strong cherry wine

[Grod]

So i had a plan today but after taking a gravity reading i went rouge my plan was quickly abandoned. i wanted a cherry wine that would be about 9% but it seems i will get 11-12.I dont really mind but i think it will effect the flavor i want. Obviously i want as much cherry/fruit flavor as possible but i would love for it to be sour/tart.
i ws planing on making a one gallon batch.I used 1 gallon tart cherry juice to that i added 1 tsp yeast nutrient,2 tsp acid blend, 1/4 tsp tanin ,1/2 tsp pectic enzyme.
I took a gravity reading and it was 1.040.That is nowhere close to i what i need.There is no room left in the fermentor so i decide ill make 1 gallon of sugar water to mix with it and have a 2 gallon batch.I used 1 quart sweet cherry juice 3lbs sugar and 4.5 oz dextrose.warmed up to help dissolve sugar and Added the same amount of nutrient/acid/tanin/pectic.Blended. The result is super sweet 1.094.When i get down to 1.50 i will add an addition 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient.I would really like to avoid cough syrup flavor.
This is my first attempt at making a wine.Please feel free to leave some encouragement/critique, cheers.

 

[fruitwineman]

What kind of yeast did you use in your cherry wine? Often times your yeast will eat up all the sugar leaving you with a nice dry wine if you did not want it as strong after fermentation you could stabilize then just add a little more cherry juice to get your desired 9 percent but personally I would leave it like it is 11-12% is perfect

 

[Grod]

I used Montrachet Yeast i used almost the whole packet between the two gallons. From what i read its going to take 6-10 months for this to taste decent. Maybe at that point ill add more tart cherry juice to bring down the abv but if it taste good i'll leave it alone.

The additional quart i had left over i mixed with 3 quarts water and a pound of malted wheat.Then I threw the book at it with cultures i used a Roeselare Ale Blend culture pack that contains a belgian style ale strain, a sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus culture, and a Pediococcus culture.

 

[BernardSmith]

There's a enormous number of variables in your wine - too many, in my opinion to comment on (including your decision to dilute the juice by adding the same volume of water simply in order to add another - what ? 60 points of gravity.. You could have removed a cup or so of the juice and added an amount of sugar to bring the gravity to a specific level rather than weigh a specific amount of sugar and so have that determine the starting gravity).

I think you always want to treat wine making as a scientific experiment and that means that you know precisely what outcome you are looking for and what outcome you will almost certainly get and then you play with one single variable. But that said, I am a little confused as to why before you pitched the yeast you added acid blend. Is the must too alkaline for the yeast to ferment? If it was , was there a reason to add acid blend rather than say, malic acid which is the dominant acid found in cherries. Adding acid blend means that you are adding far more citric acid than malic and so are changing the flavor of the wine. ( acid blend is typically constituted (by weight) of 8 parts citric acid, 4 parts tartaric acid, to 1 part malic acid). So you have diluted the flavor and then you have added citric acid to the flavor but you are still looking for a cherry flavored wine...
In my opinion, the problem with a must (the juice before you add the yeast) might be that it is TOO acidic - not that it is too alkaline so you really do not want to add acid blend - or any acid - to the must before the fermentation has ceased and then you want to either taste the wine to see if it needs more acidity or you want to measure the TA (titratable acid) of the wine to see if you want to add more acid. Again, in my opinion, your taste buds are a better indicator than the formal TA to help you determine whether your wine has sufficient zing or not.
As to avoiding the medicine flavor, I think that the real culprit may be the presence of Brett - although there are many who argue that medicine flavors are caused by high alcohol and low acidity in a wine (adding acid blend does not necessarily mean that the pH will drop - citric acid is not a strong acid) while others lay the blame at the use of chlorinated water (but in my opinion there is rarely a need to use water in wine making for anything other than cleaning and sanitizing) However, I do see that you are deliberately adding Brett to some of this wine - and I presume (perhaps wrongly) that you have introduced Brett into your wine room previously. You may need to take extra-ordinary precautions to avoid their ... um... intrusion in your wines - for example, dedicating tubing and other plastic equipment exclusively to bacterial fermentations.

 

[user 32114]

how's it hanging,
ok this is my 2 cents worth, which aint even worth that,
first off i have never done a kit, i have never made a so called real wine, ad i have no palate what so ever, with that being said i do attempt to make country wines using 150 year old recipes married to a few modern chemical.
my wines all use ONE OF TWO YEAST, EC-1118 an 11116, so most of my wines hit an ABV from 14% to 18%, that's the easy part thanks to many people on here, but i am a firm believer in ambush, or in wine terms a wine with full body, proper mouth fill and nice finish, the only challenge is to cloak the alcohol in your wine when you split your wines give this a try, run SG up to achieve a ABV of around 18%, do your stabilizing and so fourth, raise youalcohol using cane sugars, know when it comes time to back sweeten to suit you an/or your better half get some granulated not powdered, i use HOOSIER HILL FARM, PREMIUM HONEY Remember no powdered honey only granulated ONLY, as for my tastes i go with a finish SG of 1.20 to 1.40 to be honest i always aim for 1.30 and a PH or TA of around 3.3, and instead of using grape tannings i use crab apple the wine community calls it finish and mouth feel, to a ole hillbilly the correct term is the bitters, but all in all give granulated honey for back sweetening only,,, I am no venter by no means, but i can make a mean country wine that one glass will let you sleep all night, or 3 glasses and you'll hate the entire world come morning but without the slightest alcohol taste, these nutts might regret me, but if need be i got their back.....
Dawg

So i had a plan today but after taking a gravity reading i went rouge my plan was quickly abandoned. i wanted a cherry wine that would be about 9% but it seems i will get 11-12.I dont really mind but i think it will effect the flavor i want. Obviously i want as much cherry/fruit flavor as possible but i would love for it to be sour/tart.
i ws planing on making a one gallon batch.I used 1 gallon tart cherry juice to that i added 1 tsp yeast nutrient,2 tsp acid blend, 1/4 tsp tanin ,1/2 tsp pectic enzyme.
I took a gravity reading and it was 1.040.That is nowhere close to i what i need.There is no room left in the fermentor so i decide ill make 1 gallon of sugar water to mix with it and have a 2 gallon batch.I used 1 quart sweet cherry juice 3lbs sugar and 4.5 oz dextrose.warmed up to help dissolve sugar and Added the same amount of nutrient/acid/tanin/pectic.Blended. The result is super sweet 1.094.When i get down to 1.50 i will add an addition 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient.I would really like to avoid cough syrup flavor.
This is my first attempt at making a wine.Please feel free to leave some encouragement/critique, cheers.

 

[user 32114]

one more thought,
if you are blessed with BENARD SMITHS insights you had best taken his advice to the bank in my opinion , although don't let that go to his head,,, LOL,
Dawg

I used Montrachet Yeast i used almost the whole packet between the two gallons. From what i read its going to take 6-10 months for this to taste decent. Maybe at that point ill add more tart cherry juice to bring down the abv but if it taste good i'll leave it alone.

The additional quart i had left over i mixed with 3 quarts water and a pound of malted wheat.Then I threw the book at it with cultures i used a Roeselare Ale Blend culture pack that contains a belgian style ale strain, a sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus culture, and a Pediococcus culture.

 

[Vinobeau]

I've been making Tart cherry wine for about 40 years, generally out of Montmorency or North Star cherries. I highly doubt that you can replicate the "Tart" flavor by adding acid to the juice from sweet cherries.

If you want a particular % of alcohol, start with the corresponding amount of sugar and ferment to dry. If you want it sweeter, then add sugar after killing the yeast.

 

[AkTom]

I have to say, I love you guys and gals. As a rookie wine maker, I'm learning lots from you.
Thanks
By the way Dawg. I'm not a redneck. I'm a rouge naped sophisticated barbarian.