• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Celebration Generation
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Life
  • Shop
  • Costuming
  • Spandex
  • Gluten-Free
  • Autism
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • About Us
  • Recipes
  • Life
  • Shop
  • Costuming
  • Gluten-Free
  • Autism
  • Contact Us
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Media
  • Join us on Social Media - Food

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
  • Join us on Social Media - Costuming, Etc

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • ×

    Home » Recipes » All Recipes

    Ube Wine Recipe

    Published: Aug 30, 2021

    Note: This site is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for the site to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

    Sharing is caring!

    • Yummly
    • Reddit
    • Email
    • Tweet
    • Share
    • Tumblr
    Jump to Recipe -

    Ube Wine

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    Looking for something unique, pretty, and tasty to brew? Put on a batch of Ube wine! This wine is surprisingly fruity, and full of flavour!

    If you’ve read my Fresh Peach Daiquiri,
    Halloween Pavlova, or
    Calamansi Panna Cotta posts, you may have noticed that we’re fans of Seafood City.

    It’s a HUGE Filipino grocery store about 30 minutes from us, and it’s a *wonderland*.

    It’s where I first found out about calamansi - and ended up with an obsession - and it has all kind of amazing calamansi products.

    It also has fresh ube, and all KINDS of ube products.

    Frozen ube, ube jam, ube baked goods, ube extract, ube flavoured sweetened condensed milk... all in gorgeous shades of purple.

    At one point last year, we went on a “let’s find something to ferment!” shopping trip. We bought frozen calamansi to make a mead.... and we decided to make ube wine!

    ... and here we are!

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    What is An Ube?

    Ube is a purple yam from the Philippines. It’s traditionally used in desserts and sweet foods in Filipino cuisine, including as a jam.

    Ube got really trendy in North America a few years ago, showing up in all kinds of desserts.

    The gorgeous purple colour it lends to whatever it’s used in makes it incredibly “Pinteresty” / Insta-worthy, after all! (Have you seen my Ube White Chocolate Fudge??)

    The thing is, it doesn’t really taste like a sweet potato - it tastes like ... well, dessert. Sweet, with almost a vanilla flavour.

    Obviously something we’d need to make a wine out of, right?

    Several Ube being peeled and chopped into chunks.

    Preparing the ube for wine making.

    What Does Ube Wine Taste Like?

    I was honestly a bit shocked at the taste of our ube wine.

    I guess I’d been expecting something like a non-spiced version of our Pumpkin Mead.

    I’m not entirely sure why... probably just mentally relating mashed sweet potatoes to mashed sweetened squash?

    Anyway... no, it tasted nothing like pumpkin mead.

    It actually tasted really fruity, but ... hard to pin down. Almost a berry flavour?

    Not quite like our
    Homemade Cranberry Wine . Sort of closer to our Homemade Cherry Recipe, but maybe with a bit of blueberry flavour to it, as well?

    Really nice, just really surprising!

    This would be a great wine to have at a wine tasting, if there's any kind of flavour guessing component to it. NO ONE would guess that this is a yam wine!

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    How to Make Ube Wine

    If you haven't attempted making wine before, don't be intimidated! Check out our primer to home brewing:

    - Wine Making At Home, Part 1: Why?

    - Wine Making at Home, Part 2: Equipment to Get Started

    - Wine Making at Home, Part 3: The Brewing Process.

    - Wine Making at Home, Part 4: How to Stabilize and Back Sweeten Wine

    Just a small handful of entries, and you'll be good to go!

    A large white bucket with purple foam showing in it.

    Ube Wine Ingredients

    This wine recipe requires only a few ingredients to make - super simple! Here is some information about those base ingredients that you may find helpful.

    Ube

    We used fresh ube for this recipe, so that’s what we recommend doing. We tend to buy it at Seafood City, but we've also purchased it at other Asian grocers.

    You may be able to find frozen ube. If it’s whole or in chunks, you’re probably ok using it as-is.

    If it’s the mashed ube, I’m not 100% sure it’ll work, but would totally recommend trying!

    Just make sure it’s only ube, without any added ingredients - ESPECIALLY preservatives. If you see anything like potassium sorbate in something... it won’t ferment.

    A large pot of water with chopped ube in it.

    Simmering the Ube.

    Sugar

    While sugar is technically optional when making wine, NOT adding any sugar will result in an INCREDIBLY dry wine.

    When you’re making wine from grape - much like with any other non-grape fruit - you’ll want it to have at least some residual sweetness to it, or it just won’t taste like much.

    The sugar not only helps to bring out the ube flavour, it is an important part of winemaking.

    There are a few aspects of sugar to keep in mind:

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    Type of Sugar

    In terms of type of sugar, we prefer to use plain white granulated sugar for this wine..

    How to Make Ube Mead

    If you’d like to make a mead rather than a wine, you can swap the sugar out for honey. You can use 4-5 lbs of honey for this.

    A couple of notes:

    - I say “Ube Mead”, as that’s what most people would understand... But that’s not super accurate.

    Mead with fruit is technically called “melomel”... but I’m not actually aware of what a mead flavoured with tubers would be!

    None of the other classifications for mead fit, though... and this IS a fruity tasting wine... so maybe it is a melomel.

    Anyone out there happen to know?

    - When you’re using honey instead of sugar, you’re going to want to be careful in your choice of honey. Where white sugar is fairly neutral in flavour, honey can be aggressively flavoured.

    I recommend picking something lightly coloured and lightly flavoured - a clover or orange blossom honey, for instance.

    Something like a wildflower or buckwheat honey is likely to completely overwhelm the flavour from the ube.

    Ube wine being siphoned from a raised white bucket into a glass jar.

    Alcohol Content

    Aside from flavour, there’s the matter of alcohol content.

    Your wine’s final ABV will vary wildly dependent on a few things: The initial sugar content of the ubes you use (this will depend on how much starch comes out from your batch!), how much sugar you add, and what kind of yeast you use (more on that in a bit)

    Any amount of sugar will result in a higher alcohol content than making the same wine without sugar added.

    Sugar - both in the base ube itself, and from the added sugars - is what feeds the yeast, the yeast eats up the sugars and gives off alcohol as the byproduct of that process.

    More sugar = more food = more alcohol... to a point, anyway. About that...

    A glass carboy of homemade ube wine.

    Yeast

    The type of yeast you use will impact the alcohol content of the final product.

    Yeast organisms don’t have an *unlimited* capacity to process sugar into alcohol.

    At some point, the environment they’re living in - the brewing wine - becomes too high in alcohol for the yeast to survive. They die off, the fermentation stops.

    Different types of yeast have different tolerances for alcohol in the environment. That is, some yeast will be able to survive higher amounts of alcohol in the wine, so they’ll continue producing it longer than some other types.

    Some types of yeast will bring you to something like an 8% ABV, while others will let things run wild until close to 20% ABV.

    It’s good to know what you have in mind, when you choose your yeast.

    Note: I’m going to refrain from using brand names in this section, as what’s available varies wildly between suppliers and regions! Ask your local homebrew supply shop for recommendations based on what you’re looking for.

    If you want a sweet wine with a low-ish ABV - without having to back sweeten it (more on that in a bit) - choose a yeast with a lower tolerance for alcohol.

    If you’re looking for a dry wine with a low ABV, choose a yeast with a lower tolerance for alcohol, and don’t use a ton of sugar.

    If you want a sweet wine with a high ABV, use a bunch of sugar with a high-tolerance yeast... and be prepared to backsweeten it.

    If you want a dry wine with a high ABV, use a fair amount of sugar and a high tolerance yeast.

    A glass carboy of homemade ube wine.

    Raisins

    Raisins are there to add some body to the wine - which is especially important with this one!

    Rather than using a fairly viscous fruit juice to make wine from, we’re basically brewing potato flavoured water!

    Everything Else

    Everything else in this recipe is technically optional, but contributes to it finishing as a well balanced wine. These ingredients include:

    Acid Blend, Tannin - Balances and rounds out the flavours.

    Yeast Nutrient - Gives a boost to the yeast.

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    Making Larger Batches of Wine

    As a note, you can easily scale this wine recipe up - in fact, there's a function inside the recipe card itself to do the math for you!

    One note, though: You don't need to multiply the yeast, but the software doesn't know that.

    We will use one pouch of yeast for anything from 1-5x batches, and then 1 pouch for every 5x batches beyond that.

    As a related note: The recipe software is definitely geared towards cooking, not wine making.

    Therefore, you can pretty much ignore all of the info it gives you: The nutritional info is calculated on everything that goes into the wine.

    It does not take into account how much sugar will be fermented out, how much volume is lost to racking, the fact that the fruit pulp is removed before the final product, etc.

    A close up view of a glass of deep purple wine.

    Back Sweetening Your Homemade Ube Wine

    Sometimes - usually, even - you’ll find that the yeast went a bit too far with their smorgasbord, and you end up with a wine that’s not as sweet as you’d like it.

    As previously mentioned ... not sweet enough could mean it not tasting like anything!

    ... so that’s when you back sweeten it! You can read my How to Stabilize and Back Sweeten Wine post for information on how to back sweeten it.

    A close up view of a glass of deep purple wine.

    More Home Brewing Recipes!

    While you've got your current homebrew fermenting away, why not consider putting a batch of something else on, to occupy your wait time? Here are a few of my other wine, cider, and mead recipes:

    Wine Recipes

    Banana Wine Recipe
    Blackberry Wine Recipe
    Blackcurrant Wine Recipe
    Blueberry Wine Recipe
    Cherry Wine Recipe
    Cranberry Clementine Christmas Wine Recipe
    Cranberry Wine Recipe
    Faux Lingonberry Wine
    Lychee Wine Recipe
    Mango Strawberry Wine Recipe
    Mango Wine Recipe
    Mint Wine Recipe
    Lychee Wine Recipe
    Partridgeberry Wine Recipe
    Passionfruit Wine Recipe
    Peach Wine Recipe
    Stone Fruit Wine Recipe
    Strawberry Wine Recipe
    Watermelon Wine Recipe

    Mead Recipes

    Black Cherry Mead Recipe
    Blueberry-Clementine Mead Recipe
    Blueberry Mead Recipe
    Clementine Mead Recipe
    Pumpkin Mead Recipe
    Wildflower Mead Recipe

    Cider & Miscellaneous Homebrew Recipes

    Hard Apple Cider Recipe
    Home Brew Hard Iced Tea Recipe
    Maple Hard Apple Cider Recipe

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    Share the Love!

    Before you chow down, be sure to take some pics of your handiwork! If you Instagram it, be sure to tag me - @CelebrationGenerationCA - or post it to My Facebook Page - so I can cheer you on!

    Also, be sure to subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter, so you never miss out on any of my nonsense.

    Well, the published nonsense, anyway!

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved!
    5 from 1 vote

    Homemade Ube Wine

    Looking for something unique, pretty, and tasty to brew? Put on a batch of Ube wine! This wine is surprisingly fruity, and full of flavour!
    Prep Time3 hrs
    Cook Time1 hr
    Resting time120 d
    Total Time120 d 4 hrs
    Course: Beverage
    Cuisine: French
    Servings: 1 Gallon
    Calories: 8282kcal
    Author: Marie Porter
    Cost: $35

    Equipment

    Large pot
    Slotted Spoon
    Large wire strainer
    Cheesecloth
    2 Gallon Fermenting bucket
    Stopper and airlock
    Long spoon / paddle

    Ingredients

    • 5.5 Lbs Ube Purple Sweet Potatoes
    • 5 cups Granulated Sugar
    • Golden Raisins
    • 1 teaspoon Acid Blend
    • 1 teaspoon Yeast Nutrient
    • Wine yeast of choice

    Instructions

    • Scrub ube well, then peel and chop them into 1" chunks.
    • Add ube to a large pot. Add 1 gallon of water, bring to a boil.
    • Once water is boiling, turn heat down and simmer for 1 hour.
    • While the pot is simmering, prepare your fermenter bucket:
    • Wash and sanitize a 2 gallon plastic fermenter, lid, stopper, air lock, and wire strainer.
    • Place raisins, acid blend, and yeast nutrient into the plastic fermenter.
    • Affix the stopper to the lid of the fermenter, cover and set aside.
    • Once the hour is up, use a slotted spoon to remove all of the ube pieces. Discard.
    • Add the sugar to the pot, stir well, and continue simmering until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, allow to cool.
    • Note: It doesn’t have to be all the way to room temperature, just cool enough that if it splashes on you, it won’t hurt - that’s a good guideline!
    • Line the sanitized wire strainer with cheese cloth.
    • Carefully strain ube water into the fer.menter, discarding the cheese cloth and any sludge that it caught.
    • Affix air lock to lid, cover the bucket, and allow to fully cool over night. For the sake of consistency in readings - and therefore accuracy in ABV calculations - this should be done where you plan to let the wine ferment for the next few months - usually a basement.
    • The next morning, check the Specific Gravity and write it down in your notes, along with the date.
    • Add yeast to the fermenter bucket, stir with a long, sanitized spoon. Affix the lid, allow to sit for 24 hours.
    • The next day, check to make sure that the yeast has started fermenting - there should be bubbles in the airlock, and/or foam in the liquid.
    • Put the lid back on, allow to ferment for one week.
    • After a week or so, use your sanitized siphon setup to rack the must into a freshly sanitized carboy. Put the carboy somewhere cool (not cold!), and leave it alone for a month or so.
    • Using sanitized equipment, rack the stone fruit wine off the sediment, into a clean, freshly sanitized carboy. Cap with sanitized airlock, leave it alone for another 1 month.
    • Rack one more time, leave it for another 2 months or so.
    • When your wine has been racked a few times and shows NO more fermenting activity for a month or so (no bubbles in the airlock, no more sediment being produced, you can move on to bottling.
    • Follow the instructions on your selected type of wine stabilizer to stop fermentation from restarting. For potassium sorbate, this needs to be done 2-3 days before bottling.
    • Using sanitized equipment, take a gravity reading if applicable, then back sweeten as desired, using sanitized equipment.
    • Using sanitized equipment, rack the wine into clean, sanitized bottles. Cork.

    Notes

    IMPORTANT:
    Software generates nutritional information based on the ingredients as they start, and is unable to account for the sugars consumed in the fermentation process.
    As such, the calories, sugars, and carbs are shown WAY higher than reality. Additionally, the listed value is for the entire recipe, NOT per serving.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 8282kcal | Carbohydrates: 2103g | Protein: 47g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 9g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Sodium: 761mg | Potassium: 7530mg | Fiber: 224g | Sugar: 1838g | Vitamin A: 27406IU | Vitamin C: 646mg | Calcium: 360mg | Iron: 35mg

    A wine glass with deep purple ube wine, next to a sliced up ube - purple sweet potato.

    Related posts:

    A tall champagne flute of sparkling mint wine, with a large spring of mint at the base of the glass. White background. Homemade Mint Wine A glass of blueberry wine in front of a pint of fresh blueberries. Blueberry Wine Recipe [Fresh or Frozen] A glass of pale red strawberry wine. Strawberry Wine Recipe A beer flute filled with hard iced tea, against a white and greyish background. Home Brew Hard Iced Tea
    « Stone Fruit Wine
    Blackcurrant Wine Recipe »

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Primary Sidebar

    Marie Porter


    Evil Cake Overlord, All -Around Kitchen Badass!

    More about me →


    Join us on Social Media - Food

    Facebook logo, a white F on a blue background. Instagram icon - a stylized white camera image on blue background. Pinterest Logo - White on red background.

    Join us on Social Media - Costuming, etc

    Facebook logo, a white F on a blue background. Instagram icon - a stylized white camera image on blue background. Twitter logo - a white stylized bird icon on an aqua background.

    More Than Poutine: A Uniquely Canadian Cookbook.
    Learn to sew with spandex

    Most Recent Posts

    • A slice of Reese's Pie, topped with chopped up mini peanut butter cups and Reese's Pieces. It's sitting in front of the rest of the pie.
      Peanut Butter Pie
    • A plate of homemade everything bagels.
      Everything Bagels
    • A plate of garden veggie bagels.
      Veggie Bagels
    • A close up photo of a serving of cottage pie.
      Shepherd's Pie

    We'd love to have you subscribe to our newsletter!


    META

    Site Admin

    Logout

    Entries Feed

    Comments Feed

    Footer

    About

    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Contact
    • Media

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up

      for emails and updates

    Our Other Blogs

    • Autism Rants
    • Beyond Flour
    • Low Carb Hoser
    • Spandex Simplified

    Note: This site is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for the site to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites. While I’ll only ever link to items that I, personally, wholeheartedly recommend, I do need to put that disclosure out there!

    Copyright © 2020 Foodie Pro on the Foodie Pro Theme