomegranates
- 500g of raisins or 500ml of red grape concentrate
- 1 kg granulated sugar
- 10g of acid blend or just malic acid
- 5g pectic enzyme
- 10g yeast nutrient or diamonium phosphate
- 2-3g of metabisulphite or 1campden tablet
- 1 package wine yeast

Split open pomegranates. Remove seeds, make sure none of the skin or pith get into the wine, or it will be bitter and will take years to age.

Crush the fruit. Add 3 liters of water and all other ingredients except the yeast. Stir well to dissolve sugar. Let sit overnight.

Specific gravity should be between 1.090 and 1.095. The acid level should be approximately 7g/L.

Adjust both the sugar or acid with more sugar, acid or water if needed. Rehydrate the yeast and add to the wine once the must is adjusted to the right level. Stir daily for five or six days, until specific gravity is 1.050.

Strain the must and squeeze the juice out lightly so not too much tannin escapes from the seeds. Siphon into secondary fermentor and continue the fermentation.

Complete the fermentation to dryness, rack a couple of times, fine with bentonite and gelatin. Make sure the wine is stable with enough SO2 and then filter if you need to after at least 4 months.

Prior to bottling, you can adjust the final sweetness to taste but in my opinion, this kind of wine is best as an “off-dry” style with a specific gravity of about 1.015 at bottling. Make sure that the FSO2 is about 50ppm and maybe add about 150ppm of sorbic acid to a sweetened wine to make sure the wine will have no chance at re-fermenting, especially if you do not have the ability to sterile filter the wine.

The wine is best if you can refrain from drinking it for one full year from the date it was started.

Pomegranates come in different sizes. If you use 6 large fruit you will have a fuller-bodied wine than if you used 6 smaller fruit. The wine made with smaller fruit will not take as long to age.

Again, this is a very basic recipe but with it, it will give you a base to start something and maybe tweak it next time with what was learned.


Happy winemaking!

I haven't figured out how to make a link to the original page so I just copied and pasted. It was from dailyfruitwine.com. If you make it let me know how it is.

 

[DeniseHogemann]

http://www.dailyfruitwine.com/2009/02/falling-in-love-with-pomegranate-wine/.
My daughter told me how to make a link to the original page. Learned something new again!

 

[BernardSmith]

Thanks Denise. So this is one recipe without the barley. I was planning on using Pom or something like that - already squeezed... and I am curious about why the original wine maker would want to prevent the tannins from being part of the must...are some pomegranates noted for their excessive tannins?

 

[DeniseHogemann]

I am not sure. I know the seeds crack easy. Maybe there is a different kind of tannin in the seeds that can be bitter.