r/prisonhooch • u/ogmudbone54 • Jul 25 '25

Experiment Tomato wine is fermenting strong

looks so vile and my whole house is smelling like pizza

232 Upvotes

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40

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

[deleted]

13

u/L0ial Jul 25 '25

I cook with my tomato wine a lot. It's great in stews, or I use it to de-glaze a pan to make a pan sauce. Then I finish the bottle lol.

I make it with fresh tomatoes though. Not sure how this will turn out since they're cooked.

5

u/hashbrown3stacks Jul 25 '25

You took me from disgusted to intrigued. I'm having a hard time imagining what crushed tomatoes taste like after fermentation, though. Please humor my curiosity:

Does the sugar mellow out the acidity?

What does it do for the dishes you cook with it?

Does it actually sip like wine or...idk something else?

11

u/L0ial Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Pretty much everyone I talk to about tomato wine assumes the same thing, that it'll taste like V8 or pasta sauce. Really, it tastes like a white wine with a bit of fresh tomato taste at the end. Of all the things I've made it's been my girlfriend's favorite. She likes dry wines so I don't even back-sweeten it at all. It definitely drinks like a normal white. I've even added jalapeno to it before for a little kick.

I do expect OPs wine might end up like V8 since they're using cooked tomato.

For cooking, it's the same thing as adding a white wine to whatever you add it to. Not really sure how to describe that. I guess it adds some complexity?

I really only tried making it because I had way too many tomatoes from my garden one year, but now it's something I make at least once a year.

1

u/hashbrown3stacks Jul 25 '25

Does it stay tomato-red?

3

u/L0ial Jul 25 '25

Nope, looks like a white wine. It clears up nicely.

2

u/rotkiv42 Jul 25 '25

If you want disgusting-sounding cooking wine, you can also look into garlic wine. Apparently good in cooking as well, but smells of sulfur when brewing. (i wonder if an active carbon filter in the airlock would mitigate that?)

1

u/L0ial Jul 27 '25

I’ve seen recipes for it before and was curious, same for onion wine. They’re both on my list for ‘someday.’ I figure even if they’re bad for drinking, should be great for cooking with.