Wine with Jam?

[makum101]

OK having had mixed results with my first attempt at tinned fruit cocktail (it wont clear), I found myself in Lidl looking at a product and got thinking it would be a good ingredient for my second attempt... Tinned Strawberry wine.

The product was 500grams of Strawberry Compote. (99p)

Anyway I chucked it in to me DJ along with 1 litre of red grape juice (made from 100% red grapes apparently), added about half a bag of sugar dissolved in water and topped it up with water to a SG of 1.090 (couldn't get it down to 1.080 as i ran out of DJ capacity). I then followed the tinned fruit strawberry wine recipe with regard to citric acid, tannin and pectilose thingy stuff, but the DJ smells like jam.

Now here's the rub. The compote smells like strawberry jam. In fact the only difference from jam i could tell was that it was runny. (I could pour it into the DJ)


Will it work?
Can I make wine from runny jam(Strawberry compote)?
Am I an idiot?

[goldseal]

Check the ingredients. Are there any preservatives listed (e.g potassium sorbate)?

Jam generally uses pectin as a setting agent. Add a couple of tsp of pectolase at least.

I made a gallon from home-made jam a couple of years ago. It turned out OK. Not great, but OK. It is just coming around now.

So, making wine from jam is possible but not necessarily straightforward.

[makum101]

Thanks Goldseal.

I did read the ingredients 'in store' and it all seemed natural. No preserve. However having chucked the packaging out (I got it covered in compote) Im not sure. What difference will it make like?

I put one teaspoon of pectolase in along with half of tannin and 3 citric.

I'll hoy another teaspoon of pectolase in to make sure.

[goldseal]

Potassium Sorbate in the compote might make it difficult for the fermentation to get going. If it is already fermenting, then no problem

[wisp]

I know some people who have made wine from jam and it's turned out okay. They made the wine from their own home made jam so the only thing they had to really worry about was the pectin.

[Duffbeer]

Jam makes a very nice wine, as Pete explains use extra pectolase and leave it a good while to mature to rid it of the jammy flavour.

[wisp]

I agree, there was nothing wrong with any of the wines my friends produced. Indeed, one still tasted a little 'jammy' and was all the better, probably because it was different, for it. When I say jammy, I mean that lovely edge taste you get with top quality toffee [okay jam] apples; where the taste lingers in the mouth and you just don't want to let it go.

[makum101]

The wine turned out really nice. A bit sweet for a red and the colour was half way between a red and a rose.

I sparkled a bottle up (with my Mr widget thingy) and it tastes great. The fizz has taken the sweetness away a bit. I will be putting 30 bottles of this stuff on asap.

[fatbloke]

The wine turned out really nice. A bit sweet for a red and the colour was half way between a red and a rose.

A bit like that bottled red grape juice you can get.......?

I sparkled a bottle up (with my Mr widget thingy) and it tastes great. The fizz has taken the sweetness away a bit. I will be putting 30 bottles of this stuff on asap.

Well I'd guess that the fizz taking away the sweetness a bit is more to do with "carbonic acid", which suggests to me that you might want to add a little more acid to the batch before bottling.

Don't go overboard, just try something like the equivalent of 1/2 tsp per gallon..... then if you're gonna carbonate the whole lot, well the addition of the CO2 will then help balance it even more....

Gotta be worth a try.........

regards

jtfb

[Richard S]

Tinned strawberry makes a good rose style wine. There is a recipe in the recipe section that covers it. From past experience, it is better as a medium wine in terms of sweetness.

[David]

I know some people who have made wine from jam and it's turned out okay. They made the wine from their own home made jam so the only thing they had to really worry about was the pectin.

I once made a wine using OH's blackberry jam that was way past it's use by date (that's why I was given it) and even had to scrape a little mould off the top, together with supermarket carton apple juice.

And it was one of the best blackberry & apple wines I've ever made.