It all started when I found 2 bags of fruit marked down to $2 each Sunday morning shopping, I saw them and thought HMMM, wine?
I cleaned off the fruit and got started. All of the bad parts of the fruit was discarded. The plums were de-stoned and chopped then warmed on the stove to breakdown. I heated 1 gallon of water and dissolved 4lbs of sugar and dumped that in the bucket while I cleaned, de-cored and chopped the apples. Finally I juiced the limes and oranges.
I also added a cup of raisins, left over pineapple I had in the fridge and 1/2 a large cinnamon stick. This stuff smelled good enough to eat!!
After researching apple wine and reading that it's light on flavor unless you use all juice I decided to add other juice instead of water so I added 1 gallon of pear juice and 1 gallon of persimmon juice from the freezer. It's ugly but I'm thinking of adding more cinnamon, cloves and maybe star anise to the secondary fermentation/aging and make this an early drinker Christmas wine. Something like a pumpkin spice flavor.
I added the yeast yesterday and it's bubbling fine this morning. The starting Specific Gravity(SG) is 1.090 which should convert the sugar to almost 12% alcohol. The starting PH is 3.4 and that should make it a smooth wine.
Here's the recipe
Ingredient Quantity
sugar 4lb
pectic enzyme 10 drops, used to break down the natural pectin in fruits
mixed apples 14
plums 10
pineapple 4 slices
raisins 1 cup
cinnamon stick 1/2 stick
water 1 gal to melt sugar
pear juice 1 gal
persimmon juice 1 gal
orange juice 1 cup
lime juice 1 1/2 cups
CT 4 tablets 10 hours after PE
yeast nutrient 1/2 tsp
Fermax 1 tsp
Wine tannin 1/2tsp, adds both bitterness and astringency, as well as complexity
acid blend 3/4tsp, adds liveliness to the wine and helps to bring out its fruity flavors.
KI-V1116 yeast, The natural fresh fruit aromas are retained longer than with other standard yeast strains.
It's up to the wine Gods now!!!