Watermelon shine

[jon1163]

So I figured I'd give a go with a watermelon shine recipe. From what I found I can get just under a gallon of liquid per watermelon. here goes...

10 gallon wash
10 large watermelons
2 lbs raisins
white sugar (roughly 10 lbs)

I cut the watermelons in half and then used a long knife to cut the peel off of each half. All the watermelon fruit got thrown into a big bucket and when I was done I took the watermelon from the bucket and pulverized it in a food processor. I got the juice got put into a large pot where I strained it with a large Brew bag and my mop wringer bucket.

10 watermelons yielded me about a 12 gallon bucket full of watermelon fruit which gave me about eight and a half gallons of watermelon juice once it was processed and squeezed.

I poured the watermelon juice, the two pounds of raisins, and about 8 pounds of sugar into a big pot and heated it up to about a 165 degrees. I cooled the wash to 80° and then took a gravity reading.

I was shooting for 1.08 to 1.09 and found that I was just a hair low. I added another 2 pounds of sugar to bring my total added up to 10 where I found that I was right in the middle at 1.085.

Transferred it all to my fermenter pitched my Yeast Starter and she's off and running.

More to come...

[Tater]

More like sugar shine with lil watermelon.

[jon1163]

More like sugar shine with lil watermelon.

maybe next time I'll up the watermelon. money is the issue there

[Appalachia-Shiner]

I hope to Hell it tastes better than Watermelon Wine.
Tried that once Long ago and Far Away cause Tom T Hall wrote that song about it.
Nasty stuff. I bet Tater tried it too.

[Copperhead road]

I don’t think you will get good flavour carryover with using limited fruit and sugar.

[jon1163]

I don’t think you will get good flavour carryover with using limited fruit and sugar.

well hell. back to the drawing board I guess

[BlackSailJ]

My watermelon showed ~1.034sg

[Paramed1976]

I have about 7 gallons of watermelon wine/wash in buckets now. It did go through a stage that smelled god awful. It got better but I have not worked up the courage to try it. I added about 8 pounds of sugar. The watermelons i used were seedless but I have heard that it is much better to use the seeded Kind.

[Nanacooks]

Anyone ever finish out a watermelon shine? Results?

[NZChris]

Probably, but if a poster doesn't get a great result they often don't come back and post it. They may not even continue posting, so may not be around to answer questions.

Knowing how to search the internet and forums is a valuable skill for finding obscure information.

[EricTheRed]

We tried.
4 large melons, crushed, pectlyase, distllers yeast
No water added
30 litres

Og 1.04
Fg 0.990

Distilled one and done.

Flavour - a bit missing. Could smell it sort of

Imho - not worth the effort.

Makes a better wine.

[NZChris]

The best watermelon story I've heard of was smashing the last of the crop onto the deck of a truck, parking it on an angle so that the fermenting juice ran into a barrel, then inviting the neighbors around for a pig on a spit when it was ready to drink. Lots of coffee needed to get everyone moving in the morning.

[Jarhead1833]

Last year I ended up with a few decent size watermelons. I pulverized them to the consistency of oj with pulp. I added that melon juice and some jalapeños to a sugar shine wash and was pleasantly surprised with the end results. The expected sweetness turned out to be a melow earthy flavor with a bit of heat on the backend. Starting another batch this week and looking forward to it.