Cherry Wine -- How much fruit?

[jonereb]

I plan to start a gallon of cherry wine (store bought fruit -- dark red). Recipes call for up to 8 lbs of fruit. I'm thinking about using more fruit and less water for fear of having a watered down wine. What if I use 10 to 12 lbs of cherries? What is the down-side of using too much fruit?

 

[bernardsmith]

IMO there is no down side to using too much fruit. You use as much fruit as you need to obtain the volume of juice that can be pressed from the fruit. But that said, sweet rather than tart (pie ) cherries often result in the production of phenols that shout "cough medicine". I am pretty certain the same phenols are produced by the yeast no matter the fruit BUT it's just that cough medicines tend to make use of those cherry flavored ones, so I avoid making cherry wines for that reason, but your experience may be very different.

 

[jonereb]

Thx. I hadn't considered the cough medicine angle.

 

[hamiltonkiler]

I prefer with all friut wines you add as much fruit enitialy as the volume of wine you want to make. 1 gal of fruit for 1 gal of wine. After you rack off your fruit must from the fruit mush add water back to make the gallon. Like 5 gals of the chopped fruit if you want to make 5 gals of wine.

 

[hamiltonkiler]

I prefer with all friut wines you add as much fruit enitialy as the volume of wine you want to make. 1 gal of fruit for 1 gal of wine. After you rack off your fruit must from the fruit mush add water back to make the gallon. Like 5 gals of the chopped fruit if you want to make 5 gals of wine.

Unless it is blue berry or black berry or any small hard to harvest fruits. Then I would divide by 2.

 

[bernardsmith]

I prefer with all friut wines you add as much fruit enitialy as the volume of wine you want to make. 1 gal of fruit for 1 gal of wine. After you rack off your fruit must from the fruit mush add water back to make the gallon. Like 5 gals of the chopped fruit if you want to make 5 gals of wine.

so how do you deal with losses due to racking? Always best to begin with slightly more must than you intend to bottle so that when it comes time to rack you have too much rather than too little to transfer to the secondary. And that means using a bucket as your primary and not a carboy sealed with bung and airlock...

 

[hamiltonkiler]

so how do you deal with losses due to racking? Always best to begin with slightly more must than you intend to bottle so that when it comes time to rack you have too much rather than too little to transfer to the secondary. And that means using a bucket as your primary and not a carboy sealed with bung and airlock...

My 6 gal primary bucket with 5gals of fruit and one gallon of water racks over after primary fermintation into a 5 gal carboy with little head space. I will usually have to top with less than a gallon of water.

 

[lukebuz]

My 6 gal primary bucket with 5gals of fruit and one gallon of water racks over after primary fermintation into a 5 gal carboy with little head space. I will usually have to top with less than a gallon of water.

My preference I've developed over 40 batches is that always do the primary ferment in a open, cloth covered bucket. Ferment and yeast growth is much more reliable with plenty of excess oxygen. Ferment down to 1.010 or 1.000. Then transfer to Carboy. Otherwise, you risk slow (months and months) ferments if only in glass. Stressed yeast, etc. Purchase an extra 1 gallon, 1/2 gallon, and a few extra regular bottles (even a 1/2 bottle), and prepare your primary ferment (if going into 5 gallon) to be 6 gallons. Then, you'll dump into 6 gallons. After 1st rack, you'll have 5 1/2, then 5 and a bottle, and so on, until clear. No water additions diluting your flavor and alcohol and ruining your balance!

 

[jonereb]

I also primary in a pot with a towel, then at about 1.010 transfer to carboy. After racking, I top with a similar commercial wine. Soon, I will start topping with my own wine. I've only been making wine for 4 or 5 years.

 

[jonereb]

Here's my dilemma. I used about 10 pounds of dark cherries (store bought), fermented the must using Cotes des Blanc, racked to my carboy at 1.010, but only yielded about one-half gallon of wine. I had to add half a gallon of water. Not what I intended. (I didn't have a smaller carboy.) Should I just dump this batch?

 

[jgmillr1]

Hey jonereb

Sorry to hear you didn't get the yield you expected. I usually am get about 1 gal per 10# pitted cherries, but I use a bladder press which is pretty efficient. So if you have access to a good press , you can certainly extract more liquid.

As far as what to do now... the wine is completely salvageable. The downside is that your alcohol will diluted as well as the flavor. You may be able to add some sugar back into the wine now and let it to ferment back some alcohol. ( Too low alcohol will not be well balanced and also more subject to spoilage.) The flavor will be lighter but probably just fine. The upside is that your acid and pH will probably still be good, but the low TA will make your wine want to be more dry unless you add acid.

Bottom line is how does it taste to you now and so you want to keep working on it or move on to the next batch?

 

[jonereb]

Thx for the advice. Maybe I'll add a little sugar, and when I rack the first time, I'll top with a commercial cherry wine to help with the thinness I expect.

 

[madscientist451]

Don't dump it, and don't add sugar. Make a simple low ABV (6%) mead and when its done, blend your cherry wine in to taste.
My cherry wine experience is this: I picked a big bucket of tart cherries, paid the grower about $25, smashed them up, no water added, bud did add some sugar, used wine yeast, made about 1.5 gallons of wine that didn't taste like cherries at all.
It was ok, but ended up blending it with several different cherry flavors to make a more drinkable product. My 2 cents: Skip the cherry wine and use whatever cherries you can get to flavor cider, mead and beer.
Sweet cherries might be a nice addition to a full strength mead. But all I've ever used is tart cherries.
Its best to add them in secondary so you'll get a little more flavor.