OK Cherry Wine

Alcoholic beverages which are not classified as spirits.

Moderator: Site Moderator

Post Reply
User avatar
ArcherFish
Novice
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 9:15 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

OK Cherry Wine

Post by ArcherFish »

Back in July, Skeena cherries were plump and ready to be eaten. I picked about 90kg of cherries from a U-Pick farm, turning 10kg of it into cherry liqueur and the rest into an all-juice wine.

Once the cherries were picked, I washed, destoned, and crammed all 80kg of them into a breville juicer (which I wouldn't recommend doing as cherry chunks flew all over my kitchen). I got about 25L of juice with plenty of pulp which I then stuck into a beer kettle to pasteurize for about 10 minutes. The juice was then strained and I took a SG reading of 1.062. The juice wasn't quite as high a gravity as I wanted, so I put in 2L of honey bringing it to SG 1.071.

I left the wine to ferment in the primary fermenter for 3 weeks, where it was then racked into a 23L carboy. There was A LOT of sludge sitting at the bottom, so I racked the sludge into a smaller carboy to allow it to settle out a little extra juice.

Right now it has been fermenting for 7 weeks and is still sitting in the glass carboys. The current gravity reading is 0.999. I am thinking that I am going to rack it again and let it sit for another month.
Attachments
LOTS of sludge
LOTS of sludge
There was some white chalky stuff that appeared at the top of the carboy. Any ideas what it might be?
There was some white chalky stuff that appeared at the top of the carboy. Any ideas what it might be?
20160827_115317.jpg
User avatar
still_stirrin
Master of Distillation
Posts: 10337
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:01 am
Location: where the buffalo roam, and the deer & antelope play

Re: OK Cherry Wine

Post by still_stirrin »

Very nice color. It looks very inviting. Have you sampled it? Is it tart?

Good job.
ss
My LM/VM & Potstill: My build thread
My Cadco hotplate modification thread: Hotplate Build
My stock pot gin still: stock pot potstill
My 5-grain Bourbon recipe: Special K
User avatar
ArcherFish
Novice
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 9:15 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: OK Cherry Wine

Post by ArcherFish »

I sampled it. It is a bit tart with a chalky aftertaste. I anticipate that when I filter it, the chalkiness will disappear.
User avatar
cranky
Master of Distillation
Posts: 6505
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:18 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: OK Cherry Wine

Post by cranky »

I get that white chalky stuff on top sometimes, especially if there is a lot of head space, I try to top it up so there is minimal head space once it is close to finished. I believe someone once told me it is actually a yeast bloom of some kind but I'm not really sure, I don't believe it has ever harmed my wine.
User avatar
Mikey-moo
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 1498
Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:54 am

Re: OK Cherry Wine

Post by Mikey-moo »

How did this turn out in the end?
Best place to start for newbies - click here - Courtesy of Cranky :-)

If you have used this site to save money by making your own top quality booze at home then please consider donating a couple of dollars to help keep this site running. Cheers!
Tomc
Novice
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:05 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: OK Cherry Wine

Post by Tomc »

One of the best mistakes we made is cherry wine. It did not taste as we expected and forgot about it for a few years. Much later we found the bottles and oh my it had improved A LOT. So, forget about it and hopefully, you will have a nice surprise too.
Cheers,
Post Reply