Tomato wine?

[surlymonkey]

Has anyone tried making wine from tomatoes? If so, how did it go and what did you think of it?

[Bonniegirl]

In my book I have "homebrewing and winemaking for NEw Zealanders'

it has this;

Tomato wine

2.8kg tomatoes
200gms raisins
1.4kg sugar
yeast, nutrients, vitamin B1
Water to 4.5ltrs


Remove skins form tomatoes and 2 ltrs of boiling water and crush fruit
Bpil raisins for 20mins and strain onto tomatos pulp
Take sg, add yeast and nutrients
Ferment for 5 to 7 days then strain through medium filter removing pips
Add sugar and ferment.

Never made it but may be good for a glut of tomatoes.
Need to google and find out why they use raisins, can't remember!

[Bonniegirl]

Ahhhh! http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/purpose ... ine-79180/

[surlymonkey]

Thanks Bonniegirl!

Interesting that raisins not only add body, but also can be used as a natural yeast nutrient.

Cheers!

[MKG]

I've never made tomato wine (I've never actually even considered making it), but this one caught my interest. After a few hours of googling around, I discovered that the general concensus (but there is a significant number of people who disagree) is that tomato wine is very acidic and tastes, shall we say, not so good.

Apparently, there was a Guernsey (or at least one of the Channel Islands) attempt to make and sell tomato wine which came to nothing because it was decided that the results were just not worth the effort. As they sold their entire output during the trial, there must have been another very good reason to scrap the idea.

And having said all of that, we'd never get anywhere unless people at least tried a few different things. Have a go, I say.

Mike

[MKG]

Ah - forgot the raisins comment. Grapes are the ONLY fruit which provide the absolutely perfect environment for the particular strain of yeast which we use to make wine (hardly surprising, as that strain just happens to be the one which happily produces the bloom on grapes (and not, necessarily, the one which does the same thing on plums). So, as this yeast strain likes grapes, adding grapes in any form to a wine recipe can't do any harm. A half-pound or a pound of raisins or sultanas added to any recipe will improve the yeast-growing conditions simply because of the preferences of that yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisciae, I think).

Now, although the addition of raisins etc. is not a bad thing (in fact it's a good thing), there has been a growing fairy story recently that they are a substitute for yeast nutrient. They're not. They add a certain character (called "vinosity" by the cognoscenti) and they add sugar (between 50% and 75% of their weight), and they add a degree of yeasty nutritional requirements - but not all of them. Had those grapes which have been turned into raisins been any great shakes for winemaking, then that's what would have happened to them.

By all means add raisins or sultanas to any recipe. But get out your calculator to determine the added sugar (makes a big difference to the final alcohol count). And, most importantly, continue to add that teaspoon of yeast nutrient regardless.

Mike

[surlymonkey]

Thanks for the advice regarding raisins, I was about to use this as an alternative to yeast nutrient

Look forward to reading part 4 of your wine making guide.

Cheers!

[shiela_robins]

I've not yet tried tomato wine, the canned juice perhaps, but not wine. I regularly drink tomato juice but in a mix. Quite intrigued to how tomato wine will taste. I've tried coconut wine served by locals during my last vacation and the taste and smell was really something I couldn't quite handle.