On 3/20/2006 2:13 AM, Droopy wrote:
Anyone here use these before? (archived posts only brought up one
thread where Jack K and Ben from Honeycreek, said they were good - at
least juice wise, I have nectar they may be different things).

I have been eyeing these juices at the store for some time (they are
sold in the Mexican ethnic aisles here). They are nectars, juice with
sugar syrup added to balance flavor, so I figured they would be a rough
approximation flavor intensity wise for wine.

Passing by they were one sale (12oz can) so I decided to try my hand at
a jumex wine. I chose the mango flavor. It is 30% juice (by volume I
suppose). Other interseting flavor they had that I might try in the
future are tamarind, guava and guanabana. They also have the standard
peach, pear, apple and plum.

Here is the recipe I came up with. It was impossible to measure the SG
of the nectar. Since it was basically pureed fruit the pulp was very
fine in solution. So I added extra pectic enzyme.

11 cans Jumex mango nectar
1/2 lb sugar
1 tsp acid blend (I kind of wonder if I should have used citric)
1 tsp pectic enzyme (I used twice the reccomended amount)

I am very interested in trying to get this wine to work. I hear mango
wine is wonderful, but buying mangos and making wine out of them is a
very expensive thing to do here in Nebraska.



Droopy,

I have used nectars of various kinds to make melomel meads. I do not
recall offhand the packager name, but I also get them in the
international food section of my local grocery stores. All have turned
out well. The nectar SG may be measured by diluting with water. Adding
pectic enzyme is a good practice with almost any fruit wine/mead, but
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning for doing so. The fruit being in
puree will not add any more or less pectin than using whole fruit.
Nebraska may differ, but in northern VA where I live it's easy to find
mangoes at Indian and Middle Eastern markets for much less than at the
grocery store chains. Good luck with your wine!


Cheers,
Ken Taborek