watermelon wine ferment

[partonken]

I took a stab at watermelon wine and the 1st batch was a huge success heating it to 160 degrees then cooling. using 8 watermelons, 1 lb of raisins, sugar to 1.09 , lemon juice, yeast nutrient and energizer, and EC-1118 yeast and airating. I cooled it to 80 or a bit lower and it finished in less than 2 days. My second batch was a huge failure. Same ingredients but no raisins, same heating to kill unwanted yeast and bacteria. I airated at 100 degrees and put the yeast in. In less than a day it was puking all over the floor and out the hole in the bucket. After cleaning up i stirred it and it was like a gooey consistency. Just curious if this has happened to anyone else? Its alot of work to do down 8 watermelons and then throw it out. My guess is keep it below 80 degrees when pitching the yeast and dont forget the raisins this time. The first batch was a huge hit so i wont give up on this one.

[Fiddleford]

First thing that comes to mind is simply more head space
Maybe split it in half and stir it occasionally to keep the foam down

[NZChris]

If it is slimy or ropey, it has a bacterial infection.

[DetroitDIY]

Did you drink or distill the wine?

[partonken]

no , i just dumped it. I tried to heat it to kill everything but it started to foam bad

[Fruit Squeezer]

Possible cross contamination from the last batch?
I assume you sterilized everything.
Never stirr with a wooden spoon/tool, they harbor bacteria. I heat watermellon to a simmer for atleast 20 min. It is notoriously prone to infection.
Even at a boil, botulinin and a few others can survive. That's the purpose of a pressure cooker when canning fruits/vegitables/meat, to raise the boiling point above 212°F or 100°C.

Sanitation is everything with fruit wines or washes.
Also, proof your yeast in some of the luke warm mash.
If the yeast is dead, the next contender wins the bucket after you snap the lid on without checking. Always airlock fruit wines while fermenting to keep bugs and microbes out.

P.S. The raisins are just a great little insurance policy.
They contain natural yeast,tanic acids, and act as a perfect nutrient. They are like little fermentation seeds incase your Lalvin putters out.

[hellbilly007]

How many gallons does this turn out to be?

Wine and beer requires alot higher levels of sanitation through every step of the process. I have no clue which bacteria infected your wine but it's definitely a bacterial infection

[DetroitDIY]

I dug into a watermelon yesterday. Been blending them up with fresh lime juice and occasionally mint. It makes for a fabulous drink just fresh.

But it got me thinking about fermenting and distilling it again. Reading the threads, people's results seem all over the map. Most putting it on sugar. While I understand that... I don't really understand it. Why add sugar? I picked up this watermelon at Costco... $5, and it was massive. I'm thinking if i go back and pick up 10, liquify, add some lime juice (buy a bag of those while I'm there too, I could have a good, all natural ferment for <$60. I checked the SG of the juice: 1.035... ~4.5% ABV potential. So, I'll get less output, but I'm hoping high quality flavor. I'm ball parking 2-2.5 gallons per melon, so I should get about two boiler charges off of 10 melons. If I get ~60-65% efficiency (kept ethanol / total ethanol), that should be about 1.5 gallons at 40% for the final product. Just short of 8 5ths. About $8 / 5th, plus electricity, plus time. OK, I guess I see why some add sugar to stretch it, but I like the idea of just watermelon...

[SwollenGoat23]

I like that idea there sir,.....

[The Baker]

I hope your limes are cheaper than the ones my wife bought for a cheesecake. Nearly $10 for five.

Geoff

[Sunshineer]

I get 10 large lemons or limes for just one dollar. Five for ten dollars is such a rip off.
Don't you grow any in Australia. I have three lemon trees in the yard.

[The Baker]

I get 10 large lemons or limes for just one dollar. Five for ten dollars is such a rip off.
Don't you grow any in Australia. I have three lemon trees in the yard.

Heaps of free lemons from the neighbour's tree.

But she specially wanted limes... from the supermarket. Turns out they are cheaper THIS week...

Geoff

[DetroitDIY]

Yah, much cheaper here. I would pass on $2/lime even under duress. I pick them up for about (guessing from memory here) $5 for a bag of ~20, and they're fat juicy limes, not the mealy dry things. I'm an absolute lime fiend. Add them to coke, rum, (coke and rum too!), water, watermelon... and many types of food.

If I end up doing the watermelon, I'll let you all know how it comes out.

[DetroitDIY]

[DetroitDIY]

Carved up all 10 watermelons yesterday morning. I was very careful with wiping the rinds down, all tools, all work surfaces, my hands several times, with my StarSan solution. I didn't want to cook the watermelon must as I've seen several people do. I figure they're not infected as they start, so good sanitary practices and I should be able to keep the must that way. The only things that touched the watermelon flesh were the knife, my hands, a 9 gallon bucket, the 20 gallon brute I'm using as a fermenter and the paint mixer for blending.

They yielded 15.5 gallons of must after rough pureeing with the paint mixer. I didn't want to add pectin and wait a long 24 hours for the cell walls to break down, so I'm sure I'll lose some efficiency to ineffective chopping of the melon flesh into must... next time perhaps. I measured pH at 5.62, squeezed in 15 Persian (common in the States, what you see in the photo of my earlier posting) limes and 11 Key limes. I have a decent squeezer and get a good yield, but didn't measure the volume. After blending that in pH was 4.83. I still wanted lower, so added 6 T citric acid and blended that in; pH was 4.23... pretty decent. I wanted something that would help inhibit infection. In ciders, that's like a pH of 3.3 while the yeast gets going, but I didn't want to squeeze a crap ton more limes, nor add in more acid.

Measured the OG: 1.34, pretty much where my first watermelon had come it at, but this measurement was taken with a hydrometer after tediously thiefing out enough juice from the pulp to float it.

I hydrated 3 packets of Lalvin 71B with 7.5g GoFerm in 150 ml H20, watered it down slowly from time 20-30 minutes to get it at a temp close to the must, then pitched it by just dumping the yeast around the top. After that, I plopped in my Tilt, but with the pulp that wasn't getting a good reading, so I dunked a hop strainer in there and put the Tilt inside it. Reading was 77F and 1.027 SG. Photo below.

I pressed the cap down 2-3 times yesterday, this morning, and again when I got home from work this afternoon. The hop strainer quickly sank in the must, so my Tilt has been dipping and diving each time I press things down, with wildly varied readings that don't correct as I do this... so I'm not placing too much stock in that SG. I'm trusting the two similar OG readings of my refractometer and hydrometer: 1.034

I ended up grating the zest off the limes after I had squeezed them (ass backwards process, zest first if you plan to do what I did... much easier and drier). I put that in a strainer in a bowl to dry. My plan is that when I run this wash in a week or two, I'll place this and a few crushed cardemom pods into the botanical basket and give the distillate a little something something. First time I'll be trying my botanical set-up.

I do plan to run this as soon as I think it's done. The ABV won't be high and I don't want it to go bad. I'm thinking that being too lax between fermenting and running, with no sanitary practices, was the culprit to my stinky wash on the last rye mash I did. Better luck this time. I'll keep you posted.

DetroitDIY

[DetroitDIY]

Been pushing down the cap 3x daily. This evening I stuck the hops strainer in and dropped the Tilt in the bath inside it. SG read as 1.002 at 75F. I'll use the refractometer in a day or two. Tasted a drop or two, no more sweetness. Should be ready to run this weekend I figure. And the fermented muck will give me my first opportunity to use my new mop wringer. Oh joy!

[DetroitDIY]

Popped in my old school hydrometer tonight. 0.990. The weekend can't come soon enough.

[DetroitDIY]

Boiler's heating up. I squeezed it last night, and in the process made another few measurements. 15.35 gallons before squeezing (mop wringer and 190 micron mesh bag), 13 gallons afterwards. That's generally pushing is for a full charge in my 15.5 gallon boiler, but I'm going for it. In such cases I heat at 5.5 kW for 30 minutes, then back off to 3.0 kW which typically avoids a puke. That said, the must is freshly squeezed and cloudy... Looking good so far, just seeing the lowest sight glass with the cloud of slowly floating droplets and a drying out sieve plate, which generally means I'm past any puke risk on my rig.

I have added my botanical basket to this run (first use). It's charged with lime zest from 10-ish limes and 10 cracked cardamom pods. I have no bypass valve for fores and heads about the botanicals (future upgrade needed). An idea occurred to me last night... I had frozen the lime zest to keep everthing in there and prevent rot (it was pretty wet when I zested it for stupid reasons). What if I took my botanicals, placed them in a plastic container that would fit in my botanical basket, filled it with a known amount of water (~150 ml let's say), and froze it solid yesterday. Then today, popped out my ice cube of botanicals and dropped it into my basket... of course I would need to make an ice cube that didn't wholly choke the flow for safety reasons. Then as the fores and early heads come across, the high temp and enthalpy (God bless physics!) melts the ice off. I collect the amount of fores and early heads plus the 150 ml of melted ice water, and set that aside as nasties. Then I start pulling off what I want to keep, with the botanicals having gone through the fores stage un-adultered. Anybody done this kind of thing before? Decent results or no difference?

My plates are now stacked! Catch you later,
DetroitDIY

[DetroitDIY]

Run is done. Collected about 2,200 ml in total (excluding feints). A bit lower yield that I had estimated. Feints were dark green (lime zest ), and all the other jars had a light green-chartreuse color. The smell was not inspiring. I'll let them air, then age them on some kind of wood and see how time can remedy the situation. Barring a miracle in the aging process, I don't plan to return to watermelon.

[The Baker]

'"Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine."

Geoff

[Sunshineer]

So before I go and pick up fifty free watermelons this is wine only or do you think the zest messed you up on your first attempt.

[HighSpirits]

I just did a watermelon run at the same time as you DetriotDIY, I did a few things differently though, and the flavors and aromas from the low wines run are amazing.

Watermelons are notoriously hard to ferment, they have a high tendency to sour very quickly, and the compounds that give that 'watermelon' flavor oxidize rapidly leaving you with a sour, bland drink that tastes like bad rind (its happened to me before).

Unlike any other thing that I ferment, I use a high dose of KMeta. This does two things: It kills the little beasties that cause souring and off flavors, but most importantly it prevents oxidation in the must. I know its generally frowned upon since sulfur is soluble in ethanol and comes over in the distillate. But I take care of that too.

procedure: I skin the melons, throw them into a 5 gal pail, and puree them with a drywall mud stirring attachment. Paint stirrers didn't work as well for me, they're not as sharp. then I throw in a teaspoon of pure KMeta and stir it in gently. I cover the bucket with a lid and let it sit 24 hours for the sulfur to work its anti-oxidizing and preservation magic.

The next day I pitch an abundance of EC1118 yeast. The abundance is to make up for the fact that the oxygen has been driven out of the must. Since the yeast won't have oxygen, they won't be breeding, and will go straight to munching. I ferment around 72F.

I wait a week, then toss the ENTIRE LOT (yeast, pulp, everything) into my steam stripper. My still is stainless, so I took a liberal amount of oxidized copper mesh and put it i direct vapor path. The key here is oxidized. Black, not blue (sulfate) or green...they will work some but not as efficiently. Copper Oxide reacts very well with sulfur, versus fresh copper. I ran hard and fast.

NOTE: NO SUGAR!!! I make up for the lack of sugar by sheer volume. My last run came from 30 gal of pulp-in melon goodness, and yielded 3 gallons of 25% low wines. The entire run had a wonderful taste and smell. Tails were very clean. Distillate is cloudy of course, from the pulp-in distillation. But there is no trace of sulfur from the KMeta and the flavors and aromas are preserved.

Can't wait to do the spirit run on this. Normally I run my brandys through double pot mode. But I want to enjoy this white, so I'm thinking I'll run it through my flute and make an eau-de-vie style. Running on the pulp brings out so much flavor anyway, so hopefully the flute won't remove too much flavor. I'll report back after final spirit run.

[HighSpirits]

Also forgot to mention... watermelons have very little nutrient in them, so I hydrate the 1118 with GoFerm and add some Fermax nutrients with a B complex vitamin to each 5gal pail. Then pH down to 4.4ish with food grade phosphoric acid.

[DetroitDIY]

Oh bother... would that I had heeded the other threads that said that, or had your wisdom a week and a half ago. But I guess that's how learning goes. The best teacher is failure, and I feel my teacher was in full form this go around.

Here are the jars as I collected them (pitched the fores, but they were very dark green).

I just made my cuts this evening. You nailed it HighSpirits, watermelon rind, with a moderately strong lime rind in the first jar or two. All the good flavor was gone. From all my cider making, I'm no stranger to potassium metabisulfite, but I'd seen explicit cautions about using it for distillation in the past for the sulfur reasons. And then I went and blended/airated the crap out of the must, and then I stirred up and pushed down the cap several times a day. Do you mess with the cap or let it be.

Anyways, I'm soured on watermelon for the moment. I need a success. (Panela rum here I come!)

Sunshine, if you have access to free melons, I would absolutely go for it, just don't follow my lead.

I saved about 1.75 l and will put it on some wood, set it and forget it for a year or so. We'll see if that makes it drinkable.

[HighSpirits]

I know the feeling DetroitDIY, but you're right. Failure is part of the fun. Without it, the successes wouldn't feel so good. Those green jars are pretty though, I'd put one on my desk as a nice decoration/reminder to get my butt in gear

Once the Kmeta goes in and I wait 24 hours, I dont do any stirring at all. I spread/pour the rehydrated yeast all over the surface, cap it up and leave it be for the week. Most of the yeast will be in the cap but theyll continue to feed on the suspended sugars and cap will fall when finished. With only about 3-4%abv of sugars, its no problem for them.

Panela sounds like a great project for the summertime. Get those esters going!! And I'll be curious to see how the watermelon ages out, so if you can remember to post back when you try it in the future, I'll be following.

[DetroitDIY]

Sure, I'll let you all know. I was in Italy a few years back, and got to enjoy Amaro de Capo. That got me to purchase a book on amaro recently. That's got me thinking that maybe I should use this base (a bit of watermelon, lime, bitter) as an amaro base. I'll let it ride a bit. I'll do a bit of reading. And we'll see.

Good luck on your ferment and distillation. I wish you all success, and encourage you to travel to SE Michigan with a little flask in hand.

[Sunshineer]

What part of Italy my family's from North of Naples it the mountains. I learned how to distill helping granddad make grappa with his dad who was a 104 years old at that time.

[HighSpirits]

I've spent the late summer season and early winter perfecting my watermelon process. It's been a busy process, lots of ups and downs and sore hands from peeling in total around 60 large watermelons (!), but in the end I have a recipe that gives me a wonderfully light summer eau-de-vie, clean and with the ghost of fresh cut watermelon. I thought I'd return to this thread and update for all interested. I messed with the following variables:

strip on the pulp vs cleared wine: stripping on the pulp via steam injection gave me the best flavor. The cleared wine was almost flavorless out the still and yields were much lower. I stripped down to a cumulative 25% on the steam run.

sugar/no sugar: No sugar gave a full, true watermelon flavor, but yields were low (natural watermelon will only give around 3-4% abv). Sugar boosted the yields but it ended up tasting like a light watermelon rind rum more than an eau-de-vie or true fruit spirit. If you're going to go through the trouble to peel and strip 24 watermelons, you may as well make it worth your effort quality wise. Otherwise, it would be more economical to make a sugar based NGS, then steep watermelon in the NGS for a week, then filter and redistill the NGS. You'll get a similar flavor to fermenting with sugar, but at 1/30th of the work (trust me, watermelons are NOT easy to de-rind)

kmeta/no kmeta: definitely use the k-meta and copper in vapor path. the experiment without k-meta tasted awful. Like green tomatoes and watermelon rind.

spirit run on pot, 2 plate and 3 plate: This is where it gets even more tricky. The 'true' watermelon flavor is ONLY in the hearts. as such, the pot stil run tasted really bad (smearing is not a good thing here). on the 2 plate, it was much better, but the hearts yield was much better on the 3 plate and the flavor was still present.

The process: Ferment per my prior instructions with kmeta and EC1118 around 70F...... NO SUGAR..... steam injection strip down to 25% cumulative abv low wines.... run through 3 plates: equalize for 30 minutes, slow takeoff at 2 drops per second, after the 'bite' subsides, keep it slow, the late heads cut is where a nasty bitter rind flavor comes through. keep it slow until the bitterness is completely gone. Then speed it up to 4 drops per second/broken stream and start your hearts collection. When the output begins to slow down, collect the late hearts/early tails in a separate jar. Depending on how well the ferment went, this late jar will either be a rich sweet jar that brings your spirit complexity, or another nasty bitter jar that will ruin your efforts. So collect the late heart/early tails separately, air out for no less than 48 hours, then taste it and make your determination on whether or not to add.

Dilute down to 40% for a rich eau-de-vie or 25% for an even lighter 'shochu' style spirit that my lady loves.

All in all, expect to get 3-4 bottles of 40% from 24 extra large watermelons. This is not a commercial process... but I have never tasted anything quite like it and I will definitely be repeating again next year. I hope at the very least this satisfies some curiosity here on the boards, and maybe reverse some of the stigma around imbibing with watermelon.

PS, pro tip, when you're checking out at your bulk club membership warehouse of choice with 15 watermelons in your shopping cart, just say its for a watermelon eating contest for your kids birthday

[DetroitDIY]

Thanks HighSpirits... almost makes me want to try this again. I definitely got that nasty rind flavor with the no kmeta. But... it's a lot of work and looks like when you're all said and done, it ran you about $25-$35 / bottle in ingredients. Hmmmm....

[HighSpirits]

Thanks HighSpirits... almost makes me want to try this again. I definitely got that nasty rind flavor with the no kmeta. But... it's a lot of work and looks like when you're all said and done, it ran you about $25-$35 / bottle in ingredients. Hmmmm....

Definitely. 3.5 bottles for me and a price of 3.99 per large melon, it came out to $28 a bottle. I was ruthless with the cut though and will recycle the tails into my next batch (about 3/4 gallon), so theres a little silver lining. Way I look at it, its more for rarity's sake, its not something anyone can even buy in the store so thats exciting to me personally. If you did happen to find it in a store, I'd say the quality tastes like it would be closer to the $60 price point/bottle. And i had fun, so 3 for 3 is an overall win.

What I want to do next is to buy one of those 'watermelon vodka' artificially flavored vodkas from the store and do a triangle tasting with some friends. Those flavored vodkas usually cost around $20 a piece. If people prefer the artificial cheap stuff, then i'm throwing in the towel and will never make it again