First wine

[Stephen Perry]

Ok, so I'm a beer brewer but want to take a shot at wine.

I picked up 2 large containers of Ocean Spray 100% juice cranberry juice. I measured the gravity of just the juice which came out to like 1.048. I added 1 cup of sugar to 30 oz. Of juice in a pot, warmed it up and mixed it. Measured the gravity and came out right at 1.100. From what I've read that's roughly where I want to be.

So here's my questions...
1. I've read all over about people racking from primary to secondary, and then to another secondary, and possibly another. Is there a purpose or reasoning for this? In beer it's primarily for clarity and possible adjuncts.

2. Has anyone done a similar recipe and after it was finished fermenting, aged it in an Oak barrel? I've been wanting to play with barrel aging and thought it'd be cool to make the wine, then half it. Bottle half then barrel age the other half for experimental purposes. Thought?

 

[Blacksmith1]

I have done several cranberry, cran/other juice wines.
DILUTE THIS! 50% water. Trust me on this. As for the racking it is to get as much yeast as possible to drop out. Till the final before bottling which is when you add your stabilizing agents. When going from primary to secondary some people add more/other fruit.

 

[Stephen Perry]

So, in wine making do yall cold crash?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Stephen. In wine making "cold crashing" typically has a very different connotation. Brewers cold crash to help clear their brews by encouraging the yeast to drop out of suspension, but wine makers are forced to have a great deal more patience. Beers are ready for bottling in weeks. Wine can take months, many months, to bottle, so while wine makers might use some electrically charged ions (Bentonite clay, for example) to help clear the wine, given enough time gravity can be relied upon to help clear the wine so that come bottling it is absolutely clear and bright.
That said, to remove some tartaric acid from wine, you might "cold crash". The tartaric forms crystals in the fridge and you can then rack the wine off those crystals. But tartaric acids are usually found in grapes and not in many other fruits used in country wine making...

 

[Shawn Cassidy]

What Bernard said....

 

[z-bob]

Ok, so I'm a beer brewer but want to take a shot at wine.

I picked up 2 large containers of Ocean Spray 100% juice cranberry juice. I measured the gravity of just the juice which came out to like 1.048. I added 1 cup of sugar to 30 oz. Of juice in a pot, warmed it up and mixed it. Measured the gravity and came out right at 1.100. From what I've read that's roughly where I want to be.

So here's my questions...
1. I've read all over about people racking from primary to secondary, and then to another secondary, and possibly another. Is there a purpose or reasoning for this? In beer it's primarily for clarity and possible adjuncts.

2. Has anyone done a similar recipe and after it was finished fermenting, aged it in an Oak barrel? I've been wanting to play with barrel aging and thought it'd be cool to make the wine, then half it. Bottle half then barrel age the other half for experimental purposes. Thought?

Is it "100% juice cranberry" or "100% cranberry juice"? There's a big difference. (the first is more likely to make something drinkable)

 

[bmd2k1]

So, in wine making do yall cold crash?

I do my Concorde grape vinos using D47 yeast [emoji111]

 

[Seamonkey84]

Cold crashing clears it faster, but doesn’t skip the aging process.

 

[Stephen Perry]

Is it "100% juice cranberry" or "100% cranberry juice"? There's a big difference. (the first is more likely to make something drinkable)

100% Juice Cranberry. That's why I labeled it like that in the original post

 

[z-bob]

100% Juice Cranberry. That's why I labeled it like that in the original post

I thought so, just wanted to make sure