Dried Fruit for wine?

[Rocknrandyc]

Are there any general rules of thumb regarding the use of dried (all natural, no sugar added, organic) fruits to make wine? ie. apricots, pummelos?

 

[shoes]

Randy, i can only comment on dried elderberrys. with them, you use LOTS less than fresh berrys. maybe like 1/3 as much. dont know if it would be the same with other dried fruit. maybe the other guys know!

 

[jasicasth]

I have some basic idea for driet fruit wine.wash,dry and chop the fruit.put them for the boil.and leave them for 24 hr.

 

[Luc]

Sometimes dried fruit are conserved with sulphite.
I had raisins treated with sulphites and apricots treated with sulphite.

I wrote an entry on how to treat raisins in my web-log:

http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2007/11/rozijnen-raisins.html

Basically the treatment is as follows (and I would follow this procedure for most dried fruit).

- Sprinkle and soak it in boiling water for about 10 minutes
- Rinse it for about 10 minutes in cold water

This way you would get rid of the sulphites.

Next soak them in cold water for 24 hours.
Then the have swollen with water and you are easily able to chop them up.

Luc

 

[non-grapenut]

Got a dried cherry fermentation going now that smells divine! In essence, the recipe called for adding warmed cherry Juicy Juice and then hot, non-boiling water, a gallon at a time, over the chopped fruit, straining the "tea" into the primary. I used Walmart Great Value brand dried cherries...their only preservative was ascorbic acid. The whole house smelled like cherry fruit loops during the tea process. Just really try avoiding "using boiling water so as to not increase pectin" is what I read over and over.