Food processor for raisins and cranberries

Any of you guys use a food processor for grinding the daylights out of raisins and cranberries?

Would you grind those two ingredients, add honey, rip it around again, boil for a minute or two and let cool, and then pour that into your secondary and rack onto that?

I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea there for a minute. It would probably be a pain to siphon off that... depending on your primary.

Maybe use a six gallon to make apple juice/honey cyser, rack to a secondary food grade bucket with an airlock, then rubber band a copper scrubber to the end of your siphon and leave the junk behind and make up the difference with more honey and apple juice to a third fermeter or a glass carboy to clear and settle. Give it a year, then siphon with the copper scrubber rubber banded to the siphon again.

Just thinking out loud. Any ideas? When would you add spices? Allspice, cinnamon stick, peppercorns, orange peel, etc. Would you do it with the first fermentation, at the second stage, or for the final and longest phase?

I'm a newbie so let me know if this has been covered to death.

Thanks

Area_Man

I've used a blender for exactly that, with good results. I don't heat honey, but I do use hot water to soften it up & make it mix easier in the blender. Straight honey will burn out a blender motor real quick. I add a bit of hot water to the raisins and/or berries too. I airate mead musts with the blender too, works great, but takes a while since I can only do about 1.5 - 2 quarts at a time. I don't puree the fruit, just a coarse chop will do just fine, lets the yeast & pectic enzyme get at it & work it over.

Any spices you add, you should use whole or cracked or coarsely chopped. Avoid the powdered type, they make a mess & you cannot remove them when the desired level of flavour has been reached, which results in overspicing. You can make a sort of "teabag" using a hopsack or an old grainbag, put you spices inside & toss it in. You can check the flavour & easily remove it when the desired flavour profile has been reached.

I'd avoid using a copper scrubber as a filter, copper can do funky things to your must; they make a stainless steel racking cane filter that works well. After a year, I really don't think you'll need such a device anyway, everything should have settled out all on it's own by then.
Regards, GF.