First timer's first brew. Looking for feedback.

[dottle]

Hey Sup.

After many years of putting it off I really want to give home brew a try.
I've always been interested in home brewing fruit wines, meads and to a lesser extent ciders ever since one of my first girl friends introduced me to her parents (her father made excellent fruit wines that would knock your socks off) but I've never had the time or the room needed to put down a nice drop or two.

So here I am.
I've done a bit of reading and I'm ready for my first experiment but I wanted to just get some feedback from those with more experience than me (everyone) before I threw myself into the deep end and from what I've seen this is the friendliest forum there is.

Here's what I have planned.
I'm going for a fruit wine to start and from what I've read not an easy one to get right but for the last thirty odd years I've been thinking about the watermelon wine my GFs dad gave me the night I met him.

This is what I have so far.

I'm going to buy myself some (seeded) watermelons and juice up about ten litres of juice.
Then I'm going to simmer it down to about eight litres (or less if I can manage) before popping in some sugar. I'm thinking just regualr granulated sugar for this first attempt to see how it goes, enough to take me to 1.070SG. If I can concentrate the juice further I will and adjust accordingly but I'm open to suggestions here.

Once I've let that cool I'll be putting it into my food grade plastic bucket/fermentor with some yeast. From what I've read I'm thinking champagne yeast for this but again I'm open to suggestions.

I'm going to let that have it's head for a few weeks (four seems to be the generally accepted time written about) but I'll play it by ear and see when it starts to slow down/stop.

Once the yeast has had its way with the sugar I was going to siphon it, test it and try to judge what it needs in the secondary fermentation to make it work. Acid? More sugar? Honey? More watermelon juice? etc.

This is the bit I'm not sure of. Can I make alterations like that at the secondary stage to balance out the brew? The standard literature is vague. :/

After that it will be just a case of letting it settle (I hope) and a final transfer into glass.

If anyone has suggestions I'm happy to hear them.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Airgead]

Never made watermellon wine but in general -

For a fruit wine you do not want to cook the juice. Ever. It chages the flavour. A lot. Think about a fresh apple and apple sauce. Its that kind of change.

I'd juice them up and add sugar to get the strength you want. Invest in a hydrometer or refractometer. You want something with a potential alcohol at around wine strength. Say 12-14%. I'm not sure how much sugar watermellon juice has but I doubt its in the range you need. You will probbaly have to add some sugar to get there. Just plain white sugar will do. Or you can use a diferent sugar like raw or brown or honey or whatever but bear in mind that those flavours will come through in the finished wine. You may need to do some taste tests. Dip some watermellon in brown sugar (for example). Before you slip into a diabetic coma, work out whether its a good combination.

Use a good white wine yeast. 71B is my yeast of choice for fruit wines. It can be hard to get though. Any good white strain should do a good job.

Make a small batch first (maybe 5l or even 1l if you want) to get things right before committing to a larger batch.

Good luck...

Cheers
Dave