Thursday, December 10, 2009

Pink



I made up a gallon batch of Cranberry wine. Here is my process - it's rather half-hazard.

I made a must by simply chopping up about 2lbs
of cranberries. You'll find cranberries are hard to chop - they roll. I just made sure each one had the skin broken. I put these into a brewers sock and into a pail with a gallon of water, a couple lbs of sugar and about a 1/2 tsp of pectin enzyme
(to help break down the skins). I let this sit, covered, for 3 days.

Most all the recipes I found for Cranberry wine called for raisins. I had not raisins and I also dislike raisins enough to not want them tainting my wine. The raisins, I'm sure are to provide nutrient for the yeast, so the day before I was set the wine to brew I added a tsp of yeast
nutrient, and also a pectin tablet.

The Must:

The night before Thanksgiving I strained out the cranberries. I squeezed the bag good (squeezing your fruit is not always recommended) and poured most all of it into my jug. Then I added the prepared yeast (about a 1/2 package to a cup or so of warm water - let sit for about 10mins) added the remaining must and shook for about 5mins. Then added the airlock and that was it. It began bubbling pretty well before the evening was out.

Isn't the color lovely?!

It's now been two weeks. The bubbles did not go as long or as vigorously as I would have liked or expected. The benefit of using the small jug, however, is that I was able to swish the brew around every couple of days - this seemed to help prolong and reinvigorate the fermentation. It's still fermenting now, but slowly. I'll probably rack it this weekend. I'll post. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment