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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike

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

Mike

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

I'm a cold tea fan too!

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

Acutally just put it up now.

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?

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

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