Hi all
i am about to make some gooseberry wine and also some blackcurrant wine and wondered if either of these can be frozen before i do it as i have limited time and only one fermentation bucket.
I did it with the rhubarb i made earlier in the season with good results.
many thanks from rather damp Lincolnshire
Paddy
Hi
I had the same problem last year and found by accident freezing the fruit i could extract more juice due to the freezing process starts to brake the fruit down. I am going to freeze all fruits from know on before i use them.
I froze some plums last year with great results. The wine recipe said i had to boil my plums and than lightly mash them to extract all the juice, however when i defrosted the plums they had gone all soft so i could just pulp them with my hands. When i measured the sugar content eg SG reading it was off the scale. The plum wine i have now looks / smells like a smooth sherry. Not tried to drink yet as going to bottle in October as the wine will be a year old then.
I also did this with Elderberry & Hawthorne berry with no problems so far.
As for the gooseberry i will also be freezing mine this year for around a month or so before i start a batch.
Hope this helps
Sarah
Great thankyou, i am finding this winemaking very addictive!!
Tell me about it!
I have started looking at things in a completely different way - if i cannot eat it or drink it - i don't grow it!
Started some Elderflower off the other week smells very pungent.
Just had a thought, if you freeze softer fruit eg strawberry's, blackberry's etc it may be best freezing them on a flat tray to start with as you would if you was freezing broccoli. I would say fruit with skins could be put in a bag and frozen, fruit without skins freezed first on a tray and then put into a bag. In the back of my head i seem to remember freezing some strawberry's and they went off and all i can think of is soft fruit eg without skins must need freezing more quickly to stop decay.
Hope this makes sense?
hi Paddy
Yes it si fine to freeze all fruit till you have time,
I used to freeze all my fruit before turning it into wine - you get a much better flavour as a result.