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What Should I Do With Homemade Wine Leftovers?

Travis Philp

gardener

Posts: 965

Location: ZONE 5a Lindsay Ontario Canada

posted 14 years ago

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I've filtered my wine and there's about a gallon of 'lees' aka the dead yeast and other solids left over. The alcohol content is about 13-15%. It's too thick and bitter to drink. I tried once and it gives a really bad hangover. It'd be a shame to just dump it down the drain. I get a new batch of wine every few months, and hope to up that productivity, so I'd really like to find a use for the lees. Any ideas?

I thought about dumping it in my basement worm composter but wondered if the alcohol content would harm them. Same with dumping it on my garden beds. There's gotta be some way to give this stuff a second purpose.

***I posted this in the permaculture forum because I'm trying to turn waste into resource, and come up with multiple uses for an element in my zone 0 system. I hope thats appropriate.

http://www.greenshireecofarms.com
Zone 5a in Central Ontario, Canada

Joel Hollingsworth

pollinator

Posts: 2103

Location: Oakland, CA

posted 14 years ago

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I think chickens would enjoy it: do any neighbors keep chickens?

I think you're right to worry about the alcohol being bad for the worms. Soldier flies are OK on a boozy diet, but I've read most compost worms & earthworms aren't adapted to so much alcohol.

A quick google search turned up a recipe for bread made with wine lees:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6876097_make-bread-wine-yeast.html

You might also try using it to make a mustard sauce of some sort (very easy, but might take experimentation to get the flavor you want):

http://honest-food.net/2010/10/18/how-to-make-mustard/

If you decided to compost it, mixing it with some compost "browns" would probably help a lot. Even if you're doing sheet composting, mixing it into some shredded leaves will probably make it safe to have around the garden bed.

It would probably be a good attractant in a bottle trap, if you have problems with mosquitoes, fruit flies, etc. You might need to add some flour and water for it to work on mosquitoes, though.

"the qualities of these bacteria, like the heat of the sun, electricity, or the qualities of metals, are part of the storehouse of knowledge of all men. They are manifestations of the laws of nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none." SCOTUS, Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kale Inoculant Co.

tel jetson

steward

Posts: 3701

Location: woodland, washington

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posted 14 years ago

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I've heard of folks cooking and baking with lees from beer, cider, and wine. I've used it in soups and it worked relatively well. I imagine there is some good stuff in all those yeasties. I don't have any recipes to offer, though.

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posted 14 years ago

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I wonder if you could distill the alcohol out of it? Freeze it to about 22 degrees and you should have a slush. Strain the liquid out and it should be nearly pure alcohol. Add it back to some good wine to make brandy.

Joel Hollingsworth

pollinator

Posts: 2103

Location: Oakland, CA

posted 14 years ago

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Tinknal wrote:
I wonder if you could distill the alcohol out of it? Freeze it to about 22 degrees and you should have a slush. Strain the liquid out and it should be nearly pure alcohol. Add it back to some good wine to make brandy.

This is mostly a good idea, but the components of lees that cause a brutal hangover are not removed by freeze distillation.

If if it were legal to do so, vapor distillation would allow removal of the "heads" (methanol, which boils at a lower temperature than ethanol) and the "tails" (isopropanol, and other fusil oils, which boil at a higher temperature than ethanol) to be isolated by changing containers on the condenser as the brandy forms. But licensing for a still is expensive, and using one without a license is against the law.

Diluting the lees seems like a better idea to me.

Posts: 140

posted 14 years ago

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Joel Hollingsworth wrote:
This is mostly a good idea, but the components of lees that cause a brutal hangover are not removed by freeze distillation.

If if it were legal to do so, vapor distillation would allow removal of the "heads" (methanol, which boils at a lower temperature than ethanol) and the "tails" (isopropanol, and other fusil oils, which boil at a higher temperature than ethanol) to be isolated by changing containers on the condenser as the brandy forms. But licensing for a still is expensive, and using one without a license is against the law.

Diluting the lees seems like a better idea to me.

Damn it man. I've had a hangover before!

Travis Philp

gardener

Posts: 965

Location: ZONE 5a Lindsay Ontario Canada

posted 14 years ago

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Thanks for the ideas all. I'm leaning towards feeding it to chickens. Even chickens need to unwind once in awhile. I thought about cooking it but its rhubarb wine which is extremely bitter and sour. Not sure my iron chef skills are strong enough to make that taste good.

http://www.greenshireecofarms.com
Zone 5a in Central Ontario, Canada

Anonymous

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posted 14 years ago

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Brewer's yeast (or vintner's yeast) is rich in protein and b-vitamins. If you can dry it, it can be added to an animals diet. We used to use dried brewer's yeast (sometimes called 'nutritional yeast') as a spice for popcorn. If you can't dry it or use it before it spoils, dilute it and return it to the soil or just dump it on your compost pile.

Joel Hollingsworth

pollinator

Posts: 2103

Location: Oakland, CA

posted 14 years ago

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Travis Philp wrote: rhubarb wine...is extremely bitter and sour. Not sure my iron chef skills are strong enough to make that taste good.

It might make for a tasty mustard.

Joe Skeletor

Posts: 113

Location: Blue Island, Illinois - Zone 6a - (Lake Effect) - surrounded by zone 5b

posted 14 years ago

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Travis Philp wrote:
Even chickens need to unwind once in awhile.

HA!

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