Mixed fruit wine/melomels ???

[fatbloke]

When we do our weekly shop, we often end up with some soft fruit from the previous week.

It might be a few raspberries, or strawb's or maybe some eating grapes or blueberries etc etc.

As Clare was on a short course today (that didn't start till half 9), she decided to do the shop first thing, rather than this evening.

Anyway, as usual, I just got the half a dozen blackberries, a punnet of strawbs, and about half a bunch of grapes, and after trimming up any manky fruit, it all went into the liquidiser to make a smoothy (about a pint in quantity and very pleasant to drink.

It occured to me that I was wasting fermentables - and as I often end up with between 1/2 and a litre of smoothy (only fruit, nothing else added), I could freeze them/it down until I've got maybe 4 or 5 litres of frozen pulp and convert it into a mixed fruit wine or melomel.

Yes, it would be fair to point out that there'd be a fair bit of pulp in it, but I though that maybe 5 litres or so of the blitzed fruit, then made up to 2 gallons with appropriate level's of honey/sugar etc, should still give me a gallon or so.

Of course, I know that these are "eating" fruit, rather than winemaking equivalents etc, but I don't see why it shouldn't be Ok.

Is this really such a stupid idea or should I just stick to drinking the fruit as smoothies ?

regards

JtFB

[Her Lushness]

Have you thought about starting a Rumpot (Rumtopf) with the excess fruit?

There's a thread here for anyone interested.

[converse1]

Don't see any reason why it shouldn't work... Maybe add the cheap 100% grape juice (< £1.00 a litre stuff) instead of water to beef it up a bit?

[Duffbeer]

The only down side here John is the blitzing of the fruit/berries will shatter the seeds and result in a bitterness in the aftertaste.
Nothing to stop you squishing with a tater masher though and then freezing.

[Pyrosfx]

Summer Fruits melomel

[fatbloke]

Don't see any reason why it shouldn't work... Maybe add the cheap 100% grape juice (< £1.00 a litre stuff) instead of water to beef it up a bit?

Well I was thinking along those lines after I'd made the post.....

The only down side here John is the blitzing of the fruit/berries will shatter the seeds and result in a bitterness in the aftertaste.
Nothing to stop you squishing with a tater masher though and then freezing.

The blitzing thing was because I was chucking another of my weekly smoothies down my neck + if the fruit was blitzed I can freeze it in square blocks and save freezer space. Plus it would have been easier to work out quantity

I'm guessing that I'll still start keeping the fruit but I'll just bag it and chuck it in the freezer anyway. It'll "de-juice" nicely once it's defrosted.

Or, as I'm thinking of it at the moment, I could probably still get some idea of quantity etc if I did your spud masher trick and then bagged it Karl.

regards

JtFB

p.s. Or I could just still freeze it in square blocks if I put the fruit in a box and then topped it up with grape juice. Ha ha! grape/summer fruit flavour giant ice cubes!

[fatbloke]

Have you thought about starting a Rumpot (Rumtopf) with the excess fruit?

There's a thread here for anyone interested.

There wouldn't be enough fruit really to do that. I'd have thought that it'd need about twice what we sometimes have left over.

I've been thinking of doing a rumtopf anyway, but once the seasons started properly...

regards

JtFB

[plonky]

Well I was thinking along those lines after I'd made the post.....

The blitzing thing was because I was chucking another of my weekly smoothies down my neck + if the fruit was blitzed I can freeze it in square blocks and save freezer space

regards

JtFB

p.s. Or I could just still freeze it in square blocks if I put the fruit in a box and then topped it up with grape juice. Ha ha! grape/summer fruit flavour giant ice cubes!

Try blitzing the fruit that has no seeds first then add the fruit whole that could cause you problems to the blitz then freeze ?It would reduce the bulk?.

(Be carefull drinking smoothies quite easy to drink a punnet of strawberries,blueberries,peaches etc blitzed in a smoothie or a "commercial" one at one "go"but you probably could not eat that amount of fruit at one sitting..........your blood sugar levels will be goin crazy!)

[fatbloke]

Try blitzing the fruit that has no seeds first then add the fruit whole that could cause you problems to the blitz then freeze ?It would reduce the bulk?.

(Be carefull drinking smoothies quite easy to drink a punnet of strawberries,blueberries,peaches etc blitzed in a smoothie or a "commercial" one at one "go"but you probably could not eat that amount of fruit at one sitting..........your blood sugar levels will be goin crazy!)

It'd only be the grapes that don't have seeds, all the other fruits that we have during the week tend to be the ones that would be near impossible to de-seed (strawb's, rasp's, blueberries, blackberries etc). Hence my thinking about just boxing them up and then topping up with grape juice prior to freezing. At the same time reduce the bulk, but without any action that might prove detrimental to the flavour.

As for blood sugar, I don't have these smoothies as extra, they just replace part/all of a meal. It's just that I've been thinking that to ferment them would be a better use of the fruit (IMO of course)

regards

JtFB