Beet Wine

I have been told that Beet wine takes at least two years to age before it is worth drinking (Jack Keller mentioned this in regards to someone's idea of a great April Fool's Day joke). Ken

How old is the wine? And what was your starting and ending SG? The reason I ask, is that veggie wines take (generally) longer to mature than fruit wines. My homemade wine book by Terry Garey suggests keeping the wine two years at least. Generally, if I get a wine I'm not to thrilled with, I try adding 7-up to it and turn it into a wine cooler or find a friend who really does like it. If it were me, I would probably buy some 1 gallon glass carboys, and maybe a 3 gallon depending on the kind of wine you like. You could keep 1 gallon as is, and age to see how the wine tastes as a dry veggie wine. You could try to stabilize & sweeten another gallon to get a medium sweet wine. And another gallon, you could try to stabilize and sweeten another gallon to get a sweet wine. I have not done this particular duo, but Terry Garey suggests combining beets with blueberries...you could try to alter the beet taste by adding blueberries to create another 1 gallon batch. Maybe some others will have some suggestions. Darlene Wisconsin

Welches Concord is the strongest flavored grape juice if you are looking to submerge the beet flavor under something else. That's what I'd do. Good luck, you'll need it! Bob

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How old is it?

It is not a wine that you can drink at week 4 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beet wine is distinctly "earthy" in its early stages and needs a good 2 years to mature into a delicious wine. It also needs to be covered so that no light gets to the wine or it will fade drastically. I haven't done beet wine for a few years but in addition to keeping it in a darkened room I also put the carboy into a completely closed box! It does react to the light amazingly quickly. I even had a couple of darkened glass carboys that I used to use specifically for beet wine -- but I still kept them in extra darkness.

I made 12 gallons of sugarbeet wine 3 years ago. At one year it was no good, the taste stayed in your throat for ever. now 2 years later it is really good. Like Elderberries it took a long time to come around.

Moe

I hope you read what Maurice had to say about his beet wine. One month is a very young wine to worry about how it tastes; your wine is far from what it could be. Sounds like your starting and ending SG put your % alcohol by volume at about 12%, which is good for keeping it for 2 years. It is also a dry wine. What you'd like to do with the 5 gallons is up to you and your taste buds, but I wouldn't toss it. Darlene ;o) Wisconsin