Cranberry wine

Tom, I've made it and bottled it, but this was my first batch. The recipe was from Terry Garey's "The Joy of Home Winemaking". The wine came out at a 12% alcohol by volume - it had a cranberry taste, a bit tart, but smooth - ending SG was 1.021. I've been letting it age. I'll break out the first bottle at Thanksgiving. I'm waiting for cranberries to go on sale again, right after Thanksgiving, and then I'll buy 4 bags at 12 oz each, freeze them for a couple of weeks and then start making the wine. When I make it again, I will use more water - there was a lot of cranberry sludge. If this sounds like a recipe you'd like, let me know and I'll send it to you. Darlene

Yes please share your recipe with us.

Hi! The initial recipe called for only 3 3/4 quarts of water. As I read through my notes, I noted that I didn't have any to top up with and the recipe didn't quite produce 1 gallon, so I've increased the water to get a full gallon plus a bit more to use as top up. I also noted that there was so much cranberry sludge, that when I racked, I was concerned about adding all this water - so I bought a can of 100% frozen cranberry juice and added that for top-up. Good-luck Darlene

Cranberry Wine

3 lbs cranberries (frozen and thawed) (4-12 oz bags) 6 cups sugar (5 cups added before fermentation/1 cup added after initial ferment slows down) 1 gallon water (plus a pint or so more for top-up) 1 can 100% Welch's white grape juice 1/4 tsp tannin 1/2 tsp acid blend 1 tsp yeast nutrient 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme 1 crushed campden tablet 1 packet Montrachet yeast

Thanks for posting your recipe. Is this a sweet wine? Chris

Hi Tom,

I have made cranberry melomel (with honey as the fermentables) twice now. The first was light on the cranberries and slightly off dry. It was nice. The second time turned out much better with more cranberry fruit. It was also sweetened just a bit. It has a nice cranberry tartness and beautiful color. I have some details on my web page. You can find the complete wine logs for the 2001 bottled batch. My melomel bottled this year I am working on the logs now and is not on my web page, so the details are below.

I have a batch made from cranberries and raisins. Used the recipe on Jack Keller's site. Very nice. Try looking at his recipe.

Ray

Hey Tom, I know you said you were looking for a tried and true cranberry wine recipe, but how about a mead recipe?! I tasted a cranberry wine a friend made a few years ago, and although it was very good, if I didn't know it was cranberry, it would have been very hard to guess. I was looking for something more "cranberry!", not just a tasty,dry, red wine. So I put together this melomel last December to drink this Thanksgiving. Although aging will probably make this mead spectacular, it's very good now. My recipe:

7- 12 oz bags fresh cranberries/ prefrozen 4#'s dried cranberries. Look around for the unsulfited ones. 5 tsp yeast nutrient with biotin 4 tsp acid blend 2 tsp geletin finings KV1-1116 yeast Blackberry honey

I always make a yeast starter the day before I mix up the mead. Simple and gives the yeast a head start in the mead. Just mix a couple of tbl spoons of honey in about 2/3 full qt jar of water, a dash of nutrient and pitch the yeast.

I don't boil, pasturize or sulfite and of my meads. You can adapt your methods on this here. thawed and crushed cranberries. Put fresh berries and 1# dried into strainer bag mix honey in 5 gals warm water (to disolve honey). I just keep mixing and testing until I get the SG I want. This batch I wanted strong so I hit 1.120 SG. Add nutrient, acid, gelitin, the bag of fruit and yeast starter. I keep bucket covered with a towel and mix thoroughly for 7-10 days. Rack off fruit, squeeze strainer bag as dry as you can get it. Rack again when bubling thru the air lock is down to 1/30 seconds. When I make a second fruit addition, I usually wait until the mead starts clearing. I don't know why, that's just the way I do it. This one took almost 5 months to start clearing. I racked the mead into another carboy with the remaining 3 #'s dried cranberries in a strainer bag. Fruit sat in the mead for another 2 weeks and racked off. It clouds up the mead again, but who's in a hurry? Now this mead has a deep red color, is very very cranberry flavor. It will go awesome with Thanksgiving dinner. It's hard keeping my wife out of it now. Thad

That is an interesting thing about cranberry. Jack's recipe calls for a tremendous amount of cranberry. And dry. the wine has a strong flavor and strong bouquet. But unless you know it is cranberry wine you would not recognize it. The bouquet is very floral and the wine is very crisp. I love it. I resisted making cranberry wine for years as I do not like cranberry juice. The resistance has crumbled.

Ray