Cranberry wine recipe wanted.

[Jusatele]

Basically I have found that 3 to 4 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine.
Mow that can vary according to the style wine you want.
THe amount of sugar varies as the difference in fruit sugars and where you want the SG to start with will determine that.
Best advice I ever got was to make lots of notes about everything, compare those notes from batch to batch and soon you will see how the differences come about.
you can adjust so much with additives you can buy at the brew store so ask how to change things, get your answers here and learn. This is a great life long hobby

 

[Applewineguy]

what is a good PH kit and what do you use to adjust the PH? I've been out for 10 years and also interested in making a cranberry wine although I'm looking to do so with honey to create a nice Melomel.

 

[Applewineguy]

Basically I have found that 3 to 4 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine.
Mow that can vary according to the style wine you want.
THe amount of sugar varies as the difference in fruit sugars and where you want the SG to start with will determine that.
Best advice I ever got was to make lots of notes about everything, compare those notes from batch to batch and soon you will see how the differences come about.
you can adjust so much with additives you can buy at the brew store so ask how to change things, get your answers here and learn. This is a great life long hobby

I always based my wines off the dragons blood recipe from Dave. I believe it recommends 6 lbs of fruit for a 5 gal batch. 15+ lbs seems like a fair amount of fruit although everyone does things differently. I think my apple wine was 10 lbs so maybe you're not too far off.

 

[winechef]

I. use 1+- pound per liter. so about 15 to 20 pounds per 5 gallons. but I. usually start with 6+ gallons after filtering and solids drop, will have around 5 gallons.

basically taste the juice if strong fruit flavor then you'll be ok. if it's a weak light juice won't be a good. wine.

 

[Rice_Guy]

what is a good PH kit and what do you use to adjust the PH? I've been out for 10 years and also interested in making a cranberry wine although I'm looking to do so with honey to create a nice Melomel.

Yeast regulate the proper pH. From a food beverage point of view the product is safer if we put it at pH 1.5 to 2.0. BUT,,, yeast don’t grow well under pH 2.8. Basically that is the floor and if byproducts build up we will have a stalled fermentation. It is safer for the yeast to use 3.2 to 3.0 as your floor.
Bacterial infection is a big risk above pH 4.0. The chemistry works better at lower pH, so the general guideline is the ceiling is 3.5.
I use apple juice, my feeling is water is flavorless so why use it? If using water I would use calcium carbonate ( ground limestone) for major changes and bicarbonate for small changes. The down side is the calcium reaction is slow.

Buying pH meters for the factory, any meter over $100 is excellent. A meter with 0.1 accuracy is OK for home but not factory control. Today the electronics is chip based and stable. The only problem will be the probe, so expect to need a new probe when it starts reading slow.

 

[wood1954]

what is a good PH kit and what do you use to adjust the PH? I've been out for 10 years and also interested in making a cranberry wine although I'm looking to do so with honey to create a nice Melomel.

Milwaukee makes a decent one, cheaper ones will be fairly accurate within +- .2.
I use potassium bicarbonate to lower the acid, FermCalc has an app if you have an iphone to help you with making adjustments to wine

 

[Raptor99]

Basically I have found that 3 to 4 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine.

That sounds about right for cranberry wine. Cranberries have a strong flavor. But for other wines, e.g. pear wine, I use at least twice that.

I usually need to raise the pH of my cranberry wine, since cranberries are very acidic. Make the changes a little at a time, because it is easy to overshoot. If you can get the pH up to 3.1 or 3.2, that is good. I wouldn't go higher with cranberry.

I use this pH meter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ENFOIQE/ There are cheaper ones, but they are inaccurate and don't last long.

 

[Jusatele]

Raptor, you are correct it is all about the wine variety.
Imagine what 3 pounds of Dandelions would do to a 1 gallon batch