Looking for Red Currant recipe and tips

[Ericphotoart]

I will be starting a new wine over the weekend and I am looking for some tips from someone who tried Red Currant. It's going to be made from Colomafrozen concentrate. I know red currant are quite acidic in range of 2.5-3.2 so some pH tweaking will be probably necessary but anything else I should be aware of? tannin, nutrients?

 

[Ericphotoart]

I guess red currant is not a very popular wine ingredient. From what I heard red currant wine requires long aging, about 2 years so I am prepared for that. I have many other wines to drink in the meantime. So here is my recipe and procedure that I followed 3 days ago.
At 5 gallon mark the diluted concentrate gave me SG 1.100. I've added extra sugar to bump it to 1.120.
1/4 tsp tannin
3 tsp pectic enzyme
1 1/2 tsp energizer
2 1/2 tsp yeast nutrients (will add more after 1/3 of sugar is depleted)
pH was 2.9 and I added 5 tsp of potassium bicarbonate to bump it to 3.0
Yeast - K1-V1116
So far fermentation is going well and it started within about 12-18 hrs.

 

[ChuckD]

I guess red currant is not a very popular wine ingredient. From what I heard red currant wine requires long aging, about 2 years so I am prepared for that. I have many other wines to drink in the meantime. So here is my recipe and procedure that I followed 3 days ago.
At 5 gallon mark the diluted concentrate gave me SG 1.100. I've added extra sugar to bump it to 1.120.
1/4 tsp tannin
3 tsp pectic enzyme
1 1/2 tsp energizer
2 1/2 tsp yeast nutrients (will add more after 1/3 of sugar is depleted)
pH was 2.9 and I added 5 tsp of potassium bicarbonate to bump it to 3.0
Yeast - K1-V1116
So far fermentation is going well and it started within about 12-18 hrs.

I’m interested as well since I put in one red currant bush last year and was considering a few more.

 

[Ericphotoart]

Great idea. I have 2 red currant and 2 black currant bushes that I planted in 2021. In 2022 I had only a few fruits on each of them. I think it takes at least 3 years for them to mature. I also planted gooseberries at the same time but again they need about 3 years

 

[BigDaveK]

This damn hobby.
Placed an order with Stark Bros for elderberry, honeyberry, and red currants. Can't grow black currants in Ohio because of white pine rust. Still a dozen or so states that prohibit growing.

 

[Ericphotoart]

I got them from Stark Bros as well and they were very good. None of them died. I was able to order black current as PA is none on the "black list". This stupid law still exists and probably no one will be smart and brave enough to change it.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Good luck on having a crop in three years. I am at the point where I have enough that I could do a black currant after five years.
Be aware of TA, normal for a dry wine is 0.5%, for. sweet wine 0.7%. Black currant last year was 4.26% TA, red was 3.4% and gooseberry was 2.94%. … the grams of acid can be high which can be dealt with by cutting with water or deacidifying as CaCO3. The best red currant I have had/ most intense flavor was high TA (fruit solids) but I couldn’t finish a glass.

Gooseberry is interesting, it falls off the plant when it is getting ripe so there is some learning curve a picking ripe today and repicking tomorrow and the day after etc. It is nice if you can ripen it. My Polish friend brags on how well it copies Chardonnay. Current can also ripen to TA of 2% and hangs better than gooseberry, I need patience possibly, but still haven’t had a big enough crop to use it.

White pine blister rust will infect red and black currants as well as gooseberry.
Because of the acid I have used gooseberry as an acid source as in watermelon wine, 1:1. I am working on a crusher for gooseberry, it is a hard fruit and the best I have is running through a snow cone screw. Currant presses fairly easily, mom would put it in a flour sack and twist it.

Black currant has a dominant musky flavor. My wife dislikes it at any blending level.