dried fruit

[sandmanxy]

I have a lot of dried cranberries,rasins,apricots,and pears.Can they be used to make wine? I have heard that some dried fruits are treated with potassium sorbate.Will this prevent fermentation?

 

[Luc]

Look at the packaging of the fruit to see if there are any
conserving additives.

Many dried fruit is indeed treated with preservatives.
To 'clean' the fruit follow this procedure:

1) Soak the fruit for several minutes in hot water.
2) Then rise them in a sieve again for several minutes

Then to process the fruit soak them overnight in a bucket with water.
Next day you can easily chop them up with a food processor or a knife.

If you do not soak them overnight the mashed fruit will clogg-up the food processor.

I always do this with my raisins.

You can see the essay I wrote about this procedure complete with photo's on my web-log in the november 12 entry (look in the right part on the log-page in the archief).

Luc

 

[sandmanxy]

dried fruit wine

Thanks for the advice.Are there any tried and true recipes out out there?