November 2014 Wine of the Month Club

[aryoung1980]

Are you going to rack onto any more cranberries or leave as is?

I am thinking of racking on top of another 1.5lbs of cranberries to make up for my over dilution.



Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[aryoung1980]

Now that I've had lots more experience under my belt I believe I would add a big batch or raisins to the primary. It was good, but I think a bunch of raisins and a couple bananas would really make it truly special. That's my plan next go round.

I'll keep that in mind because I do plan on making more cranberry wines. This past summer I tried my grandmother's semi dry sparkling cranberry wine and it was the best thing I've ever had.



Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[Jericurl]

Pam,

I was under the impression that the RC212 was mainly for red wines.
What made you decide to go with it for cranberry?

And what do you think it added to your finished wine rather than using something like D47?

 

[cintipam]

I like D47 a lot and use it alot, but for white wines. 212 is supposed to excel at keeping berry color and aromas for reds. Here are some saved notes i have regarding the 2 yeasts.

Lalvin BOURGOVIN RC 212 Dry 1105-02 Aged Reds, Young Reds 59-86° 14% Low

Lalvin ICV D-47 Dry 1080-02 Blush, Dry Whites, Sweet Mead 50-86° 14% Medium

I know it doesn't say much, but I figured cranberry would be a young red that I keep dry which is always my preference. It was other info from WMT that talked about keeping color and aroma. I had tried cranberry with 1118 and it really stripped out a lot of color and flavor. It looked like a blush, and I couldn't tell the berry. The 212 made a big difference. I could honestly tell this was cranberry wine. the color wasn't deep dark red, but glowed like a garnet. It was honestly an awesome wine, but a bit thin on body and a one note on flavor. That's why I want to add raisins and bananas next time.

BTW I really like QA23 for white wines also. It's pretty much my go to now since it has 16% alch tolerance, and I'm prone to lots of fpaks for flavor during final stages of my wine. I found that I need the higher alch or else it turns into cooler territory. Just my personal style that I've adapted to,

Pam in cinti

 

[Jericurl]

Pam, thank you. That is a lot of fantastic information.

I think I am going to take a page out of your book for next month's thread.

 

[cintipam]

I'm flattered, but gotta say if I had access to the stuff that Rayway is using I'd do her recipe in a heartbeat!!! I grow lots of unusual fruits but no chokecherries or black currants yet. BTW she also is using RC212.

The only other yeast I plan to try with cranberry is 1116. It is supposed to be very good for berry wines besides being excellent for stuck ferments. At my LBH the other day he showed me printed info from the company that stated 1116 handled up to 20% alchBV. My original books etc stated 13%, but the official website is now saying 18%.

I am trying to tame down my Fpaks and get more flavor in up front. It should make a more delicate complex wine, and at this point I'd like to go that direction. Right now I'm getting juice buckets and adding lots of fruit in the primary. This fall I put pawpaws, asian pears, and Hinnomaki yellow gooseberries into a chard using D47 since I hoped to do some battonage. Had to drop that plan since residual bentonite was stripping flavor. It is already fairly smooth tho so I have high hopes for it.

Pam in cinti

 

[cintipam]

aryoung1980 I'm impressed at your using real cranberries. Looks like you've done some great work already on your wine. Since you've already dealt with pectic enzyme and kmeta and are hoping to up both flavor and sugar you might consider frozen cranberry concentrate. That's all I used in my cranberry wine. I've found using brands with high fructose corn syrup is fine in primary, but for backsweetening at the end I always stick to Old Orchard brand. Somewhere in the past year or so a scientific minded person posted about not using HFCS later since it adds off flavors later, but is perfectly fine to put in primary since the yeast have no trouble digesting it. I've followed that with great success and always have a variety of Old Orchard flavors to fpak my wines.

Pam in cinti

 

[jkrug]

Made a cranberry last year. Drinking it now. Taste just like popping a cranberry in your mouth and all. Very tart but I like it. My turned out a little thin but still delicious. Fun watching people drink it for first time and seeing them pucker.

 

[the_rayway]

Hey everyone! Sorry, I'm behind on everything right now I'm updating the OP now.

I've racked my wine to glass, and it's dried out very well (.996). Colour is fantastic! I had enough left over for top ups which I've tossed into the fridge too. There was a TON of sediment, but the bags of fruit were decimated when I took them out and gave 'em a squeeze.

 

[aryoung1980]

My cranberry wine is giving me troubles. The only thing I can think of is that I pitched my yeast too soon after the k-meta. On day 4 my must was still at OG. I decided to pitch 7g of bread yeast to get fermentation started. I figured a small amount of alcohol would protect it until I could get to my LHBS. Well, today is day 8 and I finally was able to get another packet of 1118. I took a hydrometer sample and my must was STILL at 1.092. I tasted my sample; it was good and no suggestions of spoilage. I added a can of Old Orchard cranberry/raspberry and pitched the rehydrated yeast.

I sure hope fermentation starts up. I'll probably add some more nutrient too.

 

[the_rayway]

Sounds like you have some bad wine yeast...and the OG is likely too high for the bread yeast (killing it).

So long as it tastes ok, you should be good to go!

 

[aryoung1980]

Fermentation started right up with the new yeast. I pulled it off of the fruit tonight. Dosed it with some nutrient and splash racked into a 1 gallon carboy and a 1/2 gallon jug. It's at 1.040 and 68F right now. I'm not sure yet if I will let it finish out in this jug or if I'll rack it again at ~1.010.

Hydrometer sample is quite promising.

 

[the_rayway]

I racked mine today and popped in the KMeta. The colour is awesome, and the taste is...interesting. You can taste the cranberries and chokecherries a ton, but it's incredibly tannic, and very acidic. I'm thinking it might be a good candidate to try a potassium carbonate treatment on. Will definitely wait a good six months before I go that route though, just to see if it smooths out.

I'm also considering oak additions, as I think some toasty flavours could go really well with it.

 

[wineforfun]

Bottled my Acerglyn(from post #17) a month ago. Tried a bottle of it last week and it is different, but ok. Very curious to see how time in the bottle does for this. It is similar to a sweet bourbon, without the harsh bourbon bite. ABV ended up just over 15% after rackings, topping up with maple syrup, etc.

 

[Stressbaby]

Bottled the Williams Sonoma Cranberry Pomegranate cider wine today.
Original recipe here.
This is a good quickie wine if you have access to the concentrate. It took very little work, and it cleared on its own. I was very pleased with this result. I brought the pH up from 2.41 to 3.14, and probably should have brought it up a little more. I didn't backsweeten this wine at all, but rather added 10ml glycerin and 1/3g Tannin Riche and the result is a reasonably smooth, fruit forward, medium bodied wine.
Here's a pic of the bottles and the dregs.

 

[aryoung1980]

I sampled my cranberry wine this morning. Great cranberry flavor but a bit too acidic. I dosed it with k-meta and sorbate. I'll do a few bench trials with some simple syrup to see what I like. Once I know the dosing rate, I'll scale it up and sweeten each bottle individually.

 

[aryoung1980]

I did my bench trials and found that I liked 3.75mL of simple syrup per 30mL of wine. This came out to roughly 2 cups of syrup for my 1 gallon batch. My syrup was 2 cups water with 1 cup white sugar. I mixed the syrup and wine all together in a bottling bucket instead of dosing each bottle individually.

 

[the_rayway]

Looks and sounds great!!