Keep us informed as these batches mature.

I have had similar experiences with Welch's Niagara. It can be fantastic or
it can be so-so. When it has come out so-so I have found that it blends
well with strong fruit wines that are missing vinuosity.

Ray

"Hoss" > wrote in message
...
> 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
>>>>
>>
>