Raisin substitues?

[St Allie]

I'm trying three different recipes for ginger wine here today. All three call for raisins. Which I don't have enough of in the cupboard and I don't want to go to the supermarket. ( no sultanas either) I do have quite a few packages of dried dates though.( enough for the recipes)

My question is can I substitute dates for the raisins and add a cup of black tea for the tannin in the recipes instead?.. I know dates are a lot higher in sugar.. so if recipes call for 500grams of raisins and I substitute 400grams of dates.. apart from a slight flavour difference, will this work?

Allie

 

[Luc]

Raisins not only provide for tannin and sugar but they also
provide fort some body in the wine.
Next to that they will also impart some flavor.

Now dates will impart sugar and and flavor.
So indeed add some tea for the tannins.
If you want to impart extra body you could add some bananas.

Luc

 

[St Allie]

Thankyou Luc

I thought I would get away with dates.. the package said no potassium sorbate.. and dried dates are 85 cents (NZD for 400grams,) cheapest dried fruit on the market.

Hehehe.. none of you answered fast enough, so I went ahead with the recipes anyway!

Two of the recipes asked for bananas.. third one didn't.. I added tannin to all three brews. I'm now tempted to add bananas to the third wine..Although it may be interesting to taste the difference and really.. if it is thin, I have two other brews to blend with.

The one that didn't call for bananas asked for extra citric acid and pectonase.

One recipe said I could substitute up to 50% of the sugar with an equal weight in honey.. so I did.

The other called for boiling initial ingredients gently for an hour.

I have carefully collated details for differences between all three recipes and will let you know how it goes, if interested.


Fermentation on pulp is different for all three. being 10 , 7 and 4 days.

Only thing in common is that all recipes called for 40grams of fresh ginger. I used 150 grams for each. I like a strong ginger flavour.

Allie