Fresh cherry wine

[trolo]

Hello all so quick question
I will have the opportunity to pick some fresh cherries tomorrow. So my first thought was hey let’s make some wine.
So is there a good recipes for cherry wine or should I use the one for dragon blood???
I never made from fresh fruit before just grape juice.
Thanks as always for placing me on the correct path.
Tom

 

[Slappy]

Cherry wine is a piece of cake. Sour or sweet cherrys are fine and there's lots of threads to look at. Here's my take to keep it simple.
5-6 pounds cherries per 5 litres of wine.
Pick cherries.
Pit them and de-stem.
Cut away any bruises on the fruit and discard.
Put the fruit in a mesh bag if you want. If not it's a bit harder to rack.
Mash the hell out of the fruit in your fermenter then add 2.5 pounds sugar per 5 litres of wine you are making. Boil the kettle and pour this in stirring to dissolve sugar (use enough water to dissolve it all and to cover fruit). Leave to cool then stir through pectin enzyme (directions on pack). Cover it and leave a good 12-24 hours.
Add clean cool water to the level of your eg. to 5 litres volume if 5 litre batch.
Give it a good stir and pitch ec1118 yeast as it's foolproof.
Cover with a cloth or lid and airlock. Squeeze fruit or stir daily then rack to secondary when fermentation is almost finished.
Rack again after a month and add sulfite if you want.
Bottle when it's clear enough for your liking.
Keep it clean, keep it simple and you should have a good result.
If you want specific alcohol content use a hydrometer and online alcohol calculator to work that out and adjust the sugar you add. Only other tip is make a bigger batch if you're umming and ahhing about it. The prep work is a pain in the ass with cherry wine and I only made a small batch. You guessed it, wife loves it and it flew out the cellar. Now I'm getting harrassed to make more and cherry season in Australia is 5 months away!

 

[Slappy]

Also, if you have access to heaps of fruit and it's not expensive you can add more fruit for better wine. I was kinda on the low side as good cherries were $16 a kg when I got them.

 

[trolo]

Hey thanks slappy. We try to shake some trees today. Got a couple pints of red and black cherries. My friend is going to start with mead. As soon as the bees make honey about two weeks or so. I hope
To get more cherries next couple day for my wine.

 

[Slappy]

You can freeze cherries until you need them too. I don't have cherry trees but have mulberries and I pick and freeze until I have enough for 20 litres of wine. When you defrost them they break down a little easier too.

 

[Mdrew]

any recommendations for places to buy frozen cherries? To augment my cherry picking? I'd love to get a 5G carboy going, but I don't know if I can get my group to give me the required 40lbs of cherries they pick! Going to follow this.

 

[Zintrigue]

I've used Danger Dave's dragon blood recipe to make cherry wine. I added chocolate liqueur in the backsweetening process to make more of a cherry cordial sort of thing. I have to say I don't like it. My husband does, but I find the cherry too tart and not as complex as a grape. I recently used dark cherries to amp up a merlot and didn't like that, either. Hoping time is the great cure-all on that one.

Anyway, I just got the frozen cherries from walmart, they're already pitted and ready to go. Good luck.

 

[JustJoe]

I mix elderberries with cherries so I only need about 20 pounds of cherries per 5 gallon batch. Of course, I have to get 18-20 pounds of elderberries also. The wine is very good though, worth all the work of picking 18 pounds of elderberries.

 

[abrewkat]

We've done 3 5-gallon batches of sour cherry over the last couple of years with fruit from trees in our yard. First batch sat on lees too long and had a bit of a nasty bitterness to it, next was much better, and the latest batch we tried a couple of different things. Backsweetened some (1/2 cup sugar per gallon), left some dry, and blended about half (50:50) with a concurrent batch of Concord grape, with the blend being dry or sweetened (1/2 cup sugar per gallon). My SO was vehemently against backsweetening it... until he tried it. The blend with the Concord ended up really nice and quite drinkable, even with only being aged 4 months in carboy and bottled a week ago. We'll definitely be doing that again.

My recipe calls for 15 lbs of cherries for a 5 gallon batch, though we generally toss an extra pound or two in. We also added some raisins this time which has also made quite a difference.

 

[JuiceMan]

This is what Carousel, Cullari, Vintners and many, many other wineries use: https://goo.gl/fjmphz 68 brix, cold filled, and perfect for this application. Available in pints, quarts, and drums. Wholesale or free shipping. 877.591.3101 - Ken