Keller Recipes

[Tball]

Surely this question has been asked, but has anyone archived Jack Keller's recipes? I see the website has been removed.

 

[Scooter68]

Might just be temporarily down.
You probably can find a lot of recipes on here in the recipes forum.
I'm not a fan of his recipes as I find them too light on the use of fruit and dependent on things such as raisins. (One objections frequently raised about raisins is that folks don't want to add oxidized fruit to thei wine. - Not agreeing with that, just adding one of the most common comments.) Others seem to like them at least as a starting point.

 

[Tball]

I've tried the page several times over the last few days. Always get a "not found."

 

[Grabo]

It looks like the wayback machine stopped recording updates around February of this year. Here is a link to the first page of recipes:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191020135940/http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp

 

[VinesnBines]

I’ve noticed the pages down too. His Facebook page said something about a new site but it doesn’t work either. He has a book ready for publication so I expect that may be part of the problem. I’m not going to engage i the debate over his recipes; I’ve used many to my satisfaction.

 

[Vinobeau]

It looks like the wayback machine stopped recording updates around February of this year. Here is a link to the first page of recipes:
winemaking: winemaking recipes

And, if you click "More Recipes", near the bottom of the page, it will take you to the next page, and then do that on the nest page, etc. Also, at the bottom of the page, the yellow boxes are destinations that all seem to work.

 

[Vinobeau]

Might just be temporarily down.
You probably can find a lot of recipes on here in the recipes forum.
I'm not a fan of his recipes as I find them too light on the use of fruit and dependent on things such as raisins. (One objections frequently raised about raisins is that folks don't want to add oxidized fruit to thei wine. - Not agreeing with that, just adding one of the most common comments.) Others seem to like them at least as a starting point.

On searching Keller's site, I ran across this statement. It explains some of his philosophy of fruit amounts.

With few exceptions, the more fruit you use in making a wine, the fruitier tasting it will be. This can be good or it can be too much. If good, so much the better. If too much, you have a problem. You can blend it with a complementary but weaker tasting wine or with a "second" wine made from the same fruit pulp as the first batch--if you happened to have made one. There really isn't much more you can do. Why is this important?
It's important for two reasons. When making a wine by recipe that specifies a varied quantity--such as 4-6 lbs--you can be assured that using the lesser quantity will make an acceptable wine, but using the larger quantity will make a fruitier wine. If you opt to use the larger quantity, you would be wise to also make a "second" batch using the pressed pulp from the first batch. This will always make a weaker wine, but one that is almost always acceptable on its own merit. More importantly, you'll have that "second" wine to use in blending with the first batch should its taste be too strong for you.
But it's also important when adapting a recipe for another ingredient. If the substituted ingredient lacks the fullness of flavor of the original ingredient called for in the recipe, you'll need to adjust the quantity upwards to make up for what is naturally lacking. In the case of substituting salmonberries for red raspberries, I can tell you right off that salmonberries lack the flavor and aroma raspberries are so famous for. Thus, you'll want to adjust the quantity upwards, but not too much. Berry wines should be subtle, not overpowering. My red raspberry recipe calls for 3-4 lbs of fruit. If using salmonberries instead of raspberries, use 4-5 lbs.
Another thing to consider about fruit content is that when using less fruit rather than more, the lesser amount, if within the recipe limitations, will usually produce a wine that more closely approximates the taste of grape wine, albeit the approximation may take a leap of imagination. What I mean is this: in truth, grape wines do not taste like grape juice, and fruit wines should not taste like fruit juice. My favorite peach wine recipe calls for 3 lbs of peaches per gallon, but I will reduce the amount of fruit to 2-1/2 lbs for an exceptionally flavorable crop. Conversely, for a weakly flavored crop I might increase the amount to 3-1/2 lbs.

 

[BernardSmith]

Thanks, Vinobeau. Your post quoting Keller, explains a great deal. By his own lights he appears to be seeking for flavors that better resonate with grape wines than with the fruits he uses. But I imagine that many people select the fruit they choose precisely because they are not looking for a hint of the flavor but a full bodied experience of the fruits and flowers they have harvested.

 

[winemanden]

Thanks, Vinobeau. Your post quoting Keller, explains a great deal. By his own lights he appears to be seeking for flavors that better resonate with grape wines than with the fruits he uses. But I imagine that many people select the fruit they choose precisely because they are not looking for a hint of the flavor but a full bodied experience of the fruits and flowers they have harvested.

Interesting info Vinabeau.


Bernard as you say, lots of people use more fruit because that’s the taste they want. What we must remember about recipes though, is that they’re made to the authors taste. That’s always assuming that they have actually made them in the first place, which has not always been the case in the past.


Jack Keller obviously likes his wine made with less fruit, and he has won a fair few awards with them, so the judges must have thought they were good enough.


My own take on recipes is that they are only a guide. If you like them OK, keep using them. If not try something else, but you’ve got to keep learning.

 

[BernardSmith]

Absolutely. In my opinion a recipe is a snapshot taken by the author of the recipe which may or may not even be very accurate and it likely covers a single draft of a version that may have many, many drafts, all different in significant ways. Recipes are processes that someone has reified. Their ingredients are not going to be your ingredients; their practices are not going to be precisely your practices. And here's an example: many years ago I worked one winter in a factory, owned by a cooperative that pickled and canned a variety of different olives. The machines we used which mixed and heated the vinegars and and the spices and added the olives were all automatic but they needed to be monitored and reset for every variety of olive and we knew that even setting the heaters to exactly the same temperatures and combining ingredients in precisely the same proportions, every person who worked the process produced a noticeably different flavored batch from every other person. And that was OK but that was what happened.

 

[sour_grapes]

Absolutely. In my opinion a recipe is a snapshot taken by the author of the recipe which may or may not even be very accurate and it likely covers a single draft of a version that may have many, many drafts, all different in significant ways. Recipes are processes that someone has reified. Their ingredients are not going to be your ingredients; their practices are not going to be precisely your practices. And here's an example: many years ago I worked one winter in a factory, owned by a cooperative that pickled and canned a variety of different olives. The machines we used which mixed and heated the vinegars and and the spices and added the olives were all automatic but they needed to be monitored and reset for every variety of olive and we knew that even setting the heaters to exactly the same temperatures and combining ingredients in precisely the same proportions, every person who worked the process produced a noticeably different flavored batch from every other person. And that was OK but that was what happened.

I liked the message above for its message, but I would even "like" it if only for the use of the word "reify"!

 

[BernardSmith]

I am social scientist and we use the term "reify" almost as much as chemists use the word "flocculate".

 

[Scooter68]

Guess my thought is that what makes a great Chardonay, or Claret isn't the same as what makes great peach or blackberry wine. So my thought is that they should not be judged with the same standards. Some things are universal, clarity, balance, aroma etc but a significant number of measures are different. Not to disparage anyone's choices but as Bernardsmith says what many people are looking for in a country fruit wine is likely to be significantly different than traditional Grape wines.

 

[winemanden]

Guess my thought is that what makes a great Chardonay, or Claret isn't the same as what makes great peach or blackberry wine. So my thought is that they should not be judged with the same standards. Some things are universal, clarity, balance, aroma etc but a significant number of measures are different. Not to disparage anyone's choices but as Bernardsmith says what many people are looking for in a country fruit wine is likely to be significantly different than traditional Grape wines.

What it all boils down to is that it's personal taste. If wines are made from different fruits, veg or flowers, herbs etc. you can't really say that one is better than the other. They are all different!