Noobie Carrot Wine Question

Hi! Carrot wine is something I plan on trying this fall. Since I'm not a fan of cooked carrots, I wondered if anyone tried freezing the carrots before making the wine. Freezing generally breaks down a lot of the tougher stuff to make wine out of like pumpkins and cranberries. You're right, I have seen most of the recipes using boiled carrots. I'm just going to throw the idea out there to see if anyone has tried it, and what the negatives might be... Darlene Wisconsin USA

Good question. All the recipies I have seen are the same. I think the main reason is extraction. But I don't see why you could not run them through the blender. The main reason the blender is not used for most fruit is that the pulverized seed will add off flavors. But that is not a problem with carrots. Try it, let us know how it comes out.

Ray

Hey Darlene:

Is there a recipe you'd like to try?

The carrot whiskey seems interesting enough, especially because I haven't made anything with wheat in it yet!

Steve Oregon

Hey Ray:

Thanks.

Steve Oregon

Steve, I have 2 resources for recipes, Jack Keller's site and Terry Garey's book on homemade winemaking. Usually, I look at Terry's recipe and compare it to the recipes on Jack's site. Then, I try to pick one that I think we'll like the best or create one which I think we'll like. There are a few things which I won't use in a wine recipe, for example, one is lemons as the acid requirement. I made this batch with lemons once and didn't like the lemon aftertaste. I tried oranges the next time, and the wine was much better IMHO. While the carrot whiskey does sound interesting, I'll probably start with a basic carrot wine recipe. Go for and let us know. Good-luck. Darlene Wisconsin

Hey There:

I think I will, make a gallon of carrot whiskey with shredded - frozen raw carrots. Ignorance is bliss at this point in my winemaking. With literally nothing aged in the bottle long enough to taste I don't know what is good and what isn't good! So we'll just march forward.

Regarding the lemon, I made lilac wine a few months ago (so far it's pretty nasty). IIRC you cautioned me to make sure of the species I was dealing with. Thanks for that BTW. Anyway, the recipe called for lemons. I didn't know if that was to included zest or not so I add a little bit along with the juice.

Whew, in a few hours I could see it was going to be lemon wine! So all of the pulp and zest were strained from the must. Fortunately the 'lemon-ness' dwindled right away. Now I pour lemon juice though a strainer when adding to the must.

How all of this affects the finished wine, why I have no idea Darlene, because I have no finished wine!

Take Care, Steve Oregon

I made carrot wine by juicing the carrots in my heavy duty juicer. I find the wine to have an unpleasant earthy taste. I would not waste my time if I were you. Tim

Hello, Well, I've been at this for almost 4 years, which does and doesn't help me sometimes. I do have some finished wine, probably about 80 bottles or so. My goal for this year was to shoot for 11 or 12% alcohol on each of my batches, to try a few new wines, besides the usual ones which I like, and to find a good balance of wines which I can drink relatively soon, versus those wines which will take awhile to mature. As an example, I still have 1 bottle from my first batch of rhubarb. I'm also trying to learn the subtle nuances about certain wines, and at the same time try to match my tastes. I also take a lot of time now to think about how I'm going to making a new wine, than I did when I was a noobie. Anyway, I've heard good things about carrot wine, but you need to leave it sit for at least a couple of years before it tastes good. Sounds a lot like my (first batch) pumpkin wine which will be two years old in January. I'm looking forward to trying my first bottle then. I hope you have some wine to drink in the meantime, while you wait for the carrot wine to mature or you may not like it at all. Good-luck and let us know how it goes. ;o) Darlene

Hi Tim:

Do you mean carrot wine all together or just using raw, juiced carrots?

Thanks Steve Oregon

Carrot wine in general. Same with beets. What I find makes decent country wines are granny smith apples, blackberries or blueberries. In all cases, I blend them into grape wines. However, I did follow Jack Keller's jalepeno recipe to some degree, then blended it with chenin blanc. That came out OK.

Thanks Tim.

Haven't tried apple but do have the berry's you mentioned going. At this point (a month or so) I am most enthused about these.

Steve Oregon

I just made a batch of carrott. I used a power juicer and got as much juice out of the raw carrots as possible. It took about 2 weeks to ferment and then another 5 weeks to clear. Make sure you are not driving when you try it and stick to one or two glasses at a time. boy is it potent. I did cheat a bit a used Kielosol finings which works a treat.

I have been making 5 gallon (25 litre) of medium white wine from grape concentrates. Many of which advise leaving for 10 days uoward to clear. Kielosol clears this wine to crystal brightness in 24 to 48 hours so the wine is ready in four weeks.

regards

Peter

Tim, it seems by your comments that you drank the wines young. Am I right? I ask because carrot wine really DOES have to age a year or more before it loses its "earthiness." Beet wine's "earthiness" is even worse when young, but is nice after one year and VERY nice after two. I forgot about a batch I had hidden on a shelf in a closet to age. It got covered with things and was both out of sight and out of mind. I "discovered" it four years later. It won a Best of Show and was the best dessert wine I ever made.

For both Carrot Whiskey and Beetroot Wine, at least on my site, the recipes clearly state the minimum aging requirements. Most other recipes I've seen for both also state aging requirements quite clearly.

If you let both the carrot and beet age as instructed and both were bad, then you should review your winemaking techniques. If you didn't let them age, then you really haven't got much authority to say they aren't worth the effort of making.

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page