The Cherry Wine Project: Putting The "Squish" On Your Fruit

Alright … so the cherries are clean and have been stoned/pitted therefore it is now time to press the fruit so that we can separate the juice from the pulp.

Now, I can tell you that for my first few batches of fruit wine I wanted to go a bit on the “cheap” so I used a potato masher to press the fruit. While this certainly works I can tell you that it really sucks doing it as you have to put a lot of muscle into it and you are left thinking that there must be a better way of doing this … and there is!

For our batch of cherry wine I decided to rent a ratchet grape/fruit press from one of our local wine making shops and it cost us $10 a day.

You might be able to find something similar on eBay or at a garage sale for under $100 but if you’re planning on buying a new press expect to spend over $250. Here’s a website I found that carries this model and several others www.homebrewit.com/aisle/1150.

Note that the press is a heavy bugger so we decided to press our grapes outside. This also made it easy for us to hose it down before and after we used it.

Here are the steps we followed to press our cherries:

Step 1 – Put the cherries in the press & place a clean bowl by the spout

Step 2 – Add the pressing blocks

Step 3 – Add the ratchet arm and press away until no more juice comes out

Step 4 – Transfer your juice to a clean stainless steel pot

Step 5 – Transfer cherry pulp to a straining bag (tie a knot at the top)

Step 6 – Bring your cherry juice to a boil but remove immediately from heat. This will help kill any bacteria or bugs that might be in the press.

Et voila! You now have the main ingredient for your cherry wine!

You will of course want to rinse your fruit press at this point and return it to your local wine supply store (if you rented it).

Fruit Pressing Tips:

1. Rent The Right Tools: Using a fruit press made this part of the process so much easier. If you are going to be a casual wine maker and have access to a grape/fruit press at your local wine supply store then rent it – don’t buy it (unless you have a hole burning in your pocket). The store we rented it from also wasn’t in a hurry to get it back so gave us a few extra days before we had to return it.
2. Have Help: I was happy to have my wife Michelle help me with this as there was a lot going on here, whether it be taking turns ratcheting the press, having someone ready to dump the juice if the bowl got too full to helping move the equipment around (note that the press was very heavy). She also seemed to be happy to get her hands in there and fill the straining bag with the cherry pulp.
3. Keeping Your Juice Clean: Your fruit press will undoubtedly be something that sits in the corner gathering dust between uses. This part of the process won’t exactly be clean so all you have to do is hose the press down before you use it knowing that your juice will most likely have some bugs in it. This is why we heated the juice to a boil then immediately took it off the heat. We didn’t want to burn the juice or reduce the amount of liquid in it – just enough heat to kill as much of bugs in it that should be in there. Adding a Camden tablet in our next step will also help kill any bacteria or bugs as well.

Up Next:

Stay tuned as next week we look at the recipe itself. Time to get fermenting and turning the juice into wine!

Enjoy and if you haven’t already please join in the discussion by becoming a member of our Cherry Wine Project community by going to http://thecherrywineproject.ning.com/

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

P.S. I recently met a fellow Canadian by the name of Dominic Rivard who has been in the wine industry for over 15 years. His main passion is fruit wine and is in fact a founding director of the Fruit Wines of Canada Association.

He has written an excellent fruit wine book called “The Ultimate Fruit Wine Guide” that you might consider having a look at.

He has also recently joined The Cherry Wine Project Community and I’m sure would love to hear from you!

The Cherry Wine Project: Getting Your Cherries Ready

To get things rolling here let’s use this post to talk about what we did to get the cleaned and ready for the fruit press!

If you’ve read “The Birth Of The Cherry Wine Project” then you already know that we purchased 20 lbs of beautiful and juicy red cherries in British Columbia – at Carl’s Fruit Stand to be exact (located on the highway between Kamloops and Valemont).

As you can imagine getting 20 lbs of cherries ready for wine making was going to take a bit of “elbow grease” because you have to remove the pit (aka the “stone”) from inside the cherry before you make your wine because:

1. They prevent you from being able to press all of the juice out of the cherries
2. If broken/cut they add a bitter taste to your wine

My wife Michelle and I therefore decided to invest $28 CAD in a “Cherry Stoner” from Carl’s Fruit Stand (last one they had – so I’m told – probably a trick to get us to buy it) so that we can quickly and easily remove the pit from the cherry.

I have to say, this was a great investment as we were able to get through the batch of cherries pretty quickly!

I should point out though that before we “stoned the cherries” Michelle cleaned them first.

She disinfected our kitchen sink, filled it with the cherries, ozonated water (we happen to have a little ozone generator I installed under our sink that we purchased from Cashidoo) and added Nature Clean All Natural Fruit and Veggie Wash (helps remove pesticides, bacteria and dirt).

You can never be sure what the fruit farmers used to grow their fruit or what is living on them despite how tasty they look!

She then made fast work of the cherries using our new Cherry Stoner. If you’ve never seen one here’s how it works:

1. Load your cherries into the little “cherry bin”
2. Press down on the plunger

   

3. “Stoned” cherry pops out

   

4. Repeat until you are left with these:

   

   

To be perfectly honest, it was a lot easier then I thought. It certainly helped that my wife Michelle chipped in and actually surprised me by doing most of the work on her day off while I was at work.

Fruit Cleaning Tips:

1. Garbage In/Garbage Out: Be sure to sort through your fruit and discard stems, bugs, dirt and spoiled fruit. If you wouldn’t put it in your mouth it probably shouldn’t be in your wine. Your wine will only be as good as what you put into it.
2. Tools of the trade: No matter what fruit you choose to make your wine with consider what tools you can use to make the job a whole lot easier to remove pits, seeds and anything else that shouldn’t be there.
3. Many hands make light work: Part of the lure of wine making is the social aspect so it doesn’t hurt to get someone to help you out. It also makes some of the more daunting and less fun tasks get done much more quickly plus you have someone to chat with!

Up Next:

Stay tuned as next week we look at how we pressed the cherries to “coax” the juice out of them …

Enjoy and if you haven’t already please join in the discussion by becoming a member of our Cherry Wine Project community by going to http://thecherrywineproject.ning.com/

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

The Birth Of The Cherry Wine Project

If you haven’t heard already I recently announced the birth of what I have dubbed “The Cherry Wine Project“.

I thought I’d begin by explaining what it is and answering a few questions you might have about it.

What Is It?

The purpose behind The Cherry Wine Project is to help teach people how to make fruit wine – plain and simple!

I figured why not arm myself with a digital camera and take pictures while I make a batch of cherry wine explaining what I was doing as I did it.

Why Cherry Wine?

Good question but the answer is simple … my wife and I were in British Columbia (where some of the best fruit in Canada come from) a few weekends ago, drove by a fruit stand and saw that they were selling 20 lb boxes of fresh, juicy cherries. So how could we resist!

I’ve also tasted my ski patrol buddy Brian’s cherry wine and it was excellent so I thought why not give it a try.

The other reason I wanted to make it was for my wife Michelle as she makes probably THE BEST French Onion Soup known to man (I’ll see if I can get the recipe from her for you), which is typically made with port or sherry (i.e. Harvey’s Bristol Cream). She likes to make it though with this cherry wine I brought back from Holland … some might say in fact it was the “secret sauce” in her soup. Unfortunately she ran out so I guess you can say I was given some incentive if I ever wanted to have some French Onion Soup again …

What If I Don’t Want To Make Cherry Wine – Can I Make A Different Kind Of Fruit Wine?

Absolutely! If cherry wine isn’t your bag baby then no worries! Wine making is simply a process that is pretty much the same regardless of the type of fruit you use so you can definitely use what you learn here to make your own wine. In fact, consider combining fruits! It’s really up to you.

Is There A Cost To Participate?

This is the best part actually. There is no cost to be part of The Cherry Wine Project. That’s right – zilch, nothing, nada!

So Why Are You Doing This?

Why not! I’m doing it anyways and I love to share my love and passion for wine making. I’m really just like that guy you know who lives next door or down the street who enjoys making wine and having people over to sit and talk wine making.

I’m a student of wine making myself and gain to benefit from your wine making experience as well. Have I messed up wine batches before? Hell ya! But the thing is you learn from your mistakes and improve your techniques from there.

How Do I Particiapate And Stay In Touch With The Project?

Two things you should do:

1. Sign Up To My Free 5-Part Wine Making Course: If you haven’t done so already of course! You’ll not only get 5 lessons emailed to you, you will also receive updates when new posts for The Cherry Wine Project and put up on this blog. There is a sign up form on the right side of this page.
2. Become A Member Of The Cherry Wine Project Community: Additional posts, comments and forum discussions where you can actively participate can be found at: http://thecherrywineproject.ning.com. It’s FREE TO JOIN!

I think that pretty much explains it but if you have any questions certainly don’t hesitate to give me a shout by going to www.AllWineMaking.com/WordPress/contact/.

My goal is to release one post per week but check back often as you never know when I’ll add several posts in a row if things get really exciting.

Thanks for reading and I really look forward to connecting with you!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

P.S. If you haven’t checked it out already you can start by reading the recipe I’m following for the cherry wine by going to www.allwinemaking.com/WordPress/2008/07/19/cherry-wine-recipe/

Cherry Wine Recipe Used As Part Of The Cherry Wine Project

Here’s the cherry wine recipe that I am following for my batch wine that will be featured as part of The Cherry Wine Project (as found on page 8 of the “Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook” by Raymond Massaccesi):

CHERRY, Sweet:

>> Please note that this recipe produces 1 gallon of wine so multiply as appropriate to the size of batch you would like.

6lb Mixed Cherries

1/2 pt Grape Concentrate (we used both red and white)

7 pts Water

2 3/4 lb Sugar (granulated)

3/4 tsp Pectic Enzyme

1 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1 Campden, crushed

1 pkg Sherry or Port Yeast

Starting S.G. 1.100 – 1.110

Method:

1. Wash, remove stems and leaves, and remove pits (use a pitter — either mechanical or a couple of extra hands from around the house). Be careful not to break the bitter pits.

2. Using a nylon straining bag mash and squeeze out juice into straining bag, tie top and place in primary.

Note: We used an actual fruit press to press the cherries and to remove the juice. We then added the cherry skins to a cheese cloth “sock”, which we then put into the primary.

3. Stir in all other ingredients EXCEPT the yeast. Cover primary.

4. After 24 hours add the yeast.

5. Stir daily, check S.G. and press pulp lightly to aid extraction.

6. When ferment reaches S.G. 1.030 (about 5 days) strain juice from bag. Syphon wine off sediment into carboy (secondary). Attach airlock.

7. When ferment is complete (S.G. has dropped to 1.000 — about 3 weeks) syphon off sediment into a clean secondary. Reattach airlock.

8. To aid clearing syphon again in 2 months and again if necessary before bottling.

Cherry Varieties:

Most cherry trees do not adapt well to a mild winter climate. The handsome trees, the crown of flowers in spring, and the fruit, whether sour, sweet or crosses, make them highly desirable.

Sour varieties include: Montmorency, North Star, Early Richmond and Meteor.

Sweet varieities include: Bing, Royal Ann, Van and Lambert.

If you’re interested in reading more blog articles on cherry wine (and other related recipes) consider reading the following articles in the blog-o-sphere:

Commercial Cherry Wine - I’m still trying to get the hang of cherry wine, but while I tinker and tweak I might be able to buy some from the Ten Spoon Vineyard. This Montana winery uses Lambert cherries from Flathead Lake to make a dry red wine. … Cherry Wine (Turnovers) - While just cranking open a can of pie filling and dumping it into a pre-made crust may come out of the oven looking like you made cherry pie, well, sorry kids, that’s not good cherry pie. Besides the surreal color kind of frightens me. … By the river with my cherry cherry wine… - Wouldn’t it be nice if, like Spider-Man, you could have a nasty black alien substance on which to blame your faults, lapses of judgment, and bouts of rage… you know, like when you backhand your girlfriend to the ground. … Cherry Wine - North Star cherries make the BEST wine!! While it WASN’T raining, yesterday, we picked and processed 90 pounds, (picture) and then went out again and picked another 30 pounds! That means enough cherries to make 120 bottles of wine. … Chocolate Cherry Wine, and Everything’s Fine - I saw a recipe the other day for chocolate cupcakes with cabernet sauvignon wine and thought I should try substituting that with a local cherry wine because it goes beautifully with chocolate. I did… I deem that experiment a success. … Cherry Wine? - Before I get back to the wine, I’d like to note the enjoyment I received from shopping at Aligra Wine and Spirits. The individual that was working at Aligra was very helpful in helping me select a Scotch to purchase for my Dad for … Tabor Hill Cherry Wine… - We found this wine from Tabor Hill at the local grocery. Checking their website they have many varieties of wine and I hope to find more and try them. Label: 8.5 – Cute yet artistic, simple and eye catching. Aroma: 8 – it’s cherry all … Strawberry Wine, Gold Wine, Rhuberb Wine and Cherry Wine! - Back in Michigan, they actually have wineries that produce a cherry wine. Don’t ask me about logistics, because honestly, I would probably just make something up. I of course bought some Traverse City Cherry Wine, Spiced Cherry Wine, …