Comments on: Pumpkin Wine: Trick or Treat?

By: Gewehr98

Gewehr98 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 01:55:57 +0000

Erroll,
I’ve just started my 3rd annual batch of Pumpkin/Raisin wine, albeit a 3-gallon quantity. I’ve learned that baking my pumpkins like one would do for pumpkin pie or acorn squash really changes the nature of the wine, as well as reducing the amount of starch haze clearing time. I bake the pumpkin quarters until they’re fork-tender, then scoop the soft mush into the carboy before adding the raisins and an appropriate amount of brown sugar to bring the SG up to 1.095-1.100. I use a Lalvin Champagne Yeast, and the fermentation is vigorous enough to blow the airlock off if you forget to leave enough headspace for the pumpkin/raisin fruit cap. (Don’t ask me how I know this!) The finished wine is a dark amber color, fairly heavy in body with a delightful taste and finish. I should really give in and make 6-gallon batches, considering how fast 15 bottles will go after bottling…

Darin

By: Erroll

Erroll — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:14:13 +0000

Hi Scott, The mashing gives this recipe a beer-like feel to it, but I was always intending to make a wine (or mead) with about 12% alcohol. I expect it to take about year to be drinkable, but I think I can ferment it out in four weeks or less. Mead can be slow to ferment because of a nutrient deficiency, low pH, or yeast falling out of suspension. You can correct all three. Adding enough nutrient, like diamoniumphosphate (DAP), and a daily stir will take care of the first and third problems. Often, the pH can be managed by delaying any acid additions until after fermentation is complete. Some meadmakers will add cream of tartar, at a rate of 1 tsp/gallon, to stabilize the pH. The problem is that mead is weakly buffered, compared to wine, so a small amount of acid produced during fermentation, or added by the meadmaker, will push the pH down a lot. If the pH dips below 3, it can stop the yeast in their tracks. I had just such a pH crash while fermenting my oregano wine. I managed all three potential problems in my last mead, and it fermented out in three weeks, so it can be done! Erroll

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:46:27 +0000

If you use a lot of honey as your fermentable sugar, you’ll essentially be making mead, which requires a long fermentation time (6-12 months). You may want to research this before going down the path of solely using honey and pumpkin. Just a thought.

By: Erroll

Erroll — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:15:47 +0000

Hello Andy,

I was planning on adding sugar to increase the fermentables, but now that you mention it, honey might be a better choice. Also, I didn’t know that isinglass was effective on starch – thanks for the tip.

Erroll

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:31:03 +0000

I’m fairly ignorant of wine making, and the nuances that separate it from brewing, so I can only wildly speculate. Pumpkin is not an efficient place to get fermentable sugars, so we typically use it for some flavor and color, but rely on malted barley for the body. Our latest recipe (Scott’s recipe) uses a little bit of wheat and honey in addition to the malt. It might be worth padding the recipe with some honey or some other constituent to bump up the fermentability. This would, of course, not be ready for Halloween…

One thing brewers do to reduce the unfermented particles is move the beer from primary fermentation to secondary. This moves the beer of the settled sluff on the bottom, but also gives it time to reduce turbidity. This may help reduce the haze you’re hoping to avoid. Another brewers trick is to crash the temperature, but this does more to settle out yeast than anything. I wonder if finning agents would work though. You could try adding something like isinglass (after sterilizing, of course) to see if that helps.