Fruit wine

I realize that many antioxidant properties in fruits that cannot stand the heat and might be lost during canning process. Also, making fruits jam needs to add way more sugar than I can take. So after google on Internet I think if I make fruits into wine may preserve higher percentage of antioxidant that fruits have. So here is my first bottled wine of the year, current wine. More to come…

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What type of fruit did you use? I have about 8 gallons of Muscadine wine right now. Next year hopefully I can try to make some from peaches as well as watermelons. I am going to plant a couple acres of watermelons and any extra I can experiment with.

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Good idea! I want to make wine one day, have no idea where to start? First I need enough fruit, I’m getting there.

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I am not at all convinced wine is more nutrient-dense, as a LOT of color tends to be lost in the lees. Things like lycopene do almost entirely, which is why tomato and autumn olive both make white wines.

That said, fruit wines are often very good and i certainly make them, but they are more compliment than superior alternative…i can eat (drink) a glass of wine easier than a cup of jam, but i would also guess the antioxidant potential of an equal volume of berries in wine vs sauce vs jam, etc probably doesnt always (perhaps ever) come out in wine’s favor…

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Drew, if you’re just looking to start out find Jack Keller’s website. There are a few issues that I found on there that I don’t fully agree with including his insistence on using 4 pounds of fruit in almost every recipe, but he gives both very technical explanations of what’s going on and a very large collection of recipes to start with, all in one spot.

To the OP: is that black currant wine? The same site claims that a quick 10 minutes or something like that in the pressure cooker extracts much more of the color back out of black currants

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it is red current wine. I have never seen watermelon wine, and am very interested to know how it tasted.

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I have not tried watermelon. Again according to jack keller, it can be tricky both to get ripe enough fruit and also keep the must from spoiling. Supposedly if you have bad melons, top off w/ too much water, etc. it can be deeply under-whelming, but a good watermelon wine is also outstanding.

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Just use whatever the fruit you have, start at small quantities. I usually make 1gallon at a time.if it didn’t work out, oh, well, only small qty, no big deal.
After you made one batch of wine, you will have way better idea how to make next batches

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I am not sure the best way to preserve all the antioxidant in this type of berry. I am afraid of cooking it might lose all the good stuff. So I make wine to attempt to preserve the highest nutrition value. if you or others know the best way to process current, Antonia berry, I would like to know.thanks

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I guess I’m not convinced that you lose the nutrition completely by regular cooking. I’m not saying don’t make wine, I make a ton myself, but you will find that you lose a lot of color in the lees and fruit; I guess everything has its limitations.

All that said I’ve made red currant wine before and it’s very good, even though I used juice the black was even better…I wouldn’t discourage you trying out

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Cool, will do.

The problem is the size of the molecules sometimes. Like Vitamin C has 20 atoms and heat will destroy it quickly. Others are more stable. Any complex molecule has more places to break.

what I want to preserve most are the Anthocyanin and flavornia. Does anyone know will these be destroyed by heat , cooking?

They are degraded by heat. I don’t wish to pay, but this study covers it
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224409002271

Some great info here
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/antioxidants-destroyed-heat-9263.html

If you lose color, you’re losing Anthocyanins. Sugar stops degradation, so jams preserve it, they are a deep in color for sure.

I just made tart cherry-red currant jam and I used a 2-1 ratio of fruit to sugar. The jam tastes tart.
I described my process elsewhere. Interesting as this mix set a little too heavy. But it needs this ratio as it is very tart as is. I need to increase volume. I usually use 4 cups fruit (after prep), I could use 5 here and get a looser set.
The jam is deep red, I liked last year’s batch a little better. I need more cherries!

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Drew,I am not sure fully understood . So cooking/heat will destroy Anthocyanin, but if cook with sugar will preserve the Anthocyanin? BTW your cherry-current jam looks very nice, beautiful color

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If any of you grow or can get mulberries, they make great wine. So do native persimons

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Yes correct, the last article I linked to, goes over cooking methods that are best. Seems boiling is dead last and should be avoided with veggies. One exception was celery. Tomatoes gain some and lose others, interesting. .

I hope to in the future. Currently I have elderberries, and high bush cranberries I would love to make wine with. Good info, thanks!

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I recall reading a study that showed elderberry wine to be more effective at fighting viruses than cooked or fresh. I don’t have it to hand though. Anecdotally, I agree!

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Picked my aronia berry. I am going to make a gallon of aronia/grape wine.



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5 years ago, I made a 5 gallon batch of citrus wine from Owari Satsuma. There are apparently a few bottles still left that I didn’t know about. Had some this evening and it has held up surprisingly well.

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Nice color. I have never had citrus wine, I might try to make a batch someday