# Choke cherries--2014



## Arne (Jul 24, 2014)

Just recieved an email from my oldest daughter. Attached to it was a picture of her freezer with the caption "Is this enough?" 7 Gal. bags of choke cherries. Don't know when I am going to get them, but think in the near future the house is going to smell of fermenting yeast. Guess it is about time, havn't made anything since last winter. Arne.


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## fivebk (Jul 24, 2014)

Sounds like there will be another good wine started in the near future!!

BOB


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## Arne (Jul 25, 2014)

Mite be ready to taste by fair time, but won't be very good then, Bob. I'll try and save a bottle for you. Sounds like the choke cherries mite be making the trip to here today. Weigh them and get them thawing. Won't be long before they ferment. Arne.


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## fabrictodyefor (Jul 25, 2014)

My sister went and checked where we pick choke cherries and they aren't quite ready, but we sure are!!!


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## Arne (Jul 26, 2014)

40 lbs is a lot of chokecherries. Got em mostly thawed, dosed with k-meta and some water added to em. Pectic enzime within the next hour or so and tonite check the s.g. rest of the ingredients, and pitch the yeast. Next week the house will smell of fermentin yeast. Spose it will call the fruit flys in too. LOL, Arne.


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## brendathebrewer (Sep 11, 2014)

Arne, how is your chokecherry wine proceeding?? is it throwing a lot of sediment? ooohh...interested in an update and what steps you have taken.

i am about to start my batch, after last years first trial run, will use probably a third saskatoons to 2/3rds chokecherries and thinking of using a grape pack or raisins this time.


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## Arne (Sep 11, 2014)

It is sittin in the carboys, have to rack it off the lees one of these days. Tastes pretty good already and starting to clear. Also made a seconds off this one. Seconds color is almost as dark and almost as flavorful as the first. Sure stretches the fruit out. Arne.


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## wyogal (Sep 12, 2014)

*Chokecherry wine: is this ok for a complete novice?*

Sorry to hijack this thread but all of you seem to be experienced & local (ish) to me. It has been such a wet year in Jackson (WY) that the chokecherries are everywhere. I have years of experience with jelly/jam/syrup & so forth but now have about 60 lbs of whole cc's in the freezer. So here are my questions:

1) Is this a reasonable project for someone who has never made wine before? By reasonable I mean a 50% chance of getting something drinkable after investing in the equipment. (not a wine snob, btw, but don't like sweets)

2) Is there an equipment list somewhere online that explains which pieces & parts are required & what they're used for? I have looked at various equipment "kits" and what concerns me is that the "basic" kits seem to have cheaper grade components. Your thoughts?

3) What would be the best amount for a novice to work with? 1 gal? 5 gal? I froze the cc's in 3 lb lots after reading that this amt would be good for 1 gal.

4) One thing that has puzzled me a lot is do you have to wait for the full aging time to tell if you're on the right track? Most of the recipes for cc wine say it needs to age in the bottle for 9-12 months. If I'm going to get a failure a year from now, what am I going to do with next year's crop in my freezer?  

Wow, this is more than I meant to ask but as I wrote the questions kept popping into my brain. Thanks so much for your attention.


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## jensmith (Sep 14, 2014)

wyogal said:


> Sorry to hijack this thread but all of you seem to be experienced & local (ish) to me. It has been such a wet year in Jackson (WY) that the chokecherries are everywhere. I have years of experience with jelly/jam/syrup & so forth but now have about 60 lbs of whole cc's in the freezer. So here are my questions:
> 
> 1) Is this a reasonable project for someone who has never made wine before? By reasonable I mean a 50% chance of getting something drinkable after investing in the equipment. (not a wine snob, btw, but don't like sweets)



95% chance of it being drinkable. 

Just ferment dry. Easier then trying for a sweet wine anyway!! I never make sweet wines. 




wyogal said:


> 2) Is there an equipment list somewhere online that explains which pieces & parts are required & what they're used for? I have looked at various equipment "kits" and what concerns me is that the "basic" kits seem to have cheaper grade components. Your thoughts?



Cheep parts are not always bad. Especially to start with. They may just last a few years instead of decades. Not a big problem! 
All you need is a food grade bucket, auto syphon, carboy and bung with an airlock. Some sort of sanatizer as well. You can use a hose or racking cane, but an auto syphon is sooo much easier to work with! Worth the extra price. 
Wine additives you will need for fruit wines. Peptic enzyme, yeast nutriant, campton tabs or powder, wine yeast. You can get tannins and acid blends as well. 
There are "stickies" at the top of this site that help with starting your wine making. There is also a listing, somehere on here, of vendors. They will have the equipment you need and often have info on their sites. I like the free how to info on the eckrouse.com web site. They do not have the best equipment prices, but have a books worth of free info in their questions section of the web site. 




wyogal said:


> 3) What would be the best amount for a novice to work with? 1 gal? 5 gal? I froze the cc's in 3 lb lots after reading that this amt would be good for 1 gal.



Three galleon size is a good starting place. The fruit will fit in a five gal bucket for fermentation and three gall carboys are easy to handle. Get the betterbottle brand. Glass is heavy! One galleons are good starting batch size. Any batch size will be fine!




wyogal said:


> 4) One thing that has puzzled me a lot is do you have to wait for the full aging time to tell if you're on the right track? Most of the recipes for cc wine say it needs to age in the bottle for 9-12 months. If I'm going to get a failure a year from now, what am I going to do with next year's crop in my freezer?



You can drink the wine after a week (after it has been started) if you want. I sample often for "quality controle" the wine will be very drinkable after a month or three. I do not bottle untill I like the wine. After it has been bottled you can let it age or drink. Save a few bottles untill after they are 12-18 months old. Samlpe them to see if you want to wait next time. They may improve, and may not, with age. 




wyogal said:


> Wow, this is more than I meant to ask but as I wrote the questions kept popping into my brain. Thanks so much for your attention.






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## fabrictodyefor (Sep 14, 2014)

great a reply Julie. My first batch of wine ever was choke cherry, and I loved it...I do have a few bottles left, I am attempting to keep it that one year time! I have 2 more batches of choke cherry going, yep choke cherries around here were great this year....not too many Wyominites that I know of on this forum, welcome, wyogal.


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## brendathebrewer (Sep 14, 2014)

my first batch of wine ever (1 year ago) was chokecherry and saskatoon. between my dad and the helpfullness on this forum my wine has turned out! smooth, clear, 12 percent, but a little bit light on the body. has a beautiful saskatoon aroma! hoping to improve that this go around and upping it to 5 gallons rather than 3. i feel i had not enough fruit in it (used whole saskatoons but the leftover pulp from chokecherry syrup. this time my gallon pail is more than half full of the same - which is probably more than double berry quantity as last time. this should take care of the body, i am assuming.


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## wyogal (Sep 14, 2014)

Thank you Julie--this was exactly the kind of advice I was looking for! Very helpful, practical, encouraging and very insightful also. I had been thinking about the weight of the fluids, but had completely overlooked the weight of the glass! And yet that's just the sort of thing that could be very discouraging.
And thanks for the encouragement FabricTDF. You two are just what I needed to push me into the "yes" column! I don't have a lot of time for forum participation (too many hobbies and a business) but will try to post on my progress. Cheers!


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## Arne (Sep 15, 2014)

Wyogal, 
I used a little over 3 lbs. of berries per gal. of wine. Chokecherries are pretty strong berries so don't seem to need as much fruit as some other berries. Froze the berries, thawed them out, put them in a ferment bag. You can get one at a paint store, they sell them as paint strainer bags. This will make them easier to remove. Added water. I let them thaw, added k-meta, wait 12 hours or so, added pectic enzime. Wait another 12 hours or so, bring the s.g. (specific gravity) up to 1.085 or 1.090 or so with the addition of sugar. Added 1/2 called for nutrient, 1/2 called for energizer, and pitched yeast. I used red star champaine, but there are many others you can use. When ferment gets going good, stir at least once a day. When it fermented down to 1.060 or so, added the other half nutrient and energizer. Warning, it can foam up and over when adding the nutrient and energizer. Add slowly if your primary fermenter is rather small. You mite set the fermenter on a large pan or in a large garbage bag just pulled up a bit around the bottom. If it does go over, this makes the cleanup much easier. I ferment on concrete so it is no big deal, but if you have it over a nice floor, put something under it. Anyway, ferment it down to 1.010 S.G. or so and transfer it to the secondary carboy. Now it can ferment to dry, below 1.000 S.G. and staying the same for at least 3 days running. Next, transfer to another carboy leaving the lees (the junk that has accumulated on the bottom of the carboy.) Now you can give a dose of K-meta (campden tabs). Let it sit and clear or you can use finings on it to help it clear. You can taste it now and it should be tasting like wine. This will be really dry and it mite take a little sugar in the glass to help it along. When it gets totally clear, you can stabalize it if you are going to sweeten it, if not sweetening, you can just add k-meta and bottle. If sweetening, I always let it sit for a couple of weeks after sweetening to make sure it doesn't referment before bottling. I made a seconds wine with mine. When I pulled the fruit out, I transfered to the secondary carboy, added a few cans of frozen white grape juice, left the lees in the primary, put the fruit bag back in, added some water, nutrients and energizer, sugar to 1.085 or so and left it. When ferment restarted, stirred it every day til it got close to dry, put it in carboys and finished like above. Good luck with it, Arne.


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## Elkdog (Sep 16, 2014)

Another Wyomite here. Doing chokecherries wine as well. Picked them on Teton Creek at Alta. First time for this fruit hope it turns out well.


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## Arne (Sep 17, 2014)

You ought to be just fine, Elkdog. Use at least 3 lbs of berries per gallon. Keep the must warm, give it nutrient and energizer, start with half the nutrient andenergizer, add the other half when the specific gravity gets down to 1.060 or so. Start out with your specific gravity around 1.085 to 1.090 or so. Use a wine yeast instead of bread yeast. Bread yeasts work, but the wine yeasts have been designed for winemaking. If you run into any snags or problems, jump on here and ask away. Good luck with it and welcome to the forum. Arne.


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## fabrictodyefor (Sep 17, 2014)

Elkdog said:


> Another Wyomite here. Doing chokecherries wine as well. Picked them on Teton Creek at Alta. First time for this fruit hope it turns out well.



Welcome to the forum Elkdog. Isn't Alta almost in Idaho? You should do fine with the choke cherries, they make a great wine.


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## Elkdog (Sep 18, 2014)

Arne said:


> You ought to be just fine, Elkdog. Use at least 3 lbs of berries per gallon. Keep the must warm, give it nutrient and energizer, start with half the nutrient andenergizer, add the other half when the specific gravity gets down to 1.060 or so. Start out with your specific gravity around 1.085 to 1.090 or so. Use a wine yeast instead of bread yeast. Bread yeasts work, but the wine yeasts have been designed for winemaking. If you run into any snags or problems, jump on here and ask away. Good luck with it and welcome to the forum. Arne.



I am down to 1027 SG and its bubbling like crazy. What is warm, I have the thermostat set at 70 degrees. Is that warm enough? At what SG do you like to drink it at. It is a beautiful color before stirring.


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## Elkdog (Sep 18, 2014)

fabrictodyefor said:


> Welcome to the forum Elkdog. Isn't Alta almost in Idaho? You should do fine with the choke cherries, they make a great wine.



Yes Alta is. In fact you cannot get there from Wyoming, you have to go into Idaho and then back into Wyoming. It is right under the Tetons.


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## Arne (Sep 19, 2014)

It is fermenting down, sounds like, 70 is just fine. With winter coming, my ferments will probably be done much cooler than that, as long as it is warm enough that they keep fermenting everything works ok. Only thing is, when it is cooler, the ferment slows way down. I am not usually in a hurry, so that is ok with me. Arne.


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## wyogal (Sep 20, 2014)

*Thanks Arne & update*

Thank you Arne for the wonderful step-by-step narrative. My equipment & supplies arrived Thursday, and so I started right in. 9lbs cc's from the freezer for 3 gal batch, and followed your procedure and sort of averaged out the recipes. My DH is a chemist, so we measured SG before sugar as you suggested, and also pH.

the CC's this year were so sweet you could eat them off the tree. Still very astringent but sweet, so I started with 1/2 lb sugar/1 lb fruit and measured 1.081 sg. I added another 3/4 lb sugar to bring to 1.092. Took your advice on the yeast nutrient and energizer. The astringency is so great that I didn't add any tannin, and the pH measured 3.51 so I didn't add any acid either.

So I am off and running, and couldn't have done it without all of you. Many thanks!


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## brendathebrewer (Sep 21, 2014)

by cooler, what does that mean, i always understand that between 70 and 75 its perfect. so what temperature is cooler and how much does it slow it down. i also read that the berries need to be removed at 5 or 7 days or so..what effect does this have opposed to 70 - 75 until it ferments down?

actually what is the prime SG for one to strain/squeeze the fruit and transfer to secondary?


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## Arne (Sep 22, 2014)

I generally don't remove the fruit til I rack to secondary. Usually do this about 1.010 or so. I have a basement that gets pretty cool in the winter. Ferments will stall out or really slow down, but they eventually seem to ferment out. I tend to not b e in a hurry about ferments, tho. Kinda did a tapdance around your questions but we all do our ferments our own way. Good luck with yours, Arne.


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## jensmith (Sep 23, 2014)

Colder is below 65, all the way down to 50 degrees. Not all yeast chills out at the same temp. Instead of fermenting dry in a week it will take a month or two. If it does not stop alltogether that is. 


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## ozzie (Jan 17, 2015)

wyogal said:


> 1) Is this a reasonable project for someone who has never made wine before?
> 
> 4) One thing that has puzzled me a lot is do you have to wait for the full aging time to tell if you're on the right track? Most of the recipes for cc wine say it needs to age in the bottle for 9-12 months. If I'm going to get a failure a year from now, what am I going to do with next year's crop in my freezer?



Hey wyogal -

I'm from the same neck of the woods. I picked a ton of chokecherries over at Palisades/Alpine area last fall. Didn't know what to do with them all, and started out with a 3 gallon batch of wine. I went through all the steps from picking to fermenting it out really dry. I didn't have much equipment so I set it up to age it in bottles rather than bulk. (so I could start another batch in my equipment.) I bottled up 15 bottles, and had some left over. My wife and I tasted it, and it was totally drinkable. The recipe says to sit it for 9 months minimum, so that puts me a year out from when I picked them and started the batch. So you can totally do it, very likely it will taste great. And you'll now at about 90 days if it is going to be good. I'm trusting that a 9 month nap will only mellow it out and make it better. But even if it stays the same, it was plenty good to drink.


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## wyogal (Jan 17, 2015)

*Update on chokecherry wine, oaking*

Well I did plunge right in and made 2 batches, one 3 gal and one 5. All has gone very well I think. I was not in a hurry with it, and made sure the fermentation was complete.

The 5 gal batch was ready first, and my brother talked me into putting it into a new charred oak cask that he will fill up with un-aged whiskey. It's been sitting there for about 6 weeks now, and I've been topping off from the 3 gal batch.

Arne (thank you!) pointed me to some people on the board who know about oaking, and it seems the rough rule of thumb for this sort of treatment is 1 week per gallon of cask. (So I'm a bit on the long side, but it hasn't hurt it at all.)

I have to say that while the wine was drinkable before going into the cask, there is no comparison now, and even after only 2 weeks. It mellowed significantly very quickly, and has a much better body now. I honestly don't taste much oaky flavor, just much smoother and a great cherry flavor. Very dry.

Like Ozzie, I intend to bottle it soon and age until next August or so. I'm toying with the idea of submitting some in the Teton County Fair (last week of July) just to see what people think.

I did some things differently in the two batches. Some lessons I learned from this first effort that I will always remember:
1) Fruit that has been frozen is much much easier to deal with in the must. I got better color and flavor, and better slip of the skins & pits.
2) I squeezed the must almost dry before decanting to second fermentation, and I really like the enhanced color, but there were more solids, meaning more decanting and longer clearing time.
3) Since I don't have a utility/laundry sink, the big bathtub in the master bathroom is a wonderful alternative. 

I still have chokecherries in the freezer, but I've been giving away the jelly I made so quickly that I might have to use them for that!


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## Arne (Jan 18, 2015)

You are quite welcome and glad it all worked out for you. Reminds me, probably should think about bottling mine. Arne.


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## fabrictodyefor (Jan 18, 2015)

Hi, wyogal, glad it has worked out for you. My life got a little crazy last fall and I never did get back to you. I have 2 batches of choke cherry going, one with apple juice and one with grape. They are both coming along, but I got a late start and am not near ready to bottle. Maybe we can meet up sometime and exchange a bottle or two of our choke cherry wine! Would love to taste one put on oak. I haven't gotten into the oak barrels yet....mmmm....knew there was something else I should have put on my Christmas list.


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## wyogal (Jun 29, 2015)

*Going on a year now...*

Time flies--it's the end of june already, the chokecherries have set, but it looks like the harvest will be quite a bit lower than last year here due to a hail storm right during bloom. We'll probably have to range a lot farther to pick as much this year.

The batches were split in 2; as you might recall I was filling an oak cask w/5 gal, the rest I bottled without any flavoring. We filled the cask (and bottled) in mid to late Nov, and let it sit for 6 weeks, then bottled the oaked wine in January. We tasted the oaked wine right out of the cask in January, and I have to say the oak cask took the "alcohol edge" off beautifully, and very fast compared with no oak. 

I'm waiting until July to give both another sample. I'll let you know, but I'm thinking that either one will be a good table red.


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## fabrictodyefor (Jun 30, 2015)

Hi, wyogal, good to hear from you again. Sometimes the time drags on when you are wanting a wine to age enough and sometimes "poof" a year has slipped by. This is so interesting about the oak. Last year I had made 2 batches, one with apple juice and the other with grape juice. The choke cherry/apple is ready to bottle, but the choke cherry/grape is still....just not ready! I may get an oak spiral to put in there and see if it helps!


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## wyogal (Jul 1, 2015)

*Want to pick your brain re Not bottled cc/g?*

Hi Fabric--so I'm confused again (not unusual for me)! How long has your chokecherry/grape been sitting since reaching the point of stability from the fermentation phase? I'm assuming you are "bulk aging" this before bottling? Why, and does it make a difference in the end quality do you think? When you say it's "not ready" is that because it doesn't taste right to you, or is there some test measurement you are doing?

PS-are you coming out this way this summer? I'll take you on a float on the Snake


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## fabrictodyefor (Jul 2, 2015)

I think we are going to go through the mountains of CO this summer, but you never know! We always talk about going to Yellowstone, we love it up there. I've been bulk aging my 2 choke cherry wines since last fall. I rack to clean car boys every 2 months or so. The choke cherry/apple tastes great and taste is what I go by. The choke cherry/grape just doesn't taste very good yet. Not "bad", but....you know if you eat a choke cherry it sucks all the moisture out of your mouth...well it doesn't quite do that, but it almost has that feel to the wine. So I figure to just leave it and hope it mellows out after time! Can't imagine anyone actually coming to Wright, but if you find you are coming through just let me know!!


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## Elkdog (Aug 25, 2015)

Bottled my 2014 choke cherry wine last week. It came out light and fresh tasting. Sweetened to about 1.002SG. I bulk aged it for almost a year and it was pretty smooth. Hope it continues to improve.


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## fabrictodyefor (Aug 26, 2015)

Elkdog said:


> Bottled my 2014 choke cherry wine last week. It came out light and fresh tasting. Sweetened to about 1.002SG. I bulk aged it for almost a year and it was pretty smooth. Hope it continues to improve.



Cool, I bottled my choke cherry/apple last month, and my choke cherry/grape is ready to go. Both bulk aged for almost a year. Now I have to make it last as there were no choke cherries this year!


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## jensmith (Aug 27, 2015)

Bottled mine a few days ago as well. What little I had not already drunk that is! Very tasty, very dry, no need to sweeten this batch. I picked enough chockcherries for a big batch and left way more on the bushes. Just not enough time to pick or freezer space, or carboy space! Darn!! 


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## fabrictodyefor (Aug 29, 2015)

jensmith said:


> Bottled mine a few days ago as well. What little I had not already drunk that is! Very tasty, very dry, no need to sweeten this batch. I picked enough chockcherries for a big batch and left way more on the bushes. Just not enough time to pick or freezer space, or carboy space! Darn!!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPod touch using Wine Making



time to buy another freezer!  My first batch of cc I didn't back sweeten at all. Just depends on the cherries!


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