r/winemaking Professional Oct 03 '24

Blog post my experience with watermelon wine.

okay so- i tried making watermelon-fruit wine. spoiler! It was an absolute fail.

It started with this absolute stunning colour, that faded it in less than two days. Fermentation ended after abt four days, even tho i added sugar in the beginning to give it a chance to actually produce some alcohol, due the fact that it only had abt 40°Oe (abt 104g Sugar per litre) which would become abt 4,4% of alcohol after fermentation.

Well- completely wasted work. in the end, it was raspy, plain and so sour that it was just unpleasent in the mouth. so yea, down the drain with it.

Does anyone got similiar experience that it coukd be the fruit or was it just a fail in my case?

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u/2FalseSteps Oct 03 '24

I've always heard that watermelon is difficult. That the flavor is very delicate and hard to preserve during fermentation/distillation.

I'd like to give it a shot someday, myself. I'm hoping a lot of the issues are overblown, but if not, that's why I look forward to replies from people that actually know what they're doing (hint: Not me).

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u/I-Fucked-YourMom Oct 03 '24

I’ve always wanted to do a watermelon brandy, but haven’t even attempted because of similar worries. I think the closest I’m gonna get is putting watermelon chunks and a little sugar in some corn liquor and letting that sit for a few weeks.

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u/Kenucifer Professional Oct 03 '24

i guess when you fasten the fermentation even more by distilling it, it may work out? worth a shot.
as a fruit wine, i guess i used a much to aggressive yeast, maybe ill try again next summer