Cherry wine

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Wine Characteristics
Big fruity fresh cherry flavor up front. Hints of vanilla and oak. Beautiful red color and crystal clear. Medium body and smooth mouth feel. Acidity and sweetness are adjusted to taste.

Ingredients for 5 gallon (19L) batch

• 30 lbs (13.6kg) tart cherries
• 7 lbs (6.2kg) white granulated sugar
• Turbinado sugar
• Dextrose sugar
• Vanilla extract
• 1 oz (28.3g) medium toast French oak cubes
• Purified water (reverse osmosis preferred)
• Pectinase (AKA pectic enzyme)
• 4.9 g calcium chloride, anhydrous (adds 70ppm Ca²⁺ and 124ppm Cl^- in 19L)
• 9.5 g Opti-White (50g/hL in 19L)
• 5.7 g Booster Blanc (30g/hL in 19L)
• 1 g FT Blanc Soft tannin (5g/hL in 19L)
• Potassium metabisulfite
• 8g R-HST wine yeast
• Malic acid
• 3 g bentonite
• Potassium sorbate
• Super Kleer

Instructions

1. Freeze the fruit and then thaw to around 50°F (10°C).
2. Gently mix the pectinase with the fruit per the package instructions, using 2.4 gal (9.1L) as the volume.
3. Press the fruit to extract the juice. If you do not have a press, pitted cherries can be added whole to the fermenter.
4. Add sulfite, Opti-White, and FT Blanc Soft ASAP to the juice during pressing, or after adding the whole cherries to fermenter. The sulfite target is around 40–50ppm free SO₂ and at least 0.7ppm molecular SO₂. Example: 0.63g potassium metabisulfite provides 40ppm free SO₂ in 2.4 gal, and 0.9ppm molecular SO₂ at pH 3.45.
5. Optional: Measure the pH of the juice with a pH meter. You'll want to have your meter set up and calibrated right before pressing. This can be used to fine-tune the sulfite level, although you'll want at least 25ppm free SO₂ regardless of pH.
6. Optional: Measure nitrogen content of the cherry juice by testing a sample of juice with a formol titration (see YAN testing). This can be used to more accurately supplement yeast nutrients.
7. Allow the cherries to sit with the sulfite for 6–24 hours at 50°F (10°C).
8. Measure s.g. of the juice with a refractometer or hydrometer.
9. Add the sugar, water, oak, calcium chloride, and Booster Blanc.
10. Aerate thoroughly right before adding yeast (next step).
11. Properly rehydrate and add yeast.
12. After the onset of fermentation, degas and add bentonite.
13. Allow to ferment at 60°F (16°C), gently warming to 70°F (21°C) during the second half of fermentation.
14. When reasonably clear... Test pH and s.g.
15. Rack onto sulfite and first stage of Super Kleer (kieselsol)
16. Gently stir to degas and mix
17. Wait 24 hours
18. Add second stage of Super Kleer
19. Stir gently
20. Add glass marbles if needed to reduce head space
21. Allow to clear
22. Perform bench trial to determine ideal sweetness and acidity
    • Make a solution of 35% dextrose and 35% Turbinado.
    • Pull some 50mL samples (e.g. with a turkey baster and graduated cylinder).
    • Add 5mL of the sugar solution.
    • If needed, pull more samples and adjust sweetness level to taste.
23. Rack, add the scaled amount of sugar syrup along with an appropriate amount of potassium sorbate.
24. Bottle

Math
Target OG for this recipe is approximately 1.090 (21.6°Brix) to give around 12.5% ABV before sweetening (which will dilute the alcohol).
Assumptions:

• The s.g. of cherry juice is 1.064. Use your measured s.g. instead, if you have it (step 2 above).
• Approximately 2/3 of the fruit will be extracted as juice.
• The fruit density is approximately equal to water (8.4 lbs/gal = 1 kg/L).

30 lbs of cherries * ( 1 gal / 8.4 lbs ) = 3.6 gal occupied by the cherries

3.6 gal * ( 1 / 3 ) = 1.2 gal of solids, and the 2.4 gal remaining is cherry juice

6 gal total batch size - 3.6 gal cherries = 2.4 gal of sweet of sugar syrup needed to be added

Blending calculator (FermCalc) shows that 2.4 gal of 1.064 juice plus 2.6 gal of 1.114 syrup achieves target of 5 gal 1.090 wine must.

Chaptalization calculator (FermCalc) shows that 6.5 lbs of sugar and 2.1 gal of water is needed to reach 2.6 gal syrup with s.g. of 1.114.

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Batch #1

Thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/asking-for-trouble.668494/

Sweetening bench trial
7mL syrup to a 50mL sample using a syringe, and one drop of vanilla extract (whole vanilla beans steeped in bourbon).

OG 1.105 FG 0.992 Starting pH 3.40 Final pH 3.45 k-meta at bottling to achieve 0.8ppm molecular SO2, about 35ppm free SO2. Scaling the vanilla to 4 gallons called for about 13mL, I added 10mL. Added 0.25g/L TA malic acid at bottling. For racking I put a stainless scrubby over the end of my auto siphon and put a long narrow hop sock over that. It did a great job of pulling out clear wine without getting clogged from all the fruit (some of which never dropped).