Cranberry wine

I bought some fresh cranberries after the holidays when were cheaper. Looking to make a cranberry or a cranberry blackberry. Has anyone done a black cran before? If so what ratio was used? One other question I have, should I use a red or white Welch's grape concentrate? Trying to add more body to the wine as straight cranberry comes out pretty light bodied. Any suggestions is appreciated.

I have never made that combination but I would add the red grape and maybe some dark raisin to cranberry.

I have not done that combination either, i did do a cranberry at one point, turned out pretty nice.
In my opinion i would go with the white grape, I think that the concord grape concentrate adds foxy flavors and other things that you don't really want in your wine. That being said i think there are some people on here that have used the concord and have had acceptable results. I would look at what type of wine you want to end up with and decide from there.

How many per gallon 1 or 2?

jkrug said:

How many per gallon 1 or 2?

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I would probably look at two

Pure cranberry is wonderfull. Add a few bananas for added body.
Cranberry does blend beautifully with losts of fruits. Apple, rubarb, peach and rasberry all came out very tasty. I will use a few cranberries to add tartness to low acid fruits.
Juice of choice would be frozen white grape and rasberry. Welches I think. 100% juice. Or use apple juice instead of water as a bace.

jensmith said:

Pure cranberry is wonderfull. Add a few bananas for added body.
Cranberry does blend beautifully with losts of fruits. Apple, rubarb, peach and rasberry all came out very tasty. I will use a few cranberries to add tartness to low acid fruits.
Juice of choice would be frozen white grape and rasberry. Welches I think. 100% juice. Or use apple juice instead of water as a bace.

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Could you post your recipe? I just bought 6 lbs of cranberries. I'm going to chop them by hand and then freeze them for a bit. Seems to be a lack of recipes for Cranberry wine using only Cranberries. Thanks!

My first wine was a 3 gallons of cranberry. I used 8 lbs berries, 8 lbs sugar, 3 gallons water, 2 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient, 1/2 tsp k-met and montrachet yeast. Usual procedure, boil the water and pour it on the berries and sugar. Wait to cool (SG 1.086) and add the sulphite, add yeast 12-24 hours later.

Took forever to ferment. The book I was going by--Winemaking by Stanley Anderson, this was back in the 90s--gave me fears of horribleness if left in the primary too long so I racked at 1.06 after 2 weeks. Fermented slowly for the next 2 1/2 years, with only (2) 1/4 tsp additions of nutrient and 2 rackings. Finally got the SG down to .990. Bottled about 3 years after starting. Turned out really nice--no off flavors from being on the sediment too long. The cranberry tartness went well with poultry.

If I was going to do it again I would add a can of OJ concentrate. I've never tasted any OJ in my finished blueberry wines and it ferments well. OR, keep adding nutrient in the primary when fermentation slows and stir daily. And keep it warm, of course.

Randy

I use one box of golden raisins per gal of our cranberry wine. Sometimes add liquid white grape juice ILO 2 quarts of water. Makes a nice cranberry wine. We had 3 bottles of 2014 Cranberry Wine for Thanksgiving, big hit! Roy

My recapies are fairly flexible, more suggestions then rules!
For a five galleon batch
14-15# cut cranberries.
10# suger
2.5tsp peptic enzyme
1-10 ripe bananas, optional.
Let sit 12-24 hours. May add campton/sulfa if you want. When I do I often do it first and with the peptic enzyme. The peptic enzyme works just fine when added with the sulfa. You can wait 12h between them if you want to.
You can also add boiled water to the cranberries to help fix the bright red color.
After the 12-24h add yeast and yeast nutriant per directions. I also often add some yeast energizer. The further the fermentables are from grapes the more likley energizer is helpfull. Cranberries can be stubborn so I use it.
You may add any extra juice concentrate you want. Or save it for a yeast starter if the cranberries refuse to ferment quick enough.
I have used several different yeast varieties. All came out tasty.

I ferment in an open bucket with a towel over the top. Stir
twice daily. Take out the berries after sg is below 1.010 or .990. A seconds wine can sometimes be made with less water added and a can or two of juice. Or better yet with apple cider as a bace

I used the 1 gallon recipe here: http://www.defalcos.com/Wine-Recipes/cranberry-wine-recipe.html

It took 5 days to drop from 1.096 to 1.002 when I transferred to secondary. I will say that the gallon of water was to much. It was nice in that I a ton of sediment and lots left over to top off. When I transferred to the one gallon jug I had a magnum-sized wine bottle of liquid left over. I did screw up my my first racking and took too much sediment over, but now I have a regular-sized wine bottle left over in addition to the 1 gallon jug. So I don't have to worry about watering down anything!

Of course I'm still bulk aging and can't speak to if it's any good or not. I do have high hopes!