How to Make Tomato Wine

Описание: If you've run out of ideas of things to do with tomatoes, try making Tomato Wine!

Tomato Wine

3 1/2 quarts or so of water
2 lbs. of sugar or 2 lbs. light honey
4 lbs. ripe tomatoes, red or yellow
2 tsp. acid blend
1/8 tsp. tannin
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)
1/2 tsp. pectic enzyme
1 packet champagne or Montrachet yeast (Red Star Premier
Classique was formerly known as Montrachet)

Boil most of the water and all of the sugar or honey and skim if necessary. Wash the fruit. Peel, core and chop the tomatoes. Put them in a nylon straining bag and into the bottom of a primary fermenter. Squash the fruit with your clean hands or a sanitized potato masher. Remove the bag.

Pour the hot water and sugar over the juice. See if you need to add the rest of the water to make up the gallon. When cooled, add acid, tannin, yeast nutrient, and the crushed Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover the fermenter. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don't use the tablet, merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme.

Twenty four hours later check the specific gravity with a hydrometer. You want the reading to be about 1.094. If it is too high, add water, if it is too low, add sugar. Once you have the reading where you want it, add the yeast. Stir daily.

In about a week, check the gravity with a hydrometer again. If it is anywhere between .990 and 1.020, rack the wine into a glass secondary fermenter.

Rack the wine again in the next two to six months, and wait for it to ferment out and clear. The color of the wine varies from a red gold to gold. Tomato wine is better when sweetened a little, so stabilize it and add 2 to 4 ounces of sugar in a bit of water and bottle. Keep six months to a year. Serve chilled.

After a week or so, check the specific gravity with a hydrometer.

How to Finish and Bottle Tomato Wine (Part 2):    • How to Finish & Bottle Tomato Wine