How to Make Pumpkin Wine

Extra pumpkin or squash?  Make some wine!

Did you know you can make wine out of just about any fruit or vegetable, even onions?  I haven’t tried that one yet, but I did have more than enough pumpkins this season, so I decided to try my hand at pumpkin wine.  I cannot yet vouch for the taste of this brew, as mine will not be ready until late 2012, but I can share what I’ve done thus far.

Pumpkin Wine Recipe

Adapted from http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~goodwine/pumpkinwine.htm

Ingredients

8 cups pumpkin
1 pound raisins (I used golden)
1 – 4 inch cinnamon stick
1 inch fresh ginger root
1 whole nutmeg
1 gallon water, boiling

5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
3 teaspoon acid blend (Pumpkins are low acid, so you need to add extra acid to make a more potable wine. See below.)

1 package wine yeast

Directions

Wash, trim, peel and chop (or grind) the pumpkin. Place in primary fermentor. Add raisins, spices and boiling water. Let sit overnight.

I peeled and shredded my pumpkin and mixed it with the raisins before adding the spices.

Pumpkin-raisin mash

Add all other ingredients except yeast.   (Note:  the original recipe included 1 campden tablet potassium metabisulfite – used to reduce the risk of spoilage/wild yeast.  I skipped the tablet.)

Stir well to dissolve sugar. Specific gravity should be between 1.090 and 1.095. Sprinkle yeast over the mixture and stir. Stir daily for three to five days, until specific gravity is 1.040.  (I bought a hydrometer but not a graduated cylinder, so I skipped this step.  If you would like to see how to measure specific gravity using a hydrometer, check here.)

The mix will get nice and bubbly, and should have a pleasant, mildly yeasty smell.

At the end of this first ferment, the pumpkin will have turned to mush and the grapes will be plump.  Strain the must and squeeze out as much juice as you can.

Straining the wine in a colander lined with a flour sack towel.

Pumpkin mash after squeezing

Siphon into secondary fermentor, make up to volume with water and attach airlock.  You can see at this point the wine is very cloudy – not terribly appealing.

Pumpkin wine with airlock – second ferment

For a dry wine, rack in three weeks, and every three months for one year. Bottle.

For a sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup wine. Stir gently, and place back into secondary fermentor. Repeat process every six weeks until fermentation does not restart with the addition of sugar. Rack every three months until one year old. Bottle. – This is what I’m aiming for – sweet rather than dry.  It’ll be ready to rack on Christmas Day.

Meanwhile, the wine is sitting, covered, in a corner of the kitchen, and the particulates have settled very nicely – no more cloudy wine.

The wine is best if you can refrain from drinking it for one full year from the date it was started, so it looks like this will be ready for next Christmas.

What are an acid blend, acidity, wine yeast and yeast nutrients?

If you’re new to winemaking (like I am), these items may not be familiar to you.  The Winemaking home page explains acid blend, acidity, wine yeast and yeast nutrients :

Acid Blend:
A blend of acids important to wines, usually tartaric, malic and citric acids. While there are many different formulations of acid blend, the recipes on this site calling for acid blend assume a blend of 50% tartaric, 30% malic and 20% citric. If your acid blend uses a different ratio, you may want to use slightly more or less depending on your blend.

Acidity:
The amount of acid in the must, liquor, or finished wine. Insufficient acidity in the must will result in a poor fermentation and a slightly medicinal and flat taste. Too much acid will give the wine an unpleasant sourness or tartness. Some acid is necessary for fermentation, and up to one-fourth of the initial acid content will be consumed by the yeast during fermentation. Low-acid musts are usually corrected by adding tartaric acid (the principal acid in grapes), malic acid, citric acid, or acid blend. An acid testing kit is indispensable in measuring initial acidity. There are two measures of acidity used in winemaking; see pH and Titratable acidity.

Wine Yeast:
Yeast cultured especially for winemaking, with such desirable attributes a as high alcohol tolerance, firmer sediment formation, and less flavor fluctuation. Wine yeasts are usually obtained from a winemaking/ brewing specialty shop or by mail order.

Yeast Nutrient:
Food for the yeast, containing nitrogenous matter, yeast-tolerant acid, vitamins, and certain minerals. While sugar is the main food of the yeast, nutrients are the “growth hormones,” so to speak.

That’s my latest winemaking experiment. If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy this post on dandelion wine or this one on pear wine.

Have you ever tried winemaking?  Let me know if there’s a recipe you recommend.