Cherry wine

[geek]

I am now really thinking about this extract from LP:
Natural Cherry Flavoring 4 oz

https://labelpeelers.com/beer-makin...eer-flavorings/natural-cherry-flavoring-4-oz/

According to what LP told me, this is all natural extract and no artificial flavor...

 

[ceeaton]

I've used this before with great success. Just got it from Giant not Walmart. Just costs a few $$.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/R.W.-Knu...75035&wl11=online&wl12=24389738&wl13=&veh=sem

 

[GreenEnvy22]

I'm making a 3 gallon batch from 13Lbs of sweet cherries we picked on 7/3/2017. We pitted them all and then froze them so juice will come out easier.
I'll be adjusting sugar level to 1.085 and using 1118 yeast because thats what I have right now.

 

[Scooter68]

Keep us posted on the progress!

 

[tjgaul]

It must be the season. I kicked off a little 1 gallon batch on Sunday. I used 3.5 Lbs of fresh cherries from the tree in my yard and added 1 banana, 2 squares of dark bakers chocolate and about an inch of vanilla bean. This was based on a recipe that calls for both brown sugar and regular cane sugar. Made a yeast starter and pitched K1-V1116. It's fermenting vigorously and smells great at this point.

This is my first attempt at cherry wine. If it goes well I will make a more concerted effort to get a larger harvest next year.

 

[Smok1]

Boom! Helped fix a neighbors air conditioner for him, when he asked how much $ i said i dont charge neighbors, today he stopped by with 40lbs of cherrys. Im stoked. Ive done blueberry wine, rhubarb, strawberry, rasp/blackberry, ive always wanted to do cherry but there pretty expensive here to buy in the store enough for wine. Now the question is "to pit? Or not to pit?" And whats the best way to put these suckers.

 

[geek]

That looks great..
I only made mine with pitted frozen cherries but I think you want to pit them and freeze them.

 

[Smok1]

That looks great..
I only made mine with pitted frozen cherries but I think you want to pit them and freeze them.

Im trying to figure the easiest way of extracting these off there pits, pitting 40lbs of cherries seems like a daunting task, it fills both my kitchen sinks to the top. Id like to pit them and run them through my juicer like i ussually do with fruit wines but i think i might resort to mashing them in the fermenter and straining out the pits.

Or pay my kids to depit them

 

[GreenEnvy22]

We did some of ours (35 Lbs) with a drinking straw, and some with a 4-at-a-time cherry pitter.
The straw method is slower but you get all the pits out. the pitter is less reliable.

 

[Scooter68]

I purchased an antique pitter that I have yet to use . But having used a plastic manual pitter (Push down, check for proper separation and repeat) at a rate of about 15-20 cherries a minute I wouldn't worry if the process isn't 100% in getting the pit out. A few pits aren't going to spoil the batch.

 

[Smok1]

Ok that was a big job but i had the help of my son, daughter, and my lady, i used stainless steel straws i had from some starbucks drink cups. They worked really well but all our fingers were hurting by the time we finished haha. Destemmed, cleaned, depitted, and juiced 40lbs in 2.5 hours.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Got mine going today. I had 6Kg of frozen sweet cherries we picked and pitted earlier in the week.
I added 2L of organic no preservative, not from concentrate cherry juice, then 6L reverse osmosis water, and 4Lb sugar.
Added some acid blend to bring pH to 3.5, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and KMS.
About 12 hours later I added some yeast.
SG was right at 1.085.
I have 15L in the bucket now, but that is with all the cherries in there. Should be around 12.5Lb of juice.

 

[pgentile]

This thread has inspired me to do a cherry wine. I called around to local wholesalers and can't get any sour/tart cherries right now. I can get dark cherries for $11.00 for 18 lbs. I ordered sour cherry concentrate from homewinery.com. So my recipe so far is:

36 lbs - black cherries(freeze then de-pit)
64oz - sour cherry concentrate
water to 6 gal
sugar to 1.100
pectic enzyme
yeast nutrient


acid blend ?
tannin ?
yeast QA23 ?

Would I be better off looking for frozen sour/tart cherries instead if using dark fresh cherries?

Is 64oz of sour concentrate too much?

This recipe as is will come in around $80 for 6 gal batch

 

[Scooter68]

I Think the price is ok. Not great but not high either for 6 gallons. I pay about $10.00 per gallon for my concentrate so that's a little higher than yours but your fresh fruit is not cheap either so, it sounds reasonable.
Interesting that they don't tell what variety of cherrys the sour cherry concentrate is made from. They may just source it from the cheapest supplier of juice/cherries. Some companies specify exactly what type fruit goes into their juice. Does it matter? If your really want to know what's going in your wine then yes. With grapes there is much to do made about the grape variety and even the vineyard it comes from. (Northern California vineyards are better than central California ones- Really??)

1) Remember to add volume to your starting point for the loss of gross lees from the cherry pulp. Even in a pure concentrate with no pulp you will lose a significant amount to yeast and other material that will form and precipitate out. For my recent blueberry batch I started with just over 3.6 gallons and barely had 3 gallons when the pulp came out at first racking and that was with 16 3/4 pounds of blueberries. Cherries and blueberries should be about equal in the extent to which the pulp breaks down into liquid.
2) Some will say you cannot have too much flavor but.... for most fruits I believe there is a tipping point where you are wasting fruit/money adding more and more for very little return
3) Mixing tart and sweet cherries is a reasonable thing to do but I think most allow the tart to be the dominant one. It's really more of a personal thing to be honest.

The additions -
Acid blend only to get to the pH start point you want. Most fruit wines do best somewhere between 3.4 and 3.6 as a start point. Do NOT go higher (3.7 3.8 etc)
Tannin - Your choice - check around about recipes for cherry wine. With a dominant tart cherry you won't need as much if you do use it.
Yeast - Your choice. Some of us don't refine the yeast choice as much as we could for the wine type. Some have a favorite yeast and stick with it as an old faithful part of their wines. Others try to fit the yeast to the exact wine type. Whatever you choose make sure the needs and characteristics of the yeast are a match for your wine making environment. ( Temperature, pH, yeast nutrient needs, type of wine and of course ABV.)

 

[pgentile]

I Think the price is ok. Not great but not high either for 6 gallons. I pay about $10.00 per gallon for my concentrate so that's a little higher than yours but your fresh fruit is not cheap either so, it sounds reasonable.
Interesting that they don't tell what variety of cherrys the sour cherry concentrate is made from. They may just source it from the cheapest supplier of juice/cherries. Some companies specify exactly what type fruit goes into their juice. Does it matter? If your really want to know what's going in your wine then yes. With grapes there is much to do made about the grape variety and even the vineyard it comes from. (Northern California vineyards are better than central California ones- Really??)

1) Remember to add volume to your starting point for the loss of gross lees from the cherry pulp. Even in a pure concentrate with no pulp you will lose a significant amount to yeast and other material that will form and precipitate out. For my recent blueberry batch I started with just over 3.6 gallons and barely had 3 gallons when the pulp came out at first racking and that was with 16 3/4 pounds of blueberries. Cherries and blueberries should be about equal in the extent to which the pulp breaks down into liquid.
2) Some will say you cannot have too much flavor but.... for most fruits I believe there is a tipping point where you are wasting fruit/money adding more and more for very little return
3) Mixing tart and sweet cherries is a reasonable thing to do but I think most allow the tart to be the dominant one. It's really more of a personal thing to be honest.

The additions -
Acid blend only to get to the pH start point you want. Most fruit wines do best somewhere between 3.4 and 3.6 as a start point. Do NOT go higher (3.7 3.8 etc)
Tannin - Your choice - check around about recipes for cherry wine. With a dominant tart cherry you won't need as much if you do use it.
Yeast - Your choice. Some of us don't refine the yeast choice as much as we could for the wine type. Some have a favorite yeast and stick with it as an old faithful part of their wines. Others try to fit the yeast to the exact wine type. Whatever you choose make sure the needs and characteristics of the yeast are a match for your wine making environment. ( Temperature, pH, yeast nutrient needs, type of wine and of course ABV.)

I'll email them and see if they will give info on source.

1- Will do

2-Any ideas on what those tipping points are? Most recipes I came across use less fruit and concentrate but more sugar.

3-Most seem to prefer all tart cherries, before I commit to the fresh fruit, I might explore some frozen offerings on tart cherries.

The additions- all sounds logical, thanks

 

[Scooter68]

2-Any ideas on what those tipping points are? Most recipes I came across use less fruit and concentrate but more sugar.

It depends on the fruit and the source. I just posted to someone about black raspberries and blackberries. For wild fruit they are generally smaller and more intensely flavored. BUT with cherries I would guess the equivalent of 6-7 pounds is where you start to spend more and get less return on flavor. Just my opinion there.

For my tart cherry wine that is currently aging I used concentrate 3 bottles of tart cherry and 1 bottle of Black Cherry concentrate. Each bottle was supposed to make 16 8oz servings (1 oz per serving) and that serving would contain 110 calories. My source was Tart Cherry Concentrate (16 OZ) by Complete Natural Products on Amazon. Could have used one more bottle perhaps but it tasted great before starting as far as strength of flavor. I have an extra bottle that I use for making small glasses of cherry drink. I use more water than recommended and find that dilution doesn't hurt the strength at all.

I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out equivalences of concentrate to fresh fruit conversion and found that when the maker doesn't add sugar then the calories per serving works as a good comparison point. Some concentrated stated that 1 oz of concentrate would yield an 8 oz serving with 90 calories. That suggested to me a lower concentration of the fruit and therefore would talk more bottles of the concentrate. Vintner's Harvest makes wine concentrates and their sweet cherry can (96 oz) per their instructions says it will make 5 gallons of light bodied wine or 3 gallons of a full bodied. consensus on this board is that you want to go with the full bodied recipe. Your source at least states 100% CHERRY juice not Cherry with other juices. That's the only sort of concentrates I will used. If i buy Cherry concentrate I expect 100% Cherry juice and nothing else.

3-Most seem to prefer all tart cherries, before I commit to the fresh fruit, I might explore some frozen offerings on tart cherries.
Don't forget the local fruit stands. Ask about any over-ripe fruit they may want to get rid of at a better price. Get rid of any mold and the bruises don't hurt the flavor. Stands may be better than an orchard. At an orchard they will have blemished fruit that isn't' ripe yet. That means lower sugar content and less flavor.


Ok that's too much talkie talkie.

Keep us posted on progess.

 

[pgentile]

2- great info, sounds like I'm in the range for the amount of fruit.

3- I'll keep looking, the Italian Market here in Philly has a lot fruit available this time of year, many vendors there.

Thanks for all the info

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Mine's SG down to .998, so going to remove all the pulp and rack it tomorrow.

 

[Smok1]

Mines down to .998 as well, seems to have stopped, ussually my fruit wines go lower than that but ive moved it into a secondary and hope to see it lower a bit more over the next few days, theres alot of pulp in this cherry wine so i hope that settles out over the next few days as well.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Got mine into a carboy, got a little over 3 gallons. I will rack it again in about a week as there is still a good deal of sediment and cherry bits that made it through. SO2 level is about 40ppm after racking.