Currants

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sjo

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I got about 1.5 gallons of frozen currant juice from my Mother in law. She got it from a friend. They do not recall how many lbs of currants it took to get this much so I am trying to come up with a game plan before I thaw it out. I don't want to mess with less than a 3 gallon batch. I have read that currants are strong flavored. Is it possible 1.5 gallons of pure juice can be watered down to a 3 gallon batch? It is red juice. Can I assume it is from red currant? Once I thaw it out and check sg and taste it it will be easier to figure what to do. I am trying to come up with options before that. If you think it will be to weak at three gallons, what might be good blending options for 3 to 5 gallons. I do have strawberries, rhubarb, bananas and dandelions in the freezer.
Thanks
Sjo
 
I have a batch of red current in the secondary. Started out with 26 lb. of berries, wound up with 5 gal of wine. Afraid I do not know how much juice that would be. Think you should be easily able to double the juice with water, tho. A lot of times people will simmer the juice down when making it, so it is kinda concentrated. Take this as my 2 cents worth. That is how I would probably make it, but am just kinda guessing. Arne.
 
I do not know the first thing about Currants so I may not be much help but If I only had 1.5 gal of juice, I would only make 1.5 gallon of wine. You say that the currants are strong so maybe I'm wrong. I would be afraid that if you watter the juice down then you would end up with a light or medium bodied wine, unless thats whats your going for.
 
You are probably going to have to give it a taste to see how acidic it is and how strong the taste is. Do you know if its from black or red currants? You might throw some bannaners in there but the strawberries and flowers wont stand a chance. Crackedcork
 
You are probably going to have to give it a taste to see how acidic it is and how strong the taste is. Do you know if its from black or red currants? You might throw some bannaners in there but the strawberries and flowers wont stand a chance. Crackedcork

Not sure if they were black or red currants. The juice is red, I would have expected black currant to be very deep dark red or black. I hope to thaw some out tomorrow to test it.
Sjo
 
You are really going to thaw it, then take an acid test. Juice that strong may need a little water. My muskadines are that way. If I recall I need to add 40% water to get the numbers down on the muskadine.
 
I have black currants and can say that the juice from it s a very very dark red that stains everything. The lighter the berry with currants the lighter the taste so the red would be the middle as the white would be the weakest. I think that you could probably dilute this down by about 1/2 but many people do make some of these full strength although I feel this would be a little too strong. I really dont think blending this with any of those options will do anything but hide the other flavors as this currant juice is very strong in flavor and makes itself known big time. It doesnt need bananas to add any body either if thats what you were thinking unlike many other fruits. This and elderberry have plenty of boy and tannin and dont need any additional. I do agree that you should also test the acid and try diluting down a small sample to see where it would be in range then taste it.
 
Woke up last nite thinking about this. Think I would take a small amount of the juice, 1/4 cup or so, start diluting it with water and tasting. You will want it pretty strong, but if you have red currants you will probably not be able to dilute it as much as with black currants. I used red, but black will probably be red too, just darker. Just another thought. Arne
 
Arne...i think i would wait until its wine before diluting just yet...things will be far different in the wine stage than the post frozen juice stage.

Looking forward to how this turns out as i am one year behind Wade ( looking forward to what you do too Wade) ..we both rec'd a gracious gift from Grapeman w some of his currants

everyone should check their state regs as currants were for a long time illegal because they were hosts for pine needle rust back in the 1800's...only recently have they become off the illegal list in SOME states
 
No problem, Al. Just throwing out some ideas. Have to agree, have made some with all juice, and some that has been diluted. I have no idea how you mite tell how many pounds of fruit would put out a gallon of juice. It would probably vary with the type of fruit. Anyway good luck with it, Arne. :h
 
In my state of WV parts of the state its legal to grow them but a lot of suppliers dont beleive us and we have to send them the rules before they will even think of selling us any plants. We just found some good online places that understand this from the start and that have good plants. We have black, red and pink currants, we have enough made from just black currants for decades. I like the reds better and like to add them to an elderberry wine, the redcurrants add their flavor and acid and the elders add their flavor and tannin and together the add up to a great wine, at least I hope so this year and thats what we made with our red currants. Also doing some black currnat elderberries but I think the black currant flavors are going to dominate that batch. Crackedcork
 
I got about 1.5 gallons of frozen currant juice from my Mother in law. She got it from a friend. They do not recall how many lbs of currants it took to get this much so I am trying to come up with a game plan before I thaw it out. I don't want to mess with less than a 3 gallon batch. I have read that currants are strong flavored. Is it possible 1.5 gallons of pure juice can be watered down to a 3 gallon batch? It is red juice. Can I assume it is from red currant? Once I thaw it out and check sg and taste it it will be easier to figure what to do. I am trying to come up with options before that. If you think it will be to weak at three gallons, what might be good blending options for 3 to 5 gallons. I do have strawberries, rhubarb, bananas and dandelions in the freezer.
Thanks
Sjo


I would take a SG reading and let that dictate on how much or how little I would or would not water the juice down. Just a thought.
 
Thawed out some juice for testing.
PH of juice was 3.2
TA was 1.1
sg 1.052

Very strong flavor and pretty sour. Dark red almost raspberry like color.
Tried diluting by 50% and 100%. Flavor at 100% maybe a little weak but not bad. Thinking about diluting entire batch 100% and aging until summer than getting more currants and adding in as f-pac.

SJO
 
Reading thru this thread got me thinking about the currant wine. Got a bottle out, it was started in July of 09. Used 3 lb of currants and it had plenty of flavor. This was with red currants. Was really good, glad I started 5 more gallons this winter. Have to look at my notes, but think I started with 5 lb/gal this time. Should be really flavorful. Arne.
 
i've used the Vintner's Harvest juice bases in 3 gal form. The black currant is great. It is not red, it's more dark purple colored. IMHO, wade and dj summed it up good. this will have flavor if you dilute and i would think hitting the right pH by using water should get you there. I'm lucky enough to have a digital probe type tester, so it's easy to check things (as long as you know the thing is calibrated!).

we've made black currant probably 4 times or so. the juice was acidic, but I'm not sure about what you have. I think the VH juice bases are tweaked to make them easier to turn to wine. I'm not exactly sure about that, but the juice seemed thick, maybe concentrated some and the numbers on the label put you right in the midrange for pH. The resulting wine from just following their directions is very good. It's a wine that can age for 3+ years. i know i've popped bottles open after finding an older one (2-3 yrs) and it seemed even better than I remembered. It's hard to keep from opening them!

We've planted 6 plants ourselves to see how they fared in our climate/soil. So far pretty good, looked at buying more plants and EVERYONE we usually buy from (3 or 4 suppliers) were sold out! must be getting popular. beware some online companies. we had 2 different suppliers send us pratically dead plants and another sent us roses that were not the right ones, yet were labeled correctly. when they bloomed, we were not happy!
 
Well I started the currant wine last night. Thawed out the currant juice and had 1.5 gallons. TA 1.1 PH3.2 sg 1.052
Added 5 lbs sugar and water to 3 gallons. SG 1.09 PH 3.2 TA 5
Still had good flavor with that much water. The plan is ferment and age till summer. At which time I will have to come up with some more currants for an F-pac. That should take care of the flavor and up the acid level. If no currants are available I'll be picking up a can of Vintner's Harvest to save it.
 

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