Frist Cranberry wine, how long to bulk age?

[Texconsinite]

So, made my first cranberry wine with Cran juice and frozen berries. It fermented dry, and I kmeta'd and backsweetened according to Wade E's recipe.
It looks clear already, just like the juice it was made from.

My question is this: What will Leaving this in the fermenter and "bulk aging" do for the wine at this point? or am i better off just bottling it and letting it age in there.

Im concerned because it sems like many people keep talking about how cranberries ferment slow, and get stuck, and the wine takes 6 months or more to bulk age and clarify, and to keep adding kmeta and transferring every 3 months.

Mine fermented quickly (2 weeks) and its already clear. Im not sure how to know when it is aged sufficiently to bottle. I have only done skeeter pee and meads before this, so Im not what the bulk aging does, or how to know when its "ready" to bottle. Help!!

 

[jensmith]

Short quick answere... Bulk ageing before botteling helps all tbe wine taste the same. Botteling as soon as its "done" may give you small differences between bottles. Bulk aging also gives the wine time to natuarly degass and drop any last bits of sedament.
Cranberry wine does clear beautifully!! Sometimes even befor fully done. Check the sg to be sure it is done!


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[Texconsinite]

Its below 1.00. Been clearing since 2/19. Good to know that cranberry wine clears sometimes before fully done. Right now it looks beautiful, and tastes like a somewhat dry, mild red.

 

[Tarik]

Homemade wine can be made from almost anything.
Once you have your fruit you need to prep it for the primary fermenter. For grape and berry wines, you need a means of crushing the fruit to release the juices and colors. The skins must be broken, but you want to be sure not to crack the seeds as that will release unwanted flavors in your must, the initial combination of fruit, juices, water, sugar, and other ingredients. For batches under a couple of gallons, just use your hands, they work fine. For 5 gallon batches of my raspberry and currant wines where I am crushing 12-15 lbs of fruit I use an old-fashioned food mill, or the fruit strainer attachment on my Kitchen Aid. Of course, the time-honored foot stomp is still an effective method for soft fruits and berries (and requires no purchase), just make sure your feet are immaculately clean.

 

[Texconsinite]

I would love to use all whole fruit for a 6 gallon batch, but do not have a ready supply of fresh fruits, so opted to use a juice/frozen fruit blend in this case.

I used 2 lbs of frozen cranberries, and 1 lb of frozen mixed berries, with 3 Gallons of Cranberry Juice, and 2.5 gallons of Cran-Pom juice, and some invert sugar dumped over berries, Lalvin EC-1118. OG 1.063, racked off berries at 1.020 to clean bucket. Went to 1.00 within 2 weeks of pitching, transferred to secondary: added Kmeta, sorbate and backsweeted with 1 can Cranberry concentrate, 1 can cran-apple concentrate. That was 2 weeks ago. No airlock activity since stabilized.

It was already quite clear, despite being very dark red, when i transferred to secondary. I'm just wondering other than uniform flavor btw bottles, am i gaining any benefits at this point from just leaving it in there, or will corking and aging in bottles do just as well?

Elsewhere on site many have mentioned that cranberries ferment slow, tend to get stuck fermentations, and/or age slowly, and Im surprised how quickly my batch has fermented and cleared up, so just making sure Im not missing something

 

[jensmith]

You certainly can age in the bottle. If the wine is clear, degassed, and stable it will age whatever it is in. Even when I am in a hurry to bottle (need the carboy!) I let it bulk age for at least three months first. Wine kits often have you botteling in 4 weeks. It certainly can be done. Most people do kits and are happy.


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[Texconsinite]

Sounds like i will age fine in the bottles (as long as i dont drink it first), so I bottled this one on Sunday and put on the wine rack for storage. It tasted great! The sweetness from the can of apple-cran concentrate comes through and helps offset the back end dryness and tartness of the cran. Still tastes like cran, just softened the pucker-factor a bit.

I have high hopes for this one, and look forward to seeing what difference a few months makes in the flavor profile.

I I we're doing this again, I would probably add more sugar to bring OG up to around 1.090, and squish the juice out of the whole berries before dumping liquid onto them. Probably didn't get as much out of them this way.

Overall though, very happy with how this turned out! Thanks for the help!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew