cklages
Well-Known Member
Hey there all. I just put one gallon of pin cherry wine into primary, and considering the effort it took to pick 4 pounds of pin cherries, not to mention the time it will take before it is ready, it would be a real shame to see it gone in a week. I was kind of wondering if instead of stabilizing and backsweetening at 12%, i could bump up the alcohol to help stave of oxidation, and treat it more like a liqueur or cordial, serving it up a couple of ounces at a time after dinner, on ice cream or whatnot. I will give you the recipe i used.
4 lbs pincherries
11 cups water
2 lbs sugar
1/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1/16 tsp k-meta
kv-1116 yeast
I froze the cherries for a week, then thawed them with boiling water. I then crushed them by hand being careful not to crack the pits, added the k-meta and let them sit on the crushed berries for 24 hours. I then removed the crushed berries, added yeast and here we are. I removed the crushed berries pretty early because pin cherries are mostly pits, and i didn't want it to get too bitter, you can definitely taste the bitterness contribution in just the last 24 hours.
So anyway, back to my original question, if i want to up the alcohol, should i try stepped additions of sugar? that should get me to close to 18 percent with the kv-1116, but i don't want rocket fuel, and im not sure if the cherries will be able to cover up a lot of by products from the yeast. Does anybody have much experience with this?
I could just add some grain alcohol and backsweeten, If I did this, what ABV would give me the most stability. I would like to be able to leave a half bottle in the liquor cabinet for a little while without having to worry about it going bad, is this even a reasonable goal?
I was also thinking that this might taste nice blended with a good gin, does anybody have much experience blending wine with different liquors? I would prefer not to ruin a good wine and a good bottle of gin at the same time.
Thank you for your time.
Chris
4 lbs pincherries
11 cups water
2 lbs sugar
1/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1/16 tsp k-meta
kv-1116 yeast
I froze the cherries for a week, then thawed them with boiling water. I then crushed them by hand being careful not to crack the pits, added the k-meta and let them sit on the crushed berries for 24 hours. I then removed the crushed berries, added yeast and here we are. I removed the crushed berries pretty early because pin cherries are mostly pits, and i didn't want it to get too bitter, you can definitely taste the bitterness contribution in just the last 24 hours.
So anyway, back to my original question, if i want to up the alcohol, should i try stepped additions of sugar? that should get me to close to 18 percent with the kv-1116, but i don't want rocket fuel, and im not sure if the cherries will be able to cover up a lot of by products from the yeast. Does anybody have much experience with this?
I could just add some grain alcohol and backsweeten, If I did this, what ABV would give me the most stability. I would like to be able to leave a half bottle in the liquor cabinet for a little while without having to worry about it going bad, is this even a reasonable goal?
I was also thinking that this might taste nice blended with a good gin, does anybody have much experience blending wine with different liquors? I would prefer not to ruin a good wine and a good bottle of gin at the same time.
Thank you for your time.
Chris
