Kiwi wine is light with a greenish shade and a faint tincture of an exotic flavor with hints of gooseberry, banana, and melon.
To make this wine you’ll need ripe or overripe kiwis of any variety. The fruits should have no moldy, spoilt or tainted parts. Even a small amount of bad pulp can spoil the whole batch. Any vessels used should be treated with boiling water and wiped dry. Otherwise, there’s a great risk of infecting the wine and spoiling it.
Ingredients:
- Kiwi – 2 kilos
- Water – 4 liters
- Sugar – 1.25 kilos
- Wine yeast
Kiwi Wine recipe
- In case you don’t have wine yeast you can prepare a wine ferment from raisin, grape or any other berries.
- To let out all sugars from the pulp, put all kiwis in a plastic bag and leave it in a freezer for 2-3 hours. This step is optional but recommended.
- After defrosting, peel the kiwis and carefully ground them by hands without crushing the seeds. Otherwise, the wine will turn out bitter.
- Put the pulp into fermentation container. Add all water and 625 grams of sugar (approximately 50%). Add the wine yeast. Stir the must until smooth and then tie the neck of the vessel with cheesecloth to protect it from insects.
- Leave the must for 3 days in a dark place with a stable room temperature of 18-28 °C. To prevent the wine from going sour, stir it thoroughly every 8-10 hours and sink the pulp in the juice. 4-12 hours after the addition of yeast you should see the signs of fermentation: foaming, hissing sound, and light sour smell. This means that everything is going well.
- Filter the must through 2-3 layers of cheesecloth, squeeze the pulp dry and remove it.
- Add 375 grams (30%) of sugar to the liquid part and stir.
- Pour the must into a fermentation vessel. Fill it up to a maximum of 75% of the volume so that there is enough space left for carbon dioxide and foam. Install an airlock of any design on the neck of the container.
- Leave the filled container in a dark place with a temperature of 20-28°C until the fermentation process is finished.
- 8 days after the airlock has been installed, add the remaining 250 grams (25%) of sugar. To do this, separately drain 250 ml of the fermenting juice, dissolve sugar in it, stir, and pour the obtained syrup back into the fermenting wine vessel. Then close the container with the airlock once again.
Depending on the temperature and yeast used, the fermentation process of homemade feijoa wine lasts 35-60 days. You can tell that the fermentation process has stopped if the airlock has stopped emitting gas (or the glove has deflated), there’s no more foam but a layer of sediment at the bottom.
If the fermentation process lasts for more than 50 days after the airlock installation, the wine should be decanted and then put under the airlock again to ferment at the same temperature in order to prevent it from becoming bitter.
- Gently decant the fermented wine into another container. Taste it and add more sugar to sweeten the taste (optional). You can also increase ABV by adding vodka or alcohol in amounts of 2-15% of the wine volume. Such wine has a longer shelf-life but has a harsher taste.
- Fill the aging vessels with wine preferably to the brim to eliminate the risk of contact with oxygen. Seal them tightly and keep in a fridge or cellar at 2-16 °C.
- Let the kiwi wine age for at least 6 months. In case of 2-4 cm sediment layer forming, you should filter the beverage by pouring it through a tube into another vessel.
- When there’s no more sediment build-up you can bottle the wine for storing. Homemade Kiwi wine’s shelf-life is up to 3 years if stored at 2-16 °C. 10-14% ABV.
Kiwi Fruit Wine after 8 months of aging