With all the cherries that we have I am getting sick of cherry pie, cobbler, crumble, etc. I figured I'd try to make some cherry wine. Fruits can be made in to wine but they aren't as ideal since grapes have the perfect balance the necessary ingredients. Anyways I've never fermented anything before so this continues to be a huge learning opportunity. To start Marion and I picked half of a 5 gallon bucket full of cherries. Picking the cherries is not the hard part, it's pitting them. The instructions I read online said to either pit and freeze or mash the fruits with the pits in them. I decided to do neither and I pitted and hand mashed the cherries. Well credit has to be given to Tracey, she sat with me and helped pit 8 pounds of cherries. Here are some pictures of the first few steps.
Me mashing up the cherries by hand. I was debating using my feet for authenticity but decided that there wasn't enough to mash for that to be reasonable.
Here you can see the mashed cherries, what's left of the bucket full, and all the pits.
Here's what the must (the in process wine that has the fruit pulp still) looks like just after adding the yeast.
Now to wait 5 days and see where it stands. Then I'll either adjust sugar levels or rack in to a secondary fermenter. So exciting!!
Me mashing up the cherries by hand. I was debating using my feet for authenticity but decided that there wasn't enough to mash for that to be reasonable.
Here you can see the mashed cherries, what's left of the bucket full, and all the pits.
Here's what the must (the in process wine that has the fruit pulp still) looks like just after adding the yeast.
Now to wait 5 days and see where it stands. Then I'll either adjust sugar levels or rack in to a secondary fermenter. So exciting!!
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