Homemade Watermelon Wine Recipe

[Hippie3]

Homemade Watermelon Wine Recipe

2 large ripe watermelons
5 lbs sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons acid blend
1 Campden tablet
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast nutrient
1 packet Champagne yeast

Extract juice from watermelons using juicer. Discard pulp. This should produce 1- ½ gallons of juice. Pour into primary fermentation container. Add sugar, acid blend, crushed Campden tablet, and yeast extract. Cover and let sit for 1 day. Uncover and add yeast. Cover again and stir once daily for 1 week. Let rest another week without stirring. Rack into secondary fermentation container a nd attach airlock. Let rest for 3 months. Rack into bottles and let age for one year.

[Hippie3]

cf. http://forums.mycotopia.net/animal-f...atermelon.html (65 pound watermelon)

[Hippie3]

first, to juice a ~80# watermelon-
any suggestions ?
anyone that can mail me a couple campden tablets real quick ?

[Irishlion]

slice it in 2 to 3 inch thick sections width wise, cut the rind ring off, cube the red center into 3 or 4 inch cubes and place those in a fine wire mesh colander used for pastas and such (if you have a rather big colander with the bigger holes in it, then you can overlap 4 or 5 sections of window sceen in the colander) and press out the juice with a can or something flat bottomed that is clean.

That is how my grandfather used to do it, when he would make his wine wihen I was a young boy.

[Hippie3]

is a little pulp going to fuck it up, if some gets thru the mesh ?

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

is a little pulp going to fuck it up, if some gets thru the mesh ?

After he got the juice all pressed out I remember him using a real thin bed sheet or a cheese cloth or something to filter out the pulp that had gotten through.

[Hippie3]

yeah, i have some fine cheesecloth we use to make goat cheese.

[kcmoxtractor]

Yeah that sounds like a good recipe. What kind of yeast are you adding? Would you mind showing a pictorial of this, I am very interested in wine making because I don't drink frequently enough to justify the cost in beer brewing.

[Mushrooms201]

Hey Hip you still need those campden tabs? PM if so.

Also i am not sure but you might want to consider using some pectic enzyme. I almost always use it, never seems to hurt.

[Hippie3]

pm sent.
thanks!

[shroom57]

I'm thinking where it calls for 2 large ripe melons they really didn't mean a 65# and a 78# !...lol

might have to adjust the recipe a bit.

[Hippie3]

[Beastmaster]

Don't worry if you get some pulp into the mix during primary fermentation, it'll settle to the bottom after you stop the daily stirring. When you rack it into secondary, the racking cane should have an attachment on the end that allows you to avoid debris and sediment sitting on the bottom of the carboy/bucket.

I've made wine (mead) with whole fruit before and it works about the same. Sometimes with particularly troublesome batches repeated racking/settling is required to get rid of all the fruit pulp or proteins that are floating around. There's also various 'clarifying agents' such as isinglass, bentonite, etc that grab onto the particulates and make them sink to the bottom. Time works just as well, however, ime/ho.

[SilvrHairDevil]

It won't hurt to get pulp in your fermenter. In fact - if you don't want to go through all that juicing, you can just put your chunks in, smash 'em a bit, and they will ferment out just fine.

Afterwards, the pulp & seeds will settle on the bottom, making it easy to rack off the wine from the top.

A suggestion - if you get a cheapie wine kit, you can add a quart or so of concentrated grape juice to give some vinosity to the wine. Otherwise, you are making fermented fruit juice.

Red CGJ if you want pink wine, white CGJ if you want white.

[Beastmaster]

Or, you could replace the 5 lbs of sugar with 5 lbs of honey and it'd be watermelon mead. MMM I bet that's good!

[red_lenses]

Some honey may not be a bad idea.
If you add a little "complex sugar" IE a non or less-fermentable,it may help balance out the "dryness" of the champagne yeast.
Just a thought.
Sounds awesome either way !

Red

[Lopho]

Hey, can you tell me more about the "acid blend"?

What is it?

[SilvrHairDevil]

Acid Blend is a mixture of tartaric, malic & ascorbic acids - all commonly found in grape juice.

It is added to fruit wines to jazz up the flavor profile. Watermelon, f'rinstance, has little acid, so there would be no brightness to the flavor of the beverage.

When making wines from fruits such as apples and blackberries, which have a large malic acid component, you could add some of the other two acids for balance.

[Oblivion]

I've found mellon wine to be fairly tasteless. Although I've never used just the juice as opposed to pulp and water. That would help with the flavor quite a bit I'll bet. Good luck bro. It it were in my house, I don't think it would make it to the 1 year mark.

[mushit]

5 lbs of sugar!! This will be a sweet wine.

I would add a 1/2 to 3/4 of a lb of crushed sultana raisins to give it body. I don't like using too many additives in a wine recipe. I like to leave it natural.

[Shroomette]

Originally Posted by Oblivion

I've found mellon wine to be fairly tasteless. Although I've never used just the juice as opposed to pulp and water. That would help with the flavor quite a bit I'll bet. Good luck bro. It it were in my house, I don't think it would make it to the 1 year mark.

I know that's right, it wouldn't last a month or so in me and Irishlion's home. Especially, the Watermelon wine. Yummy....

Awesome thread Hippie3, got me some ideas hehehe.

[mushit]

As the song says (sing it with me) " Old dogs and children, and watermelon wine".

[SilvrHairDevil]

Originally Posted by mushit

5 lbs of sugar!! This will be a sweet wine.

Not necessarily - it depends on how much juice Hip got from his melons. I'd guess that 2 humongous melons like those would give something like 15 gallons of juice, which would require nearly 30 lb of sugar (incl the natural sugar in the juice) to get 12% final alcohol.

Originally Posted by mushit

I would add a 1/2 to 3/4 of a lb of crushed sultana raisins to give it body. I don't like using too many additives in a wine recipe. I like to leave it natural.

Crushed or chopped raisins would be an acceptable substitute for CGJ to add vinosity and body.

Here's a link that will help explain the sugar/alcohol thing.

http://www.geocities.com/mipeman/sugar.html

[mushit]

Originally Posted by SilvrHairDevil

Not necessarily - it depends on how much juice Hip got from his melons. I'd guess that 2 humongous melons like those would give something like 15 gallons of juice, which would require nearly 30 lb of sugar (incl the natural sugar in the juice) to get 12% final alcohol.

Yes, true. I was going by the original recipe of 1 1/2 gallons. 3 lbs pr gallon will give between 12 and 14%.

[masterplain88]

sounds pretty good. i have done the ol cut the hole in the melon then dump in a 5th of jose. let it soak in then drink out the watermelon with a straw then when its out of juice start cutin and eatin slices. going to have to try watermelon wine some time.
masterplain88

[SilvrHairDevil]

Originally Posted by masterplain88

sounds pretty good. i have done the ol cut the hole in the melon then dump in a 5th of jose. let it soak in then drink out the watermelon with a straw then when its out of juice start cutin and eatin slices. going to have to try watermelon wine some time.
masterplain88

I'm not sure what effect a mere fifth of jose would have on these puppies. Hip posted a pic of the smaller one...

[mushit]

I think a fifth of a case would work on that baby!

[Hippie3]

i stopped at 5 gallons of juice,
plenty enough to last me
until next season's batch

[CoyoteMesc]

I hope it turns out great.
I have heard some folks say that watermelon and strawberry wines are notorious
for lacking body and being 'thin'. Another juice, a small amount, is usually added to
off set it. Though there are plenty that have good fortune with just the juice of the melon alone.

My strawberry is about 6 months old now. (id have to look to be sure). I added one can of welshes frozen concentrate for two gallon. I hope it turns out nice. I dig strawberry wine also .

If you need any off the wall shit for your wines just hit me up. I have bottles of additives and with so little needed in recipes it last for a very long time.

[Hippie3]

[DarkLestor]

how's the wine coming hip?

[Hippie3]

so far ok but too soon to really know...