A couple of months before Thanksgiving last year I made a 1 gallon
batch of cranberry using a gallon of unpasturized apple cider and after
2 months it was not too bad. Unfortunately I used two bags of
cranberries and that was way too much, for my taste anyway. I have one
bottle left and I am waiting for it to be a year old to see how it
faired. If it does well I may make more this fall when I can get 6
gallons of apple cider.

Alex

Hoss wrote:
> Ray and Dave,
>
> Earlier this year, i was interested in the cranberry wine experiment.
>
> There was much debate as to how much cranberry to use, and what to
> expect in final product. This being said, I tried 3 separate batches.
>
> I found welch's 100% juice white grape cranberry blend, made 1 gallon
> of that, then used the highbush cranberry recipe from Jack's website
> for two batches, (used only between half and two thirds the
> cranberries due to Ray's comments on tartness). In the first of the
> fruit batches, I used Welch's Niagara instead of raisins, then in the
> second batch I did use the golden raisins.
>
> I performed two rackings since not including from primary, and all are
> close to bottling now, just waiting on the one with the raisins in it
> to clear a bit more.
>
> My experience is this... during fermentations and racking-tastings,
> the best flavor for that young, though still sharp and raw was the one
> with the raisins. This last racking, I enjoyed the blend between
> fruit/niagara blend.
>
> In my experience using Welch's concentrates, they all (when used as
> main ingredient, no fruit) have a very similar smell and taste. Some
> turn out fantastic in the end, and some are just so-so...Not sure why
> this is even when I follow notes from prior batches that are great.
>
> My Cranberry whim started just after Thanksgiving when I noticed that
> the local wal-mart had reduced the cranberry bags to only $1.00 from
> 2.00. I ended up buying a bunch at this price and made the wines above
> and dried some for use in salads and snacks, but be careful to not
> over dry them.
>
> A couple weeks before Christmas, I tried a bottle of wine I made from
> old orchard cranberry/blackberry 100% juice. It was out of this world
> for bottled juice. I immediately went to the wal-mart and bought more
> dollar bags of cranberries and blackberries and mixed with a gallon of
> Niagara Welch's juice and water to 5 gallons. I don't have notes for
> specifics handy, but I believe it was 4 lbs cranberries and 8 lbs
> blackberries plus the gallon of Niagara. I racked this twice since
> primary as well, and it is just starting to clear now, at last taste
> it was still very rough, but it obviously has potential. I am
> hopefully going to get a balanced wine. I noticed later that there
> was apple juice concentrate in the original old orchard as well, so
> maybe next batch will contain a can of apple concentrate as well.
>
> All I can say is good luck with the experimenting, and thanks to all I
> read such excellent ideas from.
>
> HINT: If you wait even longer, like day after Christmas or January 2,
> the cranberries will go even cheaper for about $0.50 a bag. You will
> have more bad ones to remove, but at 1/4 the price of original, it may
> be a good time to stock up. I purchased several bags like this,
> cleaned and sorted the berries, then used the food processor to grind
> them up roughly, then froze in gallon freezer bags for further
> experimenting, plus I dried a few more batches!.
>
> Greg, Erie, PA
>
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:04:16 GMT, "Ray Calvert"
> > wrote:
>
> >I too have made Jack's recipe. It is not my favorite but women seem to love
> >it. It is a bit strongly cranberry flavored for me. I will make it again
> >but will use more grape juice and less cranberries next time. Not saying
> >anything negative about Jack's recipe, just crafting to my own taste.
> >
> >As stated Cranberries are very strong and will overpower most anything used
> >with them. I would not use an expensive kit for this. Kind of over kill.
> >In fact I would suggest using Welch's frozen Niagara concentrate. It makes
> >a good wine on it's own and Jack recommends it to add vinuosity to fruit
> >wines. This agrees with Dave's comments.
> >
> >Ray
> >
> >"DAve Allison" > wrote in message
> .. .
> >> Cranberry wine can be very good and is also a good mixer. Tomasello winery
> >> http://www.tomasellowinery.com in NJ makes a dynamite Cranberry wine that
> >> makes a terrific Cosmopolitan, but making your own is better.
> >>
> >> I did 6 gallons using Jack Keller's recipe (from his website at least).
> >> http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request.asp
> >>
> >> Using Welch's white grape concentrate instead of raisins seemed to work
> >> well for me. See his recipe.
> >>
> >> In my humble opinion, if you do use a pinot G wine kit, you should put the
> >> cranberries in the primary, not after the first racking. The yeast needs
> >> to work on the berries. As far as how much berries - don't know. But
> >> keeping the must to 1.099 will not stop the yeast. Going higher and it
> >> could stall.
> >>
> >> OK, this is only my 2 cents, I've only made 100 bottles of wines so far,
> >> so i'm still kinda new.
> >> DAve
> >>
> >> wrote:
> >>> I've been thinking about making a cranberry wine but I wasn't thinking
> >>> about doing it straight from 100% cranberries and sugar. I was
> >>> thinking about using a Pinot Grigio wine kit and racking it off to the
> >>> secondary with some cranberries in it. I don't know if this is a good
> >>> way to make cranberry wine and I also don't know how many pounds of
> >>> cranberries to use. I am assuming that I relish the cranberries before
> >>> racking off on to them. Any suggestions? Thanks
> >>>
> >