Peach and Grape Wine

It’s the first of May and with a few weeks left before our last frost date here in Ohio, I’ve been busy trying to remedy my dangerously low stock of homemade wine.  Once summer is in full swing I daresay there will be little time to spend making wine.  I am working hard to fill my secondary’s so they can be busy working for me while I am busy working in the garden.

Today’s recipe is a peach and white grape wine that is adapted from Jack Keller’s Peach and Grape Wine recipe.  During my last trip to the local brew shop I picked up a couple of cans of Vinter’s Harvest peach puree.  I’ve never made a wine from the canned juice sold by the brew shop, though the variety of flavors always has me drooling at the thought of the fabulous wine I could make.  I decided it was time to give it a whirl!

Planning for a 3-gallon batch, I needed 3 cans of the puree.  However, only two cans of peach were in stock.  I did a quick Internet search and found Jack’s 1-gallon peach and white grape recipe using fresh peaches versus the canned puree.  Perfect!  I could use grape concentrate to make up for the peach shortfall.  It took a little noodling to come up with a plan to convert this recipe, which made me a little nervous.  In my short wine making “career” I’ve never made anything other than kits or recipes I’ve followed almost to the letter.  You see, there’s actual chemistry involved in making wine so one misstep can ruin an entire batch!  Yikes! If you don’t believe me have a gander at this.  Just seeing all those little hexagons, letters and numbers strung up together are enough to make my palms start sweating.  I’ve never taken chemistry and science in general gives me the heebie jeebies.

So once I drafted my recipe, I ran it by some wine gurus on a wine making forum.  I am really glad I didn’t skip this step because I discovered the Campden tablets were completely unnecessary.  Campden tablets are used to kill off any wild yeast present when using fresh fruit.  Since I was using canned fruit they were not needed.  Other than that, they said my adapted recipe should produce a fabulous wine!  Yay!

With the ingredients gathered and utensils sanitized, it was time to get to work.

I dissolved the 4 pound bag of sugar in some boiling water.  I wasn’t sure how much sugar it was going to take to reach my goal of 1.080-1.085 beginning specific gravity.  I figured I would need between 4-5 pounds to reach my target.  The plan was to start with 4 pounds and adjust from there.

Once the sugar was dissolved, I dumped it into the primary fermenter along with the 2 cans of peach puree and four cans of Welch’s white grape concentrate.  I then added water to equal 3 Imperial gallons.  Imperial gallons are a bit more than a US gallon and I wanted to have enough extra juice to top up after racking into the secondary.  It was time to take the gravity reading.  The mix was still pretty warm (100 degrees) and the gravity reading was 1.080, so after adjusting for the temperature of the must, it was darn close to where I wanted it to be, 1.086.  No need for number crunching to figure out how to make the adjustment (math also gives me the heebie jeebies).

I allowed the must to cool down to room temperature and mixed in the tannin, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and acid blend.  I then removed enough of the juice to leave just 3 US gallons in the primary.  I’ll save the rest in the refrigerator until the first racking.

The next step was to activate the yeast.  I had 3/4 package of Cote des Blanc leftover from my vanilla wine so I added this to a little lukewarm water, let it sit for about 15 minutes and then added a few tablespoons of the juice to feed the yeast.

Once it was really foaming I added it to the must.

With that done there was nothing left to do but put the jug of juice in the fridge and the must into the closet to ferment!

I did fit an airlock on the bucket prior to storing it away.

Here’s my adapted recipe:

Peach and Grape Wine

• 2, 3 lbs cans of peach puree
• 4, 12 oz can frozen white grape concentrate
• 4 lbs granulated sugar (or to SG of 1.080-1..085)
• 3 tsp acid blend
• 1 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 3/4 tsp tannin  1/4 tsp tannin (received feedback on the wine forum that 3/4 tsp is too much.  Oh well, too late now.)
• enough water to raise must level to 3 Imperial gallons
• 3 tsp yeast nutrient
• Cote des Blanc wine yeast

Dissolve sugar in 10 quarts of boiling water.  Add to primary along with peach puree and grape juice concentrate and pectic enzyme.  When must cools, add acid blend, yeast nutrient, and tannin.   Wait 12 hours and add the acid blend, yeast nutrient, and tannin. Activate yeast and add to the must.  Stir daily for 7 days, then rack into secondary and fit airlock. Rack every 30 days until fermentation completely ends and wine clears. Set aside two months and rack again into bottles. Taste any time after three months.

I can’t wait to try this wine!  Hopefully it will be mellow enough to enjoy by summer’s end.  I welcome all comments and especially suggestions by more experienced brewers.  Thanks for stopping by!

Update:  One of the winemaking forum members suggested that 3/4 tsp of tannin was too much and that the pectic enzyme and yeast should not be added at the same time.  I revised the recipe to reflect these changes.

Batch Update May 7:  Today I racked this out of the primary fermenter and into my new 3-gallon Better Bottle carboy.  The gravity reading was 1.002.  Here it is on the far left.

May 17 Batch Update:  I racked the wine into a new carboy to get them off the lees and took a gravity reading.  It’s looking good!  I’ll let it sit for a while to clear some more and rack again in a few weeks or so.

Vanilla Wine

Such a full and productive day today!  I’ve been waiting for weeks to finish my raised, square foot garden beds and I finally found the break in the weather I was waiting for.  I spent a good part of the day outdoors soaking up the sun and burning some calories!  I can’t wait to show you around my edible garden.  But that’s a blog for another day.  Today it’s all about vanilla wine.

When I saw this recipe on Jack Keller’s site I knew I had to make it… soon!  I just adore vanilla.  I love it so much that when I go to the ice cream shop with a kajillion flavors to choose from I almost always choose vanilla.  I know, I know.  Most of you are thinking, “B.O.R.I.N.G!”.  Not me.  I think vanilla is one of the most incredible and delicious flavors on earth.  So it was only natural that, when I finally kicked into gear and started making scratch wines again, vanilla would be at the top of my list.

Although the recipe is super simple, I did run to a problem right out of the starting gate.  My local grocery store doesn’t carry white grape juice concentrate.  I called around to a couple local grocers and, although I had to travel a bit further, I finally found some.  So if at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up.  My usual grocery store rep also said they would place a special order for me if I couldn’t find it, so that’s also an option if your store doesn’t carry it.

Fortunately I had the rest of the ingredients on hand so after dinner and a few errands I was able to knock out the first step in making this wine.  I poured myself a glass of Chardonnay (stay tuned to see how I monogrammed the glass myself) and got busy making some vanilla wine.

First, I put the water on to boil and measured out the sugar using an old postal scale.  (Now a note to all of you detail oriented geeks, ahem, I mean people: I did not put 30.9 oz of sugar into the mix.  I just took the photo of the sugar on the postal scale to show how I measure my sugar.  I removed about 8 oz of sugar from the bag before adding it to the boiling water.)It was all down hill after this step.  Once the sugar was dissolved I added the rest of the ingredients.  I cut the vanilla beans in half before adding them to the must thinking they might impart a stronger vanilla flavor if they were cut vs. whole.  I added the grape juice concentrate, pectic enzyme, acid blend, and yeast nutrient.  I put all this into the secondary fermenter, added enough water to fill the gallon sized jug and, this time,  I remembered to take a gravity reading!   

It measured about 1.094 which I believe means the potential alcohol for the finished wine will be around 12%.  You can go here for more information about all the gravity readings, potential alcohol, brix and other mumbo jumbo.  (They lost me at “Advanced Wine Making Basics”.  For now, I am happy to just stick with the Don’t-Make-Me-Do-Any-Math or Think-Too-Hard Wine Making Basics”

The only thing left to do at this point was to cover the jug with a coffee filter secured with a rubber band.  (That adorable creature in the background is my son, Tyler.)

So now the mix will chill out until tomorrow when I will add the yeast and then… let the fermenting begin!  I’ll rack and attach an airlock in about a week and rack a couple more time before bottling.  The recipe does not indicate how long before this wine is drinkable, but it will be all that I can do to wait at least 6 months before giving it a try.  I have a feeling this recipe with be one that will soon take it’s rightful spot in my 6 gallon fermenter!

VANILLA WINE

• 2 cans (11.5 oz) Welch’s 100% white grape juice frozen concentrate
• 4 vanilla beans (6-9 inches long)
• 1-1/4 lbs granulated sugar
• 2 tsp acid blend
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• water to make 1 gallon
• wine yeast

Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from heat and add frozen concentrate. Add additional water to make one gallon and pour into secondary. Add remaining ingredients except yeast. Cover with napkin fastened with rubber band and set aside 12 hours. Add activated wine yeast and recover with napkin. When active fermentation slows down (about 5 days), fit airlock. After 30 days, rack into sanitized secondary. Taste wine. If vanilla flavor is sufficient to your taste, discard the vanilla beans. If not, transfer beans to new secondary by remove after additional 30 days and rack, top up and refit airlock. Wait additional 30 days and rack again, top up and refit airlock. After additional 30 days, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles. [Author’s own recipe]

Batch Update May 7:  Today I racked, sampled and took a reading.  The sample had a delightful vanilla flavor so I decided to remove the vanilla beans.  The gravity was down to 1.042.  Moving right along!  I am, without a doubt, planning for a much larger batch of this wine the next go-round.  It’s going to be fabulous!

Peach and white grape, mint wine, Skeeter Pee (in the bucket), Chardonnay (in the large carboy in the back), and vanilla wine on the far right.