I was reading about Frozenthunderbolts feijoa wine, and what with the glut that we have around here right now I was thinking I might have my first ever attempt at wine making.
Does anyone have a basic recipe, I thought I might adapt a pear recipe - would that work?
Feijoa Wine
Had to look that one up. As you can imagine, Shae, there ain't no folk recipes for this stuff, and I can't see a modern one anywhere. Strictly speaking, you'd need to know (with a degree of precision) how acidic these things are and what type of acid, how much natural sugar they contain, how much pectin, how strong they taste and if that taste disappears with fermentation ... etc. etc. etc.
Not knowing that lot I'd tend to treat it as a pineapple, for which loads of recipes are available on the net. Just do one gallon, because it may fail miserably - but you'd learn a lot from the failure and be able to adjust for the second batch.
So, unless you DO happen to know the chemical make-up of a feijoa, that's all the advice I can give you.
EDIT: And the moment after I posted, I found this ...
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques31.asp
Not knowing that lot I'd tend to treat it as a pineapple, for which loads of recipes are available on the net. Just do one gallon, because it may fail miserably - but you'd learn a lot from the failure and be able to adjust for the second batch.
So, unless you DO happen to know the chemical make-up of a feijoa, that's all the advice I can give you.
EDIT: And the moment after I posted, I found this ...
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques31.asp
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frozenthunderbolt
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The hell with that!
Scoop out the centers of enough fejoas to make 4-4.5 kg of pulp; a little of the skin in it is ok, but not too much due to the extreamly high tannin content and bitter principles in it - makes the wine taste pretty harsh.
Cover the pulp with 4.5L / 1 gallon of boiling water and add about a kilo of sugar and a tsb of whine nutrient (in this wine much better to use the real thing rather than vegemite/marmite) and stir untill disolved.
Once the must reaches blood heat add your yeast, preferably wine yeast but bakers will do in a pinch, you just must be carefull to rack the wine properly.
Leave on the fruit for 2-3 days stiring at least once daily. then strain through colinder then sieve then if you can be bothered, through muslin and put into a demijohn fitted with an airlock.
Leave for a week for rapid fermentation to take place and then rack once it has thrown a visable sediment/ is down to bubling on a "minute" scale rather than a "second" scale.
There after rack every 2-3 weeks or as often as you can be bothered. Depending on whether you are after a well ballanced wine, dry wine, sweet wine, and the % you want to achieve, feed the wine a tablespoon of sugar disolved in water every week untill the desired result is achieved (use campden tablet to fix the wine)/ the wine stops bubbling.
Drink on the spot if you want, but the wine will probably be all the better for 6ish months of aging in a cool dark place.
Try adding a little root ginger or orange peel to the must to give it a little more complexity.
Scoop out the centers of enough fejoas to make 4-4.5 kg of pulp; a little of the skin in it is ok, but not too much due to the extreamly high tannin content and bitter principles in it - makes the wine taste pretty harsh.
Cover the pulp with 4.5L / 1 gallon of boiling water and add about a kilo of sugar and a tsb of whine nutrient (in this wine much better to use the real thing rather than vegemite/marmite) and stir untill disolved.
Once the must reaches blood heat add your yeast, preferably wine yeast but bakers will do in a pinch, you just must be carefull to rack the wine properly.
Leave on the fruit for 2-3 days stiring at least once daily. then strain through colinder then sieve then if you can be bothered, through muslin and put into a demijohn fitted with an airlock.
Leave for a week for rapid fermentation to take place and then rack once it has thrown a visable sediment/ is down to bubling on a "minute" scale rather than a "second" scale.
There after rack every 2-3 weeks or as often as you can be bothered. Depending on whether you are after a well ballanced wine, dry wine, sweet wine, and the % you want to achieve, feed the wine a tablespoon of sugar disolved in water every week untill the desired result is achieved (use campden tablet to fix the wine)/ the wine stops bubbling.
Drink on the spot if you want, but the wine will probably be all the better for 6ish months of aging in a cool dark place.
Try adding a little root ginger or orange peel to the must to give it a little more complexity.
Jeremy Daniel Meadows. (Jed).
Those who walk in truth and love grow in honour and strength
Those who walk in truth and love grow in honour and strength
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frozenthunderbolt
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- Posts: 1239
- Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:42 am
- Location: New Zealand
Yee Haaaa party is on! lol makes for great drinkiness - MKG look around often ppl plant and forget about 'joas - they will often let you pick them up for free rather than have them rot on the ground and make a mess 
Jeremy Daniel Meadows. (Jed).
Those who walk in truth and love grow in honour and strength
Those who walk in truth and love grow in honour and strength
)