How to Make Pumpkin Wine – A Unique Pumpkin Spice Recipe
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Did you know you can make a fruit wine out of just about any fruit or vegetable with a fairly high sugar content – even pumpkin wine?
One of my foraging mentors, the late Mike Jacisin, was willing to experiment with cooking and fermenting just about anything. One year he was blessed with an abundance of onions, so he made a batch of onion wine. Alas, said onion wine went down in infamy as the worst brew he ever concocted, and has become a running joke in our extended circle of family and friends.
This year we’ve been blessed with such an abundance of sweet onions that I’m seriously considering a small batch of the infamous brew, since I missed out on tasting the original, but thus far my husband has vetoed the idea.
Since he won’t let me ferment onions, I’d like to share how to make pumpkin wine. Like Mike, I’m willing to bulk up my food and beverage storage with a wide variety of foodstuffs, and it’s fun to break out a bottle of an unusual brew for friends.
I am not a big wine drinker, but I love the rich, yeasty smell in my kitchen as the wine ferments. Wine is pretty forgiving, too. I’ve made batches that are better or worse, but nothing completely skunky like some of my beer brewing friends have encountered.
How to Make Pumpkin Wine – Step by Step
Use pumpkins or other winter squash to make this simple homemade wine. Pie pumpkins and winter squash have sweeter pumpkin flesh than jack o’ lantern pumpkins. If you don’t have whole spices on hand, you can substitute a teaspoon of pumpkin spice seasoning.
Ingredients
- 8 cups pumpkin
- 1 pound raisins (I used golden, but any are fine.)
- 1 – 4 inch cinnamon stick
- 1 inch fresh ginger root
- 1 whole nutmeg
- 1 gallon water, boiling
- 5 cups sugar (granulated sugar or brown sugar)
- 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
- 3 teaspoon acid blend (Pumpkins are low acid, so acid helps promote proper fermentation. See below.)
- 1 package wine yeast
Directions – First Ferment
Wash, trim, peel and chop (or grind) the pumpkin. I peeled and shredded my pumpkin and mixed it with the raisins before adding the spices.
Place the pumpkin in a primary fermenter, such as a food grade 3 gallon bucket or large crock. (I used my three gallon crock.) Add raisins, spices and boiling water. Let sit overnight.
Add sugar, yeast nutrient, and acid blend. Stir well to dissolve sugar. Specific gravity should be between 1.090 and 1.095.
Sprinkle yeast over the mixture and stir. Stir daily for three to five days, until specific gravity is 1.040. (I bought a hydrometer but not a graduated cylinder, so I skipped this step. If you would like to see how to measure specific gravity using a hydrometer, check here.)
The mix will get nice and bubbly, and should have a pleasant, mildly yeasty smell and pumpkin flavor.
At the end of this first ferment, the pumpkin will have turned to mush and the grapes will be plump.
Strain the wine dregs (the leftover solids from the wine) and squeeze out as much juice as you can. We compost this or feed it to the chickens.
Second Ferment
Siphon pumpkin wine into a one gallon secondary fermenter, add enough water to fill the fermenter, and attach airlock. You can see at this point the wine is very cloudy – not terribly appealing. It clears as it ages. I used a glass gallon jug with a plug type airlock.
Final Aging
For a dry wine, rack in three weeks, and every three months for one year. Bottle.
For a sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup wine. Stir gently, and place back into secondary fermenter. Repeat process every six weeks until fermentation does not restart with the addition of sugar. Rack every three months until one year old. Bottle the wine.
Here’s the wine is sitting, covered, in a corner of the kitchen. The particulates settled very nicely – no more cloudy wine.
The wine is best if you can refrain from drinking it for one full year from the date it was started, so prepare it in fall to enjoy the following year.
We made the dry version in October 2011. It packed a punch, but I prefer my wine a little sweeter, so we’ve switched to the sweet version.
You can download a pdf of the wine labels I used here. => Printable Pumpkin Wine Labels
Pumpkin Wine Recipe
Sweet or dry, this unique wine is sure to be a conversation starter.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 8 cups pumpkin
- 1 pound raisins (I used golden)
- 1 – 4 inch cinnamon stick
- 1 inch fresh ginger root
- 1 whole nutmeg
- 1 gallon water, boiling
- 5 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
- 3 teaspoon acid blend
- 1 package wine yeast
Instructions
- Wash, trim, peel and chop (or grind) the pumpkin. Place in primary fermentor. Add raisins, spices and boiling water. Let sit overnight.
- Add all other ingredients except yeast.
- Stir well to dissolve sugar. Specific gravity should be between 1.090 and 1.095. Sprinkle yeast over the mixture and stir. Stir daily for three to five days, until specific gravity is 1.040.
- The mix will get nice and bubbly, and should have a pleasant, mildly yeasty smell.
- At the end of this first ferment, the pumpkin will have turned to mush and the grapes will be plump. Strain the must and squeeze out as much juice as you can.
- Siphon into secondary fermentor, make up to volume with water and attach airlock.
- For a dry wine, rack in three weeks, and every three months for one year. Bottle.
- For a sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup wine. Stir gently, and place back into secondary fermentor. Repeat process every six weeks until fermentation does not restart with the addition of sugar. Rack every three months until one year old. Bottle.
- Let age for at least a year for best flavor.
Notes
Pumpkins are low acid, so you need to add extra acid to help promote proper fermentation.
What are an acid blend, acidity, wine yeast and yeast nutrients?
If you're new to winemaking, these items may not be familiar to you. This explains acid blend, acidity, wine yeast and yeast nutrients.
Acid Blend
A blend of acids important to wines, usually tartaric, malic and citric acids. While there are many different formulations of acid blend, the recipes on this site calling for acid blend assume a blend of 50% tartaric, 30% malic and 20% citric. If your acid blend uses a different ratio, you may want to use slightly more or less depending on your blend.
Acidity
The amount of acid in the must, liquor, or finished wine. Insufficient acidity in the must will result in a poor fermentation and a slightly medicinal and flat taste.
Too much acid will give the wine an unpleasant sourness or tartness. Some acid is necessary for fermentation, and up to one-fourth of the initial acid content will be consumed by the yeast during fermentation.
Low-acid musts are usually corrected by adding tartaric acid (the principal acid in grapes), malic acid, citric acid, or acid blend. An acid testing kit is indispensable in measuring initial acidity. There are two measures of acidity used in winemaking; see pH and Titratable acidity.
Wine Yeast
Yeast cultured especially for winemaking, with such desirable attributes a as high alcohol tolerance, firmer sediment formation, and less flavor fluctuation. Wine yeasts are usually obtained from a winemaking/ brewing specialty shop or by mail order.
Yeast Nutrient
Food for the yeast, containing nitrogenous matter, yeast-tolerant acid, vitamins, and certain minerals. While sugar is the main food of the yeast, nutrients are the “growth hormones,” so to speak.
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Have you ever tried winemaking? What's your favorite brew? What other ways do you use up excess pumpkin or squash?
For our more adventurous home brewers, you may enjoy “Wild Yeast Brewing – Books About Wild Beer, Mead and More“.
This article is written by Laurie Neverman. Laurie grew up in the kitchen, learning baking and home cooking from her momma. At age 15, she and her mom and two sisters created Irene’s Custom Cakes & Catering, which was her summer job through most of high school and college.
Originally posted in 2011, last updated in 2023.
