We have the recipe from Jack Keller's webpage. We have the fresh Cranberries, but the currants that I could find were dried.
How many dried currants make one pound? And I would guess that one would soak the dried currants before adding them to the concoction???
Thanks,
Vicki Baylus
Vicki - I can't speak from direct experience, but from what I read, dried currants are a lot like raisins. Grapes run somewhere near 25% sugar; fermentation converts it into a little more than half that much alcohol, ending up around 12-13% in most cases. Figuring that the other solids contribute a little weight, I'd figure that maybe 70% or so of the weight of fresh grapes (or fresh currants) would be water. So a pound of grapes would end up as maybe 1/3 pound of raisins, after almost all the water is removed. I'd round that up and try 1/2 pound of dried currants, rehydrated with a like amount of water (8 oz). I don't think it would make much difference whether you rehydrated first, but you do need to add the cup of water to compensate for the currants being dry. Either way, I think I'd chop them a bit to make sure you extract as much sugar and flavor as you can during fermentation. I think that's standard procedure in recipes that use raisins. Happy fermenting -
Doug
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