18%+ ABV Pineapple Wine

What began as a simple wine, made from a pineapple that was too ripe to eat straight but still good enough to use, has turned into an experiment in step feeding. Please indulge me for just a minute as I explain how I got here.

It all begins with tepache, a low alcohol, naturally fermented beverage that is sweet, tart and bubbly. I had been making it for a few months and enjoyed it quite a bit. When it came time for Christmas, I upgraded my fermenter jars to something bigger and with an airlock to keep it safer (Little Big Mouth Bubblers from Northern Brewing). After switching to the new fermenters I decided to add an extra cup of white sugar, and let the beverage ferment out dry, creating my first pineapple wine.

By no means what it a great wine but it showed promise and with some more sweetness and pineapple flavor, could be quite nice. So when a pineapple sat around on the counter too long (I swear it wasn’t on purpose) I dumped the whole thing and set to work. This was February 9th.

The plan was simple, add the whole pineapple minus the top, bottom and core, the same amount of sugar as my first wine (came out around 9%) and let it ferment dry. Then add some more sugar and let it go dry again, repeat until the yeast hits it’s tolerance and sweeten to taste. What could go wrong?

So apparently that stuff (Fleischmann’s Instant Dry Yeast) doesn’t understand it’s supposed to stop at 10-12% like most homebrewers will tell you. I added a half cup after it went dry (to hit 10% or so) and it went dry again. “Well”, I thought, “it must be near it’s limit now, so if I add a cup it will stop sweet and I’ll be on my way”. Wrong, dry again. “Amazing, but it can go up to 13 or even 14% certain situations, just add a whole extra cup and I’ll be done.” Wrong-o.

At this point, I decided to turn it into an experiment and continued to check the gravity weekly or so and add a cup of white sugar if it had gone dry. So when did it stop? As of March 21st, the day I am writing this, it hasn’t. No it looks like it may be going dry again now on it’s FIFTH ADDITION!! I will include my gravities below for those who will inevitably call BS, but as of now this “wine” is sitting at 17.5% and will likely end close to 20%, so yeah, bread yeast, am I right?

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Update 3/23

The gravity only moved a little bit in the past week, so I’m hoping that means it’s finally hitting the ending point. I added another cup of sugar and stirred it up really well, so now with a specific gravity of 1.016 I’m hoping it only ferments a little more and I can start the finishing process. I’ll continue to swirl it daily to degas and keep the yeast in solution, but after this week I’ll let it settle and hopefully start clearing.

Update 4/6

Gravity only moved 3 points, so I racked to a 1 gallon jug with airlock to let it clear. Took a small taste and it is of course alcohol forward, but also very effervescent and sharp pineapple flavor. If it mellows in time it does show some possibility, but would at least make a good mixer I think as there is enough fruit flavor.

Gravity Readings and Total Alcohol to Date