cherry wine help (nubie)

Well hello gang, I need a bit of help with my first attempt at sweet cherry, my cousin is about to turn my onto a 5 gal pail of sweet cherries next week...ok I found this recipie....question...step 2 do I add enought water to bring my total amount of water up to 5.5 gallons?....or would it be an a addition of 5.5 gallons? and would one of my ail pails be big enough? 6 gallon i think....I have never made wine....many batches of beer undermy belt though (litterally)...thankx.....TomCherry Wine recipe
Makes a 6 gallon batch

16 lbs Cherries
2 1/2 TSP Bentonite
1 1/2 TSP Wine Tannin
6 Campden Tablets
18 lbs corn sugar (36 cups)
5 TSP Acid Blend
6 TSP yeast nutrient
1 yeast pack EC-1118
1 1/4 TSP Pectic Enzyme
7.8 Gallon Fermenting Pale

Day One
In a fermenting pale, hand crush cherries (do not break the seeds). Add bentonite, acid blend, wine tannin, and Campden tablets. Then add enough water to cover cherries. Cover pale with towel.

Day Two
Add water 5.5 gallons in pale. Then add sugar, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and yeast packet. Stir for one minute. If you use cane sugar, you will have to use less sugar. I got a 1.095 S.G.

Day Three until S.G. Gets under 1.020
Stir everyday for one minute. I like and increased alcohol content. So after the fourth day when the fermentation process is really going, I added 2lbs (4 cups) of corn sugar a day for three days. Total of 6lbs.

Adding the extra sugar took about 12-14 days to get down to S.G. of 1.010

Once you get down to 1.010, rack wine and fit with airlock. I find it beneficial to keep some of your sediment while racking, as you have some yeast down there.

In about a month and a half, your fermentation process should be coming close to an end. I added an amazing clarifier called Sparkalliod. It will clear your wine in three days, but I recommend waiting at least two weeks after adding to bottle. I saw fools gold after three days and bottled once. A week later, I had a little Haze the bottom of my wine bottles.

There is a significant difference in the way this wine tastes from month two to month three. It never made to month four, so I wouldn't know

The recipe is, well, not very good. I'd try something with better instructions and written by somebody that actually let the wine go long enough to bottle and enjoy.

Maybe one of these: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques61.asp

You're going to want about 6+ pounds of cherries per gallon for the best flavor. Do NOT follow a recipe that calls for more sugar than fruit- ever!

18 pounds of sugar with sweet cherries is probably way too much sugar.

Well thankx ..I have been doing a bit of homework and see now that it is indeed a lot of sugar...question, why does one recipie state" sweet" and the other "dry" when both the ingredients look the same, and are we talking just regular table sugar? and when I rack to a secondary, would I need a small amount of headspace as possible?...I am talking about the link yooper sent me for the recipies....thankx

tnsen said:

Well thankx ..I have been doing a bit of homework and see now that it is indeed a lot of sugar...question, why does one recipie state" sweet" and the other "dry" when both the ingredients look the same, and are we talking just regular table sugar? and when I rack to a secondary, would I need a small amount of headspace as possible?...I am talking about the link yooper sent me for the recipies....thankx

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There are two ways to get a sweet wine.

One is to ferment out the wine, and then when it's completely done, then to stabilize and sweeten to taste. This is easy, dependable, and gives predictable results.

The other way is to overwhelm the yeast with sugar, so that it dies out and gives you a sweet finish. That can be very problematic. First, some yeast strains easily to go 18+%, so you can have very hot sweet rocket fuel that takes years to age out. Secondly, you may overwhelm the yeast early, so that the yeast dies out before it ferments out. This is very unpredictable, and can give you a wine that may be 6% ABV and WAY too sweet, or 19% and WAY too hot. I think your recipe is sort of leaning this way, but it looks like the winemaker is lucky, and not skilled. I wouldn't recommend this at all.

If you want a sweet wine, follow the good directions. Once the wine is clear, no longer dropping lees after at least 60 days, and at a stable gravity as shown by hydrometer readings, it can be stabilized with campden tablets and sorbate, and then sweetened to taste. Some people like sweet dessert-style wines while others like dry wines- they are commonly both made exactly the same way so you have lots of options! You can even bottle half sweetened, and half not- it's totally up to you!

Yooper,

I'm use to making Beer, but I'm thinking about trying my hand at wine and have been looking for a cherry wine recipe. SooO, I have question for you or anyone else, those recipes from Jack Keller's website do they make only a gallon of wine is that what reading? I see it calls for 7 1/2 pints of water, so if I'm shooting for a bigger batch i would have to double or what ever to make up the difference? Correct?

Correct scale up for larger volumes.

also a question..... in the recipie it calls to pour boiling water over the cherries.... I am thinking it Would be a bad idea if I were using a plastic bucket correct?...

tnsen said:

also a question..... in the recipie it calls to pour boiling water over the cherries.... I am thinking it Would be a bad idea if I were using a plastic bucket correct?...

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It works ok for the buckets I have. I haven't had any issues with doing that, as I usually boil the water to dissolve the sugar and pour it in hot. Some thin non-food safe buckets might be an issue, but I wouldn't be using them anyway! I know that plastic fermenters like Better Bottles don't do well with really hot water but I've never had a problem with winemaking a small volume in a bucket.