Cellar Craft Cream Sherry

[Bartman]

I have a Cellar Craft cream sherry kit that I have started and is now in the secondary ferm. stage. I've had a few commercial cream sherries before, but don't know much about them or how they are made/differ from other wines.

Since cream sherry is supposed to be somewhat sweet, I wasn't surprised at the very high starting S.G. - almost 1.210 - near the end of my hydrometer. It took longer than most kits to come down to the recomended s.g. for secondary ferm., however - about ten days, as predicted in the instructions.

Any tips or experiences that might be helpful to me? How long should I bulk age, and how long should I bottle age? The kit came with some oak - should I supplement with an oak spiral, or is cream sherry better with not so much oak? (sherry doesn't appear to be the most popular of wine kits, as there seem to be no existing threads on sherries)

Thanks in advance for your input/advice.

 

[Wade E]

I havent made this kit but i did do the W.E.it and it is awesome. I did add just a little more oak to mine but not much. Mine also came with an f-pac and Im betting yours did to and the f-pac will pretty much make it taste great right then but will improve with many years as mine has, its pretty high abv will make it sheve nicely!

 

[Bartman]

I'm not sure what you mean by "its pretty high abv will make it sheve nicely!" What does sheve mean? If that's just a typo, I haven't a clue what it was supposed to be.

 

[Wade E]

Ooops, I meant shelve nicely as in age gracefully.

 

[Bartman]

Of course "shelve" - I just couldn't figure that out. I don't like to draw attention to typos, because I am just as guilty as anyone else. Thanks Wade.