Hybrid Cherry Wine, Sweet Black and Tart Cherries

[DansWinemaking]

Good Morning, I'm not sure if this is correct forum so please move it if needed.
I'm about to pitch a 2 gallon batch of Cherry wine. Being winter and no true fresh stuff is readily available, I grabbed a couple bottles of 32 oz. Knudsen Tart Cherry concentrate, and with the lack of even frozen tart cherries in my area, I grabbed a 2 lb. bag of sweet black cherries. I'm thinking of cold soaking for a few days with the 64 oz of Tart Cherry juice, pitching the yeast and crossing my fingers. I'll probably have to add some sugar and tannin to get up to a 1.090 - 1.100 starting SG, but the question is, has anyone made this mix of cherry wine and how did it turn out? Thanks!
Dan

 

[Ohio Bob]

As with any purchased concentrate, check the ingredients for anything that might be a preservative, like sorbate. The presence might make the must difficult to ferment, as the yeast wont like the preservative. To add some probability in your favor, make a yeast starter, several descriptions about how to make a starter can be found on the WMT site.

 

[Raptor99]

I did a cherry wine with a blend of frozen sweet cherries and tart cherry juice concentrate. It can make a good blend. For a one gallon test batch I used 4 lbs. of fresh cherries plus 8 oz. of FruitFast tart cherry concentrate, which is probably equivalent to at least 64 oz. of cherry juice). In my tasting notes, I concluded that I could have used more tart cherry juice.

I found Knudsen tart cherry juice here: https://rwknudsen.com/products/p/fruit-juices/organic-just-tart-cherry-juice-sn7cn. Is this the one that you have? It is not a concentrate. The good thing is that it does not have any preservatives. If that's what you have, then for 2 gallons I would suggest 6-8 lbs of frozen cherries plus a gallon of tart cherry juice. Or you could shift the blend and use 4 lbs. tart cherries and 5 quarts of tart cherry juice. You need enough fruit to get a good cherry flavor.

For most fruit wines I like to aim for an ABV of around 12% so that the alcohol does not overpower the fruit flavor. That would correspond to an OG of 1.086.