Feijoa Wine

[kenour]

Hey All,

I have a glut of feijoas this year and have decided to make a feijoa wine. I found this recipe online and keen to give it a whirl, I'll multiply the recipe by 4 (to fill my 25lt fermenter, and eventually age in a 23lt glass carboy) and use honey instead of sugar and see how I go

Any suggestions?

Feijoa Wine Recipe
Ingredients:
Enough feijoas to yield 1 kilos of feijoa flesh
1 kilo of sugar
4 litres of water
1 Campden tablet
teaspoon of tannin
teaspoon of malic acid
teaspoon of tartaric acid
1 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 package of wine yeast
1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient
Method:
Freeze the feijoas, thaw them and then scoop out the flesh. This freeze/thaw process helps weaken the cell walls and allows the fruit to release more flavour during the fermentation process.
Place the feijoa flesh in a large plastic bin or bucket.
Use a potato masher to mash up the fruit - this will further break down the fruit and free its juice.
Add your water and sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the tannin, malic acid, tartaric acid and pectic enzyme.
Crush the Campden tablet and add this to the mixture. Campden tablets contain sodium metabisulphite and are used to kill bacteria and inhibit the growth of wild yeast.
Cover your bucket with a cloth and leave it to sit for three days. Stir it morning and evening each day.
Strain the mixture through cheesecloth into a clean bucket.
Add the yeast nutrient and the wine yeast. Its best to start the yeast first. Do this by mixing it with one tablespoon of sugar and 60 ml luke warm water and leaving it to stand for 15 minutes.
Cover the bucket with a cloth and leave it to stand for 6 days - this is where your primary fermentation will take place.
Siphon the wine off the sediment that will have collected at the bottom of the bucket and transfer the wine to a fermenting bin with an airlock - your wine is now entering its secondary fermentation phase.
Place the fermentation bin in a cool dark place and leave for 30 days.
After 30 days, siphon the wine from the fermentation bin, discard the collected sediment and then return the wine and ferment for a further 90 days.
When fermentation is complete, bottle the wine and age in a cool dark place for at least 6 months before drinking.
Worth the Wait
You might have to wait a few months until you can sample the fruits of your work, but when the time comes youll probably agree it was worth learning how to make feijoa wine.

Cheers,

Ken.

 

[kjparker]

Hey All,

I have a glut of feijoas this year and have decided to make a feijoa wine. I found this recipe online and keen to give it a whirl, I'll multiply the recipe by 4 (to fill my 25lt fermenter, and eventually age in a 23lt glass carboy) and use honey instead of sugar and see how I go

Any suggestions?



Cheers,

Ken.

You could send me some of the Feijoa's! My Missus loves them, but cant get any here in Australia!

Where did you get your tree?

 

[kenour]

You could send me some of the Feijoa's! My Missus loves them, but cant get any here in Australia!

Where did you get your tree?

I have 6 bearing fruit, my uncle has over 100 in his orchard. My Gran (his Mum) had 10 trees in New Zealand that were massive, about 40 years old. I used to have a rope swing attached to one of the branches when I was young, very fond memories. Gran used to make feijoa pie and preserve heaps of them every year. So we both grew up with them as our favourite fruit.

So pretty much everyone in my family has a couple in their back yard

I'm really hoping that this batch turns out ok, because I'm hoping to scale things up next year with fruit from my uncles orchard.

 

[pdilley]

Feijoa trees have to be around here, I just bought a jar of home made Feijoa chutney from the country Sunday market where I live.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[kenour]

Feijoa trees have to be around here, I just bought a jar of home made Feijoa chutney from the country Sunday market where I live.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Better not have pinched any from my trees! Which market?

 

[A3k]

I've got a feijoa tree that's fruiting. was on my block when i bought my house.
i've tried the fruit, but it's not really my thing.

Unless the Feijoa wine is amazing, i don't think i'll be using the fruit.

if there's anyone in adelaide that wants some fruit, you're welcome to it.

 

[pdilley]

Better not have pinched any from my trees! Which market?

Dereel. Probably is nearly halfway between Colac and Ballarat.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Greg Lawrence]

Has anyone in Sydney had any luck growing them?

Ive got a couple of young trees that havent produced anything after 3 years.

I was back in NZ a few weeks ago and ate so many that they gave me the shits.
Tried a feijoa beer too (by Mata). That wasnt too flash.
I made some feijoa & passionfruit wine about 20 years ago. It turned out more like a liquor than a wine (because I didnt know what I was doing), but it was bloody beautiful all the same.

 

[kenour]

Ive got a couple of young trees that havent produced anything after 3 years.

Sounds about right, my grandparents moved over here a few years back; they planted feijoas but didn't get anything for the first few years. They do take a while before they produce. They're nearly as bad as avocados, I've got a tree that's nearly 10 years old now and still hasn't fruited!

I was back in NZ a few weeks ago and ate so many that they gave me the shits.

Sounds like my sister... The frequency of her visits seem to pick up around april/may for some reason. A mysterious 10 or so minute gap also seems to appear from when I hear her pull up to when the door bell rings during these visits. Instead of parking near the house like usual she also tends to park half way down the drive way next to the feijoa trees... strange!

 

[felten]

We have a feijoa growing down here in melb, I thought it would be too cold but apparently they like a bit of frost to start them fruiting. Just under 2m high so it's more of a shrub ATM really. Took a while to get started but it's fruiting really well now, but not enough to make a batch of wine this year.

 

[kenour]

We have a feijoa growing down here in melb, I thought it would be too cold but apparently they like a bit of frost to start them fruiting. Just under 2m high so it's more of a shrub ATM really. Took a while to get started but it's fruiting really well now, but not enough to make a batch of wine this year.

I'm in Ballarat, and they're doing quite well. They do like a bit of cold

 

[felten]

Just got gifted 10kg of feijoas so it looks like I'll be making wine after all.

 

[barls]

i made a mead last year but only got 2 750ml bottles of it so, will let oyu know how it tastes when i do open it though.

 

[Screwtop]

Friend out of town here has a Feijoa Orchard..................hmmm.

OT I know but I googled around and found a few Feijoa beers such as the one from MATA of Aotearoa Breweries NZ.

Sounds like a plan!

Screwy

 

[kenour]

The biggest problem I think I'm going to have with this recipe is how quickly feijoa oxidises. I'm thinking I'll have to do it a kilo at a time. I'll just collect the windfalls every couple of days and shuck them into ziplock bags and freeze them. Then when I have 6kg of pulp, defrost and get them straight into the water. I often add a little lemon juice when I'm shucking feijoas to make pie to keep the nasty oxidisation away. I don't know how it would affect this recipe though, not sure how lemon juice would react with the other ingredients.

 

[Greg Lawrence]

i made a mead last year but only got 2 750ml bottles of it so, will let oyu know how it tastes when i do open it though.

Hey Barls, where did you get the feijoas?

 

[barls]

father in law

 

[kenour]

I shucked 4kg of feijoa's today and got 1.8kg of pulp. So it seems you get a little less than half pulp retained by weight. I then did another bag and got 3.5kg in total, so more than half way there. I've put it in an ice cream container and whacked it in the freezer as instructed, I just have to wait for some more fruit to ripen so the freezing comes in handy!

Just looking at the recipe, it says to sit in a bucket for 3 days then strain into fermenter and pitch yeast. For others that have made this kind of wine (fruit wine of any sort), could you see a problem with leaving the pulp in during primary fermentation then straining? Trying to retain and much flavour as possible. If I let the pulp thaw then blitz it with a hand blender before combining the ingredients, then rack carefully after primary fermentation would I retain more flavour? Or would treating the fruit so harshly have a bad result? I suppose they don't blitz grapes when they make wine do they?

 

[Golani51]

Just got gifted 10kg of feijoas so it looks like I'll be making wine after all.

Any idea how much and where they can be bought?

 

[felten]

Any idea how much and where they can be bought?

No idea, they were a gift.