Cranberry Wine Recipe 1 Gallon Food

HOMEMADE CRANBERRY WINE

Steps:

• Add the sugar and cranberry juice to a small saucepan and heat it just enough to dissolve the sugar. If using fresh cranberries, add water instead of juice and use it to dissolve the sugar.
• Allow the sugar and juice mixture to come to room temperature. While it's cooling, dissolve the yeast packet in a small amount of lukewarm water. Allow it to bloom for at least 5 minutes.
• Add the yeast nutrient and dried cranberries to the juice/sugar mixture and then pour it all into a primary fermentation vessel. Add the dissolved yeast.
• Cap with a water lock and allow the mixture to ferment in primary for 2-3 weeks. Alternately, allow the mixture to ferment without an airlock for about 5 days, then rack into secondary and add an airlock.
• Either way, once the mixture is in secondary, add an airlock. Ferment in secondary for 6-8 weeks before bottling. For a very dry wine, rack the cranberry wine a second time and ferment for another 6-8 weeks.
• Bottle in wine bottles and age for at least 3 months, but preferably a full year from bottling.

CRANBERRY WINE

Steps:

• Chop cranberries, set aside
• In large stock pot - we used a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer - combine water and sugar. Heat to boiling, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
• Add chopped cranberries, stir and continue to cook for 5 minutes.
• Add acid blend, pectic enzyme, and yeast nutrient. Stir well, turn off heat. Cover with a lid, allow to cool to room temperature - overnight.
• Place raisins and yeast in a freshly sanitized 2 gallon fermenting bucket.
• Carefully pour the cranberries and water into the fermenting bucket.
• Using sanitized equipment - take a gravity reading. Keep track of the number! (This is an optional step, but will allow you to calculate your final ABV %)
• Cover with sanitized lid and air lock. Within 48 hours, you should notice fermentation activity - bubbles in the airlock, carbonation and /or swirling in the wine must. This means you're good to go!
• Let sit for about a week, stirring (sanitized paddle!) every couple of days or so.
• After a week or so, use your sanitized siphon setup to rack the must into a freshly sanitized 1 gallon carboy.
• Put the carboy somewhere cool (not cold!), and leave it alone for 2 months or so.
• Using sanitized equipment, rack the wine off the sediment, into a clean, freshly sanitized 6.5 gallon carboy. Cap with sanitized airlock, leave it alone for another 2-3 months.
• Rack one more time, leave it for another 3 months or so.
• When your wine has been racked a few times and shows NO more fermenting activity for a month or so (no bubbles in the airlock, no more sediment being produced, you can move on to bottling, and back sweetening, if needed.
• Follow the instructions on your selected type of wine stabilizer to stop fermentation. For potassium sorbate, this needs to be done 2-3 days before bottling.
• Using sanitized equipment, take a final gravity reading, then rack the wine into clean, sanitized bottles. Cork.Age for at least a few months before drinking.

BALLOON WINE

Steps:

• You will also need: 1 gallon glass jug (I guess you can use plastic, but I never did); 1 extra large latex balloon and a sturdy rubber band; 1-2 empty wine bottles or bottles of choice.
• Combine the yeast, sugar and juice in a gallon jug.
• Fill the jug the rest of the way with cold water.
• Rinse out the balloon, and fit it over the opening of the jug.
• Secure the balloon with a rubber band.
• Place jug in a cool dark place.
• Within a day you will notice the balloon starting to expand.
• As the sugar turns to alcohol, the released gas will fill up the balloon.
• When the balloon is deflated, the wine is ready to drink.
• It takes about 6-weeks total.
• Carefully pour wine into empty bottles without disturbing the sediment.
• Discard the sediment.
• Cork and tape the bottles closed.
• The wine can be drunk now or aged, bottles on their side, for a year if you like.
• But the younger it is, the yeastier it'll taste.