Thanks.
Now that I think about it my brother probably had 40lbs picked… before destemming and pitting. I’ll just have to weigh them when I get there and adjust as necessary. I’ll shoot for no less than 6 lbs for every gallon of water added.
First Time Cherry Wine
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Now that I think about it my brother probably had 40lbs picked… before destemming and pitting. I’ll just have to weigh them when I get there and adjust as necessary. I’ll shoot for no less than 6 lbs for every gallon of water added.
So with an 83% yield I could expect about 20lbs of juice from 25 lbs of cherries. Assuming the density of the juice is the same as water that would be about 2.4 gallons of juice from the cherries. I’ll have my brother weigh the bags when he pulls them for defrosting and I can report back on the yield.
. I said 6lbs/US gallon because I’m typically a more-is-better kinda guy when it comes to fruit volume.And thanks. I might try a gallon or so as a port. My SIL wants mostly wine… really sweet wine but not so much the high alcohol.
I’m going to supply the equipment and additives and walk them through the process. They only live about 30 min away so I can assist as needed.
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As a finished volume goal I would target either two five gallon carboys, or a six and a three, or a five and a three. Basically I make the volume fit the carboys I own and I add water at the racking off primary to top off and to create the finished volume.
Montmercy and northStar and Supermont are sour cherries AKA pie cherry. ex. Supermont pH 3.64/ 3.33/ 3.07/ 3.47; SG 1.058/ 1.066/ 1.050/ 1.063; TA 1.63/ 1.76/ 1.97/ 2.06. ex NorthStar pH 3.31/ 3.24/ 3.32/ SG 1.048/ 1.80 TA. Sour cherry has primarily malic acid therefore a sharper taste. (NOTE I have been fighting pH rise with apple which is also malic)
Sweet cherry is primarily citric acid. It is a totally different crop. ex. Ranier pH 4.45 / SG 1.109/ TA 0.16; Bing pH 4.38/ 3.92/ SG 1.086/ 1.094 TA .70/ .97. My feeling is that Bing cherry makes a thin wine. What we normally expect as sharp front notes are missing.
Age? You should have it reasonably clear in four months. I would encourage you to rack to clean carboys which creates some void volume and only bottle that one. At four months I would add KSorbate. I would consider adding Bactiless to both carboys again because it is mainly malic acid.
Tannin? as picked a pie cherry does not have tannin. However as cherry ages some polyphenols polymerize and become tasteable, rough/ low bitter notes. The age developed flavor is reminiscent of choke cherry. At four pounds per gallon this shouldn’t be too bad though.
Did I cover everything so far?
Montmercy and northStar and Supermont are sour cherries AKA pie cherry. ex. Supermont pH 3.64/ 3.33/ 3.07/ 3.47; SG 1.058/ 1.066/ 1.050/ 1.063; TA 1.63/ 1.76/ 1.97/ 2.06. ex NorthStar pH 3.31/ 3.24/ 3.32/ SG 1.048/ 1.80 TA. Sour cherry has primarily malic acid therefore a sharper taste. (NOTE I have been fighting pH rise with apple which is also malic)
Sweet cherry is primarily citric acid. It is a totally different crop. ex. Ranier pH 4.45 / SG 1.109/ TA 0.16; Bing pH 4.38/ 3.92/ SG 1.086/ 1.094 TA .70/ .97. My feeling is that Bing cherry makes a thin wine. What we normally expect as sharp front notes are missing.
Age? You should have it reasonably clear in four months. I would encourage you to rack to clean carboys which creates some void volume and only bottle that one. At four months I would add KSorbate. I would consider adding Bactiless to both carboys again because it is mainly malic acid.
Tannin? as picked a pie cherry does not have tannin. However as cherry ages some polyphenols polymerize and become tasteable, rough/ low bitter notes. The age developed flavor is reminiscent of choke cherry. At four pounds per gallon this shouldn’t be too bad though.
Did I cover everything so far?
Very helpful. I hadn’t thought of bactiless to prevent spontaneous MLF.
would there be any reason not to shoot for 6lbs/gal?
I like more, 3.7 Kg per gallon is juice plus melted sugar.
Wines are frequently said to target a TA between 0.50 and 0.70% as tartaric acid. If I use this as a guideline one part water with one part fruit. With my quantity I get a finished TA of 1.15 to 1.2% and back sweeten the finished to 1.015 +/-.
Running at one part to two parts water I would add acid to build the TA back to target range.
TA can vary quite a bit. There is quite a drop between picking the red ones before vacation and after vacation having the rest of the tree ripe/ dark red.
Wines are frequently said to target a TA between 0.50 and 0.70% as tartaric acid. If I use this as a guideline one part water with one part fruit. With my quantity I get a finished TA of 1.15 to 1.2% and back sweeten the finished to 1.015 +/-.
Running at one part to two parts water I would add acid to build the TA back to target range.
TA can vary quite a bit. There is quite a drop between picking the red ones before vacation and after vacation having the rest of the tree ripe/ dark red.
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you should get 30 lbs pitted i.e. 5 Imperial gallons of water plus 15 lbs cane sugar and then your 71B yeast. You should get 7-8 gallons of must so if you want to have a deep dive do 5 Imperial gallons of table wine un-oaked and 2.5 Imperial gallons of oaked port. HYou can put the sugar on top of the frozen pitted sour cherries until they thaw before adding water and pectic enzyme.
So my brother took the cherries out of the freezer to thaw (not un-thaw… that would be pointless) and he has 30 lbs of pitted tart cherries. I figure if we get 80% yield at press that would be 2.8 gallons of juice. So I will add 5 gallons of water for fermentation. That gives me 6lbs of fruit per gallon. If the final volume is close enough I’ll top up to 8 gallons ( a 5 and a 3), otherwise I’ll use smaller containers as needed.
In a dilute solution as six lb per gallon the color loss isn’t too bad. The effect is dramatic if you sprinkle dry meta on the cherry. Cherry color is less stable over time, as an industry person looking at shelf life I like to put 100 grams of aronia in a five gallon or 500 grams of black raspberry. (or get the bottle of red cabbage extract from a “natural foods” supplier ~ 10 ml)
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jeeze man, i know you're good, but being a poor dumb country boy, i need a translator,
DAWG
Charles DeVier
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Why do you bother to "pit" the cherries? Why would the pits make a change while in the must? I never remove apple or grape seeds.
I'd do 6 lbs cherries per gallon of water for 7 gallons of water to get more flavour.Next Friday I’ll be heading over to my brother's house to make cherry wine. He and my SIL picked and pitted about 40 lbs of tart cherries last summer and want to learn wine making. This is what I was thinking.
40 lbs of cherries with enough water to make 10 gallons in the brute.
Pectic enzyme
Acid blend to pH of 3.4 if needed
Sugar to SG of 1.00
Fermaid O according to label added in thirds.
71B yeast starter with GoFerm.
Oak chips?
Press at SG of 1.01
Age in glass for 4 months.
Any suggestions? Do tart cherries have tannins? Are the oak chips needed? Oak during aging?
My SIL likes a really, really syrupy sweet wine so we will be ruining more than half of it. I like off dry and will leave a few bottles dry or lightly sweetened.
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organic cyanide compounds in the pits. Take the pits out.
The hard stone in the center of cherries is full of prussic acid, also known as cyanide, which is poisonous. But there's no need to freak out if you accidentally swallow one -- intact pits just pass through your system and out the other end. Avoid crunching or crushing pits as you nosh on your cherries.
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Sailor323
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I learned a great trick many years ago when canning peaches. Putting one or two pits in the jar with the peaches gave a more intense peach flavor to the canned peaches. Peach pits also contain cyanide. 1 or 2 pits in each jar don't cause any problem. I would recommend mixing in a few pits with the cherries in order to impart a more intense cherry flavor. A few pits per each quart of fruit will not be toxic.
I was always under the impression that YES....cherry pits have cyanide in them. But you're okay if you do not break them open or crush them. This always seemed to prove true for me. As a kid, I've swallowed countless cherry pits while eating cherries. As an adult, I've made cherry 'cello' by soaking cherries in everclear....with no ill effects. ( taste or otherwise)
Just don't 'bust' them open!
Just don't 'bust' them open!
This is my first full year of full blown cherry harvest. I have a few questions. I tested my cherries for sugar content. Most of the ripe fruit was testing at 10, sometimes under 10. I grabbed a really ripe cherry and it's tested around 15. When do you know when to pick the cherry? I have a Northstar Cherry tree. We had some very hot weather and some got ripe faster than I would have liked. I found that they had some bug bites (both fruit bugs and flies) and others had some brown bruising on parts of the cherry. I would open the cherry up and see the inside was browning a little. I threw away quite a few that looked this way. Do people spray for bugs on the cherry trees?
when cherries ripen they start to go dull i.e. lose their gloss. Your sour cherries will go a deep red colour. You can pick by lack of gloss and/or deep colour.
bugs end of flowering to kill maggots and maggot eggs, use bacillus thuringiensis. Now is too late for spraying. Maggots don't seem to bother sour cherries.
I pick when the North Star is starting to turn dark red. The sugar is a lot better than if I am anxious and pick at orange/ red color. Another gage is how easy do they pull off.
For wine the brown doesn’t make any difference. For pie, yes a fruit tree spray is worth while. BUT some premixed types have malathion in, DO not use anything with malathion while bees are pollinating.
North Star seems to not be free stone. A cherry pitter is useful.
For wine the brown doesn’t make any difference. For pie, yes a fruit tree spray is worth while. BUT some premixed types have malathion in, DO not use anything with malathion while bees are pollinating.
North Star seems to not be free stone. A cherry pitter is useful.
