Cranberry Wine 2008
by Mel Smith
I received about 25 lbs of Cranberries from a friend that works in the cranberry bogs during harvest (picked up and delivered to me by another friend) on Thursday evening
On Saturday evening, I cleaned the berries. I spent two or three hours rinsing and picking stems and leaves from the berries. The weather was cool, probably in the thirties or even the twenties at night, so I left the pale of berries outside 
during this time.
On Monday evening
(The picture of the white berries in the bucket are the ones I threw away. I kept the redder berries and the ones with no soft spots but with all of those berries, I wasn't overly particular.)
This is approximately the recipe I used.
20-24 lbs of fresh Cranberries (Stevens variety) coarsely chopped
6 lbs. of Golden Raisons whole
21 lbs of granulated sugar
8 campden tablets - crushed
7 teaspoons of yeast nutrient
5 teaspoons of yeast energizer
2 teaspoons of pectic enzyme
9 teaspoons of acid blend
7 gallons of water
Everything was placed in the primary fermentor and stirred well. The picture of the blue fermentor with a few berries in the bottom as I began my project of sorting, chopping and adding the other ingredients to make the cranberry wine.
24 hours later, I added
Lalivin K1-V1116 Champaign yeast, 2 packets
The following evening 10/28/2008 23:30 pm I hydrated 2 packets of Lalivin K1-V1116 Champaign yeast by pouring them into a bowl of 101 degree water and leaving sit for 45 minutes. I had planned for only a 15 minute hydration, but at 15 minutes and then at 30 minutes I still had a little pile of dry yeast floating in the water. Each time I jiggled the bowl until I thought the yeast was all wet, and then set my timer for another 15 minutes. That’s how it ended up taking 45 minutes to hydrate the yeast. I then poured the hydrated yeast into the primary fermentor and stirred the mash briskly.
I had stirred the must before adding the yeast and tested the specific gravity. It was slightly lower than I wanted 1.104 instead of the 1.110 to 1.115 that I was shooting for, but I think that is O.K., as I will have to have more sugar additions anyway. I’m using a
During the next five to seven days, I will stir the must daily, watch for signs that fermentation has began, and try to plan how to squeeze all the juice from the fruit when its time, but that is all for tonight. I'm going to enjoy a glass of mead I made in January of 2007 and turn in for the night.
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12 Comments:
I am becoming a little concerned about this wine. I stirred it last night 10/29/08, and again tonight 10/30/08 but I do not see any signs that fermentation has begun. It has been been 48 hours. I dug through the garbage for the discarded yeast packets and found the expiration date on one was 2010 but couldn't find the second one. The yeast should have been good. Maybe I put too many campdem tablets in? I thought I should just multiply the tablets (one for one gallon) to seven or eight for seven gallons. ??? Maybe it's too sweet, not oxygenated enough, or the yeast was bad? If it was too many Campdem tablets (Sodium Metabisulphite) and it killed the yeast then it should have killed any bad yeast as well so I should be O.K. I'll keep stirring but if nothing happens in the next day or two, I might try to get some more of the same strain of yeast.
It is the morning of November 1st (7:00 AM)and the Cranberry wine has begun to ferment. It has been about 80 hours since I pitched the yeast, if I've figured correctly. I'm uncertain why it was such a sluggish start. I had to work a double shift yesterday and just now arrived home. The air lock was bubbling about once a minute, but I didn't time it. I stirred the mash and am happy that fermentation has begun.
What a difference a day makes! The Cranberry wine is in full ferment finally! It is blowing out the airlock every three to four seconds this evening! I almost hate to open it up to stir it tonight but I need to keep doing that daily. I also need to decide when to remove the fruit from the must. I think I'll plan on removal on the 4th or 5th of November. That will be day 8 or 9, a little long but considering the slow start, it's a compromise.
11/02/2008 I boiled a couple cups of water and added two cups of sugar and then boiled that for 3 minutes. The mixture was cooled, the must was stirred and then I mixed in the sugar addition. I'm not sure how I'll continue adding sugar or in what amount. I'll see what effects this addition has if any.
On 11/03/2008 Monday night, I drew out a couple cups of must, boiled it, added two cups of sugar, boiled and cooled it again, and added it back to the primary fermenter. The Specific Gravity was around 1.060 when I started... I think.
On 11/04/2008 Tuesday night, I repeated the process. Here the Specific Gravity was 1.045 when I began. I also tested the alcohol with a vinometer and it showed around 5%. Tomorrow I suppose I should think about pressing out the skin.
5 November 2008, Wednesday.I strained out the skins from the must using a 18x32 course nylon bag that has been sterilized in boiling water. The skins were all scooped into the bag and then pressed by hand as much as I could. I dipped liquid with floating raisins and cranberries into the bag using a little stainless steel strainer. After removing the skins I tested the mixture. The Specific Gravity was about 1.041 and the alcohol measured 8% with the vino meter. I think I'll begin getting some more consistent readings with the skins out of the mash. The wine is light red in color with a strong, rich, cranberry flavor, and numerous particles still in suspension. There appears to be about 10 gallons of must at this point. I again removed a couple cups, boiled and added 2 cups of sugar, cooled and added that to the mixture.
November 7, 2008. I repeated the sugar addition process tonight but added three cups instead of two. Before the sugar addition, the alcohol was at 8.5% and the specific gravity had dropped to 1.036.
November 7th pm early morning on the 8th (the last entry should have been the 6th) I repeated the 3 cup sugar addition. Before the addition the alcohol reading was still 8.5% and the Specific Gravity was 1.037. Tomorrow I might go back to two cups of sugar for the nightly addition.
11/08/2008 (Saturday) Tonight the Alcohol measured around 9.1. The Specific Gravity was at 1.037. I used the same method of drawing off about 2 cups of must to measure and heat except tonight I added the 1 cup of sugar early on and only brought the mixture up to 176 degrees. Instead of cooling in cold water, I just left it on the stove top to cool. I figure this should not drive off the alcohol in the sample but still kill strange germs. The fermentation has slowed, is less violent now. Perhaps it's time to let it alone for a few nights, maybe until next Friday and see what has happened then.
11/12/2008 Wednesday. I tested the wine, 1.032 SG., alcohol 10% but I really don't know if I can depend on the vino meter. The wine is sweet but with plenty of tart flavor from the cranberries. The color is a very light, milky red... leaning toward reddish-purple. It has a warm aftertaste and a lingering tart taste of cranberry.
The Cranberry wine is two months old now. I lost track of my sugar additions back in November but I don't think I added too much more than what's recorded in these notes. I think after that week rest I may have added one more addition of 5 cups and then things slowed down quite a bit in the fermentation. On December 27th, the Specific gravity was around 1.022. I figured it wasn't going to drop much more so I added 2 teaspoons of Metabisulfate, 4 teaspoons of Sorbate, and a packet of Isinglass. That seems to to have stopped the ferment for good and it seems to be clearing beautifully. I plan to let it sit for 12 days until January 10th and then rack it again and see how it looks. It tastes great and has a beautiful red color. It's sweet and quite potent. I think it's going to be one of my better wines. I'll probably take these notes and and write a better commentary of the entire brew. This is a wine I'll want to make again next year.
It is the 20th of January 2009, and I bottled the Cranberry wine. Almost 3 months to the day (started October 23, 2008) since I received the Cranberries, I bottled up 40 bottles of wine. It's a bright red color, a sweat wine with a specific gravity of 1.024. I like the taste, sweet but with a bitter tone of cranberry. It's very clear, shiny clear. The wine will be moved to the basement now to age. It should make an excellent gift around next thanksgiving day or Christmas. This wine was a fun one to make, in part because I think it turned out so well, but also because it did only take three months. It had a definite start and end. Some of the other wines I've made have taken longer and I was never quite sure when it was over. The Dunnigan Grape for example went on for nearly a year and finally I bottle it, not satisfied with the wine but tiered of messing with it.
Someday when I have time, I'll go over all of these notes and assemble a recipe based on what I did.
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