thank you for your reply!! Please keep the post updated on your progress, taste, etc.. I'm very interested in your recipe and results. I can't stand finding a post here on a recipe or mixture that I want to try and discover that it is older and has no posts about results.
Brewing with Chocolate
- Thread starter Raptor99
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I have used earl grey black tea in other wine batches before by itself and we have liked it. So this time after I had already added the grape tannin my wife asked, "are you using the tea this time?" Which I had not lol. So after some discussion we decided what the hell, lets try the tea also.
well it is definitely a good idea to follow the wife's directions (!) and.....if it turns out bad, take the blame on something that you did.....
@bade50, your welcome. I will update in about a month when I'm ready to rack again. I consider this first rack I did yesterday as a dirty rack and still the primary. Once fermentation has stopped, which I normally wait a month, I will rack again for the stabilization stage which some call the secondary fermentation. I don't like calling it a secondary fermentation because there is no fermentation taking place. This is where the wine stabilizes and naturally de-gases.
Oh trust me, it will not turn out bad lol. If we do not think it turned out well I will just blend it with a solo cherry wine.
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I have 5 gallons of black cherry wine made from vintners best black cherry concentrate. Not sure how this wine will turn out but I got it cheap ($23) so I figured I would give it a try. My question is there any way to add the chocolate after fermentation? It is at .995 SG and I am letting it age a while before back sweetening and bottling.
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My earlier tasting was what I had after I let the lees settle out in the fridge. So there was a nice strong chocolate flavor. Then I added 1/4 of a vanilla bean. After a few weeks I tasted again. The chocolate flavor was a little light, so I added 15 g cocoa nib for my 1 gallon batch. After 10 days I tasted it again. The flavor was very nice, with more chocolate flavor and vanilla in the background. I racked it off the vanilla and cocoa nibs. I ate one of the nibs and it had very little chocolate flavor, so I think that it was depleted after 10 days. Now I will bulk age for a few months, and the taste it again to see if it is ready for bottling.
My question about using chocolate covered cherries is what ingredients do they have besides cherries and chocolate? I think that those cherries are preserved, so that could be a problem. I don't have exact figures, but with my recipe my cost is around $4-5 per bottle of wine. This will be way better than any $5 bottle of wine I could get in the grocery store.
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I did and it flavored my wine very well. I had some wine that turned out too sweet for my taste so I used it for blending. I had several containers including a 4 liter carboy. This wine is months old. I added brandy, cacao powder and some vanilla extract and now we love it.
@bade50 & @Raptor99 Just wanted to give an update on my cherry/chocolate wine. It's been 3 months since I last racked this wine. As soon as the bung and airlock are removed, there is a delightful aroma of chocolate. I also degased it today after racking and then checked the SG which is right at 1.000. My wife and I both tasted it and we both agree that the flavor is definitely improving. Although it does have a strong alcohol taste, 13.8% ABV, the wine itself is not as harsh as it was 3 months ago. You can definitely taste the cherry on the back of the tongue. It has a very nice mouth feel also. We both agreed that although you can only taste a hint of chocolate that there is a very strong aroma of it. We decided to add 12 grams of America Med. Toasted Oak and allow it to sit for another month before tasting it again to see if it is oaked enough. This is a 3 gallon batch.
I will allow this wine to age a full year. I started it on February 14th of this year. Hopefully it will be ready for Valentines Day.
I will allow this wine to age a full year. I started it on February 14th of this year. Hopefully it will be ready for Valentines Day.
@Rembee It sound like your cherry/chocolate wine is going well. I bottled mine two weeks ago, about 6 months after starting it, because I wanted to free up a carboy. There is a strong chocolate aroma, and the chocolate flavor predominates with cherry at the back. I stabilized and added some glycerin and simple syrup to back sweeten. The chocolate flavor is still bit sharp (some might call it bitter), so I look forward to see how this comes together after some bottle aging. I plan on bringing this out for the holidays. I only made a one gallon batch since this was an experiment. I will definitely be doing this again!
Kind of related but I did a coffee desert wine (RJS), added instant coffee and it tastes like chocolate. Heavy chocolate flavor, and very tasty.
Time for an update. Yesterday I opened a bottle of my cherry chocolate wine, about 1.5 years after starting fermentation. The flavors were well blended and mature. There was a little bitterness, about the same as in a red grape wine with a medium level of tannins. I backsweetened when I bottled, but I found that if I add a little more sugar in the glass it helped to bring out the chocolate flavor. With that addition, it is very good. I'm holding on to a bottle or two to taste at the 2 year mark. But I already know that I definitely want to do this again, so later this year I plan to start another batch.
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