cherry wine

[wabbit955]

hi folks
any one got a good recipe for cherry wine
have a loads this years and thought i try something differant
they are a very sour cherry but great flavour

cheers

[lydneyian]

Someone was talking about Cherry Wine a few weeks ago - try going back over the posts - sorry I cant help any further - I will be really interested in how it turns out though - the idea of cherry wine sounds fantastic.

I always think that Sloe Gin tastes a bit like cherry

[frozenthunderbolt]

Make sour cherry liquiour. bung em in a jar and cover with brandy after 6 months- year strain. boil up 1:1 sugar and water to make a syrup and use it to sweeten to taste. YUMMY

[MKG]

I've never made cherry wine, but a search around the net gives ...

Anything between 4 and 6 lbs of cherries.
Between 2 and 2.5 lbs sugar (looks like a convenient 1 kilo job).
Cup of strong tea (cold).
Juice of half a lemon (or a half-teaspoon of citric acid).

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the cherries (in a bucket), add the sugar and stir to dissolve. When cool, crush the cherries by hand. Make up to approximately one gallon with cold water, add the tea, a spoonful of yeast, and lemon juice. Cover the bucket and ferment for 4 or 5 days, stirring twice a day and removing any stones which have floated to the surface. Strain the liquid into a demijohn, top up if necessary, add an airlock and Bob's your uncle. When the fermentation is complete, rack off into a fresh demijohn, top up and store in a cool place.

A lot of the recipes I've seen call for a dark-coloured demijohn or a dark place for fermentation. I can see no reason for this and doubt very much that cherry juice is photo-sensitive, so that's up to you. The same recipes also warn against squeezing the cherries after the initial crushing - I think this is bullcrap, as cherries are low in pectin. Squeeze away merrily would be my advice.

Mike

[Mother]

I do not mean to seem stupid, MK, but does
Cup of strong tea (cold).
mean one of those measuring cup or a small china cup/mug

[MKG]

It really doesn't matter - it's simply a method of getting some tannin into the wine. So any size cup, two teabags, boiling water and let it steep until it's gone cold.

Mike

[RuthG]

Or you could use a teaspoon of powdered tannin from the home brew shop

[MKG]

You could indeed, Ruth - but just about everyone on here is a mean old skinflint

Mike

[RuthG]

You could indeed, Ruth - but just about everyone on here is a mean old skinflint

Mike

[Andy Hamilton]

And you can use any cherries mine made with mostly bird cherries last year is delicous.

I'm a cold tea fan too!

[Andy Hamilton]

Going to put a cherry wine recipe on the front page in a preserving cherries article. Should be up withing a couple of days.

[Andy Hamilton]

Acutally just put it up now.

[vancheese]

I've attempted cherry wine too I've just used sugar, yeast and cherries(lots!) is the lack of acid/Tannin going to cuase problems?

[MKG]

Acid - very possibly. It serves three purposes. One is the final taste - if there's not enough acid, the wine can taste insipid. Another is the yeast - it likes an acidic environment, so the fermentation may be sluggish if there's not enough acid around. The third is the danger of infection - much less likely if the acid levels are correct. But no worries - you can add the acid now.

Tannin serves two purposes. It gives the wine a bit of "bite" - all wines should have at least a little bit of tannin. Secondly, it helps with maturation - a low-tannin wine will not age particularly well. Again, though, you can stick it in now.

Mike

[wabbit955]

cheers folks
that should get me started
better go pick cherries
cherry brandy is the law in this house never with out a bottle or 20 or 30
and very good made with the sour cherries

cheers