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tomato melomel?!

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Miriam

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Has anybody made tomato melomel? Last summer I found myself staring at 3 kg. of cherry tomatoes in the fridge, wondering why on earth I'd gone and bought so much. So as not to waste, I fermented them (of course). One year later, the bottles yielded a crisp, dry white wine with no tomato flavor but with an almost woodsy note, a little thin, but worth doing again. Now I'm wondering about making it a melomel and if anyone already has, would they mind sharing their notes.

Miriam
 

jab

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I would be interest in this as well. In a couple of weeks my tomato plants will be producing more than I can eat and I think the idea of a tomatomel sounds great!

If no one has anything to say about this I will be the guinea pig. Will have to wait 3-4 weeks before the toms get moving real good though.
 

Oskaar

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The OC
I say GFI! (Go For It!)

Do you like fresh wood shavings in your cage daily, or every other day! LOL

Cheers,

Oskaar
 

Miriam

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Well, I dunnit. Put up a tomato wine and a tomato melomel yesterday. Recipefor the melomel in the Brewlog.

Jab, are you still going to do one of these? I'd love to compare notes. The tomato wine has raisins in it, because last year's was kind of thin and would have been better for being a tad sweet, not totally dry. But I figured that it would be best not to interfere with the honey too much on the melomel.

Miriam
 

jab

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Hey Miriam, I replied to your brewlog. In short yes I am still going to do one. It looks like about 4 or 5 days until I have enough ripe ones (and assuming my wife doesn't grab them and cook them up first).

How big was your batch? I'm not looking at your recipe right now but if I remember right you had 2kg of honey and 1kg of tomatoes. That seems like a lot of honey for a 1 gal. but not enough for a 3 gal. Just curious.
 

Miriam

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Sorry for the delayed answer, Jab...my batch is 1 gallon. The Premier Cuvee I use seems to gobble the sugar up so fast I always wind up adding extra honey to any must it ferments - so I decided to go heavy on the honey in the primary, and see where it goes. The tomato wine I made last summer was a bit too dry for total enjoyment, so I don't mind some residual sweetness - sort of Reisling-sweet is what I'm aiming for. The wine was good chilled, and the color light golden.

I made a tomato melomel and a plain tomato wine, side by side. Of course we know that they are far from having taken their final shape, but I have to say that the plain wine's must is tastier at this point. It has golden raisins in it. If the melomel isn't too sweet, I might rack it onto some raisins when I transfer it to a carboy.

Will take SG reading and add comments later.

Miriam
 

lostnbronx

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Miriam,

I've read about tomato wines, but not tomato meads. Can you describe the taste?

-David
 

Miriam

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David,

Well, I'll respond with due regard for regional variations in fruit, honey, water, and yeast. Since the must is only a few days old, it is of course very yeasty-tasting yet. But having drunk a large spoonful of it, I can say that while the honey taste is present, it is yet not overpowering the taste of fruit. That the fruit is tomato only becomes evident in the nose, after swallowing, not up-front like eating a raw tomato or cooked tomato sauce. A certain tomato-like acidity is present. I expect the tomato character to transform, as it did in the wine, so that the acidity balances out and the tomato melds so completely that you really can't identify the fruit.

In the wine, that took a full year. Before then, sneak tastes yielded a definite, although delicate, tomato taste and some over-acidity. When it matured, though, it was pretty good.

Miriam
 
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