very Cherry recipe?

[gstrawn]

I'm wanting the make a sparkling cherry drink, not necessarily a wine. About 7%, sparkling semi sweet for my girlfriend so that i can persuade her of the value of home brewing. I was hoping someone had had a successful beverage of this type, any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Insomniac]

I was just given the following advise:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/fizzy-raspberry-wine-260047/

 

[Yooper]

I've made sour cherry wine, and it's good, but probably not what you're looking for. Once the sugars in cherries ferment out, it's TART!

What about one of those Welch's or Old Orchard Juice blends, like cherry/apple/raspberry or one of those? They would still ferment out and be tart, but you could either add non-fermentable sugars and bottle carb, or stabilize and sweeten (but no carbing).

If you are really serious about making something she'd like, and don't mind spending about $50 for 6 gallons, those "Island Mist" wine kits are really good. I'm not a sweet wine cooler type of winedrinker, but my best friend has made several and they are really good. She made Kiwi Pear Sauvignon Blanc, and Mango Citrus Symphony, and a couple of others I can't remember right now. They aren't carbed, though- there are stabilizers in there to prevent the sweeteners from restarting fermentation- but you could keg them if you wanted fizzy and had a kegging system.

 

[gstrawn]

Thanks yooper. Very helpful. I do have a question kind of along these lines. I'm mostly a beer brewer but I've made some experimental batches of things including a few cider, skeeter pee, and even a peach white grape juice thing. dont know what to call it. But something I've noticed which may not be fact is that the sugar i add seems to be more fermentable, and maintains the original flavors until that is the only remaining sugar at which time those are also fermented. Does this sound realistic or am i just crazy? Could i use cherries and sugar/honey to an extra high OG then stop fermentation and retain the cherry sweetness and flavor with the alcohol coming from "more easily fermented" sugars?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks yooper. Very helpful. I do have a question kind of along these lines. I'm mostly a beer brewer but I've made some experimental batches of things including a few cider, skeeter pee, and even a peach white grape juice thing. dont know what to call it. But something I've noticed which may not be fact is that the sugar i add seems to be more fermentable, and maintains the original flavors until that is the only remaining sugar at which time those are also fermented. Does this sound realistic or am i just crazy? Could i use cherries and sugar/honey to an extra high OG then stop fermentation and retain the cherry sweetness and flavor with the alcohol coming from "more easily fermented" sugars?

The sugar is really flavorless, and should ferment out fully, whether from fruit (fructose), table sugar, honey, etc. The issue with adding more sugar/honey to overwhelm the yeast and have a sweet product in the end is that you often end up with sweet rocket fuel that takes years to age out.

Some yeast strains easily push 18%, and happy yeast can go beyond that. It's also pretty hard to start a high sugar wine and keep it going (sometimes the yeast will poop out unexpectedly early with a very high OG environment)- so you can either end up with a 7% way-too-sweet wine, or a 19% ABV way-too-hot wine.

 

[Foomoochoo]

I am not sure on the exact recipe btu, a friend made a nice cherry once. It was an apple wine like Ed's. Racked on to 10lbs of sweet cherries in secondary. It was pretty tasty after some aging, though a tad dry. We like dry but, it could easily be backsweetened.

Like most wine, it takes time. The Island Mist kits that Yooper mentioned are great as well.