Dried cranberry / craisin wine

[Kent88]

Some people I know have acquired some (probably sweetened) dried cranberries. They've requested I make wine out of them. And as far as we know there are no preservatives added to them.

I've made wine from fruit I've picked before, but I always find a recipe to follow. I've never made a cranberry or raisin wine. A quick google search offers little on this topic.

Anyone make craisin wine before?

 

[AkTom]

I make a cran mead. Not bad.

 

[madscientist451]

Never tried a Craisins wine, but If I was going to, I'd make a full strength mead and add the Craisins to secondary. You'll probably have to stabilize and backsweeten, because it will likely be somewhat tart. You could also "cheat" by making a tincture of Craisins in vodka and adding that to taste.

 

[Kent88]

If I was going to, I'd make a full strength mead and add the Craisins to secondary.

If it was me I was making this for, I'd probably do that. When I passed the suggestion along it didn't go over well.

So I figure I should look at some raisin and cranberry wine recipes. I have a copy of Making Wild Wines & Meads, and in there is a recipe for raisin wine, which requires 1.75lbs/gallon of each raisins and sugar. The book's cranberry wine recipe calls for 3lbs fresh cranberries and 2lbs sugar per gallon. I think craisins are something like 15%-18% moisture, if that helps. (edit: according to wikipedia, fresh cranberries are 87% water)

As these are sweetened craisins, I suppose I'll have to mix up everything and gradually put the sugar in, take gravity readings as I go, and aim for something with an original gravity around 1.120.

So I'm still trying to figure out how many pounds of craisins per gallon of wine, but I've narrowed it down.