Cranberry wine questions

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Toivo

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My better half wants me to make a wine to give at Christmas next year so I have been thinking cranberry. Here is what I have come up with to try in a one gallon batch. I am looking for any help with the recipe.

2 cans Old Orchard frozen concentrate
1 lb fresh cranberries frozen and thawed
8 oz. clover honey
sugar to get SG to1.085
1 tsp tataric acid
1/4 tsp tannin
1 tsp pectic enzyme

If I use a gallon jug to ferment this how should I process the fresh cranberries since they would be hard to get into the jug?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Chris
 
If I use a gallon jug to ferment this how should I process the fresh cranberries since they would be hard to get into the jug?

typically fruit can be kept in a stocking or mesh bag tied off at the end. easy to get out when done with it.
 
The one gallon jugs I use have a mouth far larger then any cranberry I have seen. I added whole blueberries to my 6 gallon glass carboy with no concern, though they were a pain to get back out because that carboy has a smaller mouth then my 1 gals. I would go ahead and use whole cranberries, but perhaps look into using a bucket for primary fermentation so you don't have too many losses due to racking off the berries and lees.

Also, you have a lot of sugars going on in that brew. I won't say it is a bad thing, I have done similar. But you have honey, fruit, concentrate and you're planning on adding sugar? You could stick to just 2 or 3 of those perhaps.
 
Thanks for the input so far. I will use a bucket for the primary to make it easier to handle the cranberries. I will test the SG with the concentrate and honey and if needed add sugar to bring the SG up to 1.085.
 
Also, if you are using a bucket, make it more than a gallon total volume, not including the cranberries. You will lose some due to the gross lees in the buigining, but you will also lose some to the cranberries soaking up. So if you go for 1.25 - 1.5 gallons initially, when you rack off the lees and fruit, you should be able to top off a full 1 gallon jug with pure brew.
 
Any other input if I shoud use the acid and Tannin in the recipe? So far this has been a great forum that is full of helpful people and great info.
 
I'm just buying a $6 acid test kit and going from there.

I doubt you'd need tannin with a cranberry wine. Cranberry's have a good bit all their own.
 
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