Peach-Strawberry Wine.

Alex - I wouldn't hesitate to recommend following one of Jack Keller's recipes. However, if you're more or less inventing your own, I think it would be a good idea to measure the S.G. and total acids, rather than relying on guesswork.

Should be no problem to use the syrup from the canned peaches (assuming it doesn't contain sorbates). It's mostly just sugar water, which the yeast should have no problem with. I would start with the other ingredients, then add sugar a couple pounds at a time, until the S.G. gets to 1.080 or so. The raisins will boost the effective S.G. some, since they are mostly sugar, but don't immediately affect the S.G. You don't want especially high alcohol for this type of fruit wine (at least, I wouldn't).

The citric acid amount seems low to me, for a 5-gallon batch, considering that peaches don't have a lot of acid in them. But it does seem in line with Jack's other Peach Wine recipes. I'd check the total acidity after you add it, to see if you're somewhere in the reasonable range. For this kind of wine, you should probably aim for 0.7% to 0.8% (7 to 8 gm/liter). If you're not somewhere close to that, you might want to add more citric (or acid blend) to bring the total acidity up.

Other than that, it looks pretty reasonable to me. You'll want to mash the strawberries a bit to help extract the flavors; don't run them through a food processor, though, as it will cut up the seeds (on the outside of the skin) which can cause the wine to pick up some bitter flavors you don't want. Something like a manual potato masher should work fine.

Good luck -

Doug

I agree with Alex. It would be a mistake to throw away the juice from the can. It has a lot of the flavor and plenty of sugar to be fermented.

I use many recipes from many sources, especially for country wines. I have made wines from recipes on Jack's site. But I always modify the recipes. Fruit are never the same. Year to year and place to place. The acidity and the sugar content and even the flavor will be different. By all means use one of Jack's basic recipes, but if it calls for fruit, be ready to adjust. Your hydrometer and your taste are great tools. Use them.

If you like your peach and your strawberry wines and you are thinking of making a peach/strawberry wine, have you tried blending the two to see if you like a particular blend? Would they be better as a 50:50 or 20: 70 blend. This could give you some incite. You can even experiment with adjusting the sweetness and acidity of the blends.

But then again, if you like the wines you have made, and if you come up with a blend you like, why change success? Why not continue to make them as you have but make more of them so you can blend some. Wine is not all in the making, it can also be in the blending.

Ray

Thanks for all the comments. I liked both my strawberry and my peach. The way I crafted the recipe was to get less strawberry and more peach, as I thought the strawberry came out stronger.

The peach I have is bone-dry (SG of about .992), but still tastes sweet to me. I thing this will balance nicely with the relativly-acidic strawberry.

I will combine all of the ingredients and adjust the TA and SG before fermentation. I wanted a little higher alcohol wine, so I was going to target 1.10 to 1.12 pre-ferment. A TA of .7 sounds good... a little on the tart side. I bet this one will be good off-dry when finished.

With the amount of rasins and strawberries, is 1.5 tsp of tannin enough to give it a litte bit of bite and to let it age well?

I figure I need to leave the fruit in the must for about 2 weeks, punching it down a few times a day for the first week and daily thereafter.

Any other advice?

Alex.

Ray Calvert wrote:

peaches

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If I am understanding your procedure, it sounds like you are planning to leave the must in primary for 2 weeks. That is too long unless you are going to be injecting CO2 or something. You will be running a big risk of oxidation as the fermentation progresses past the violent stage. 5 days to a week should be plenty. Actually, you do not have to worry about how long to leave it in primary as the must has it's own indicator. When the cap fails to rise, it is time to move it to secondary as there is not enough CO2 coming off to protect it any more. Takes all the guess work out.

Ray