Grapefruit/Cranberry Wine

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Yo momma

NewBee
Registered Member
Jul 14, 2007
934
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54
Flint, Michigan
If you really want to try a great dessert wine try this. This recipe is from a close freind of mine who has made 3 batches of this and they are great. Tastes like one of those sweet tart suckers!

2.5 gal Pure Grapefruit juice
2 cans Cranberry juice concentrate from Ocean Spray
Sugar to gravity of 1.090
4 tsp. nutrient
water to 6 gallons
Montrachet yeast

The acid was an issue but the yeast fights through it and ferments to FG 1.009. The flavor is off the hook. I am going to try this with honey and see what I get.
 
I'd recommend trying this with DV10 yeast from Lallemand. It's dyamite at low pH and is very neutral in its esterfication characters. Should be an excellent match with this stuff. Also . . . I hate Montrachet yeast.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
I have never done this batch myself adn I also hate any redstar yeast. They seem never to get the job done, but that is what he loves. Also I never have used D-47 either but maybe it's time.
 
Well, I'm probably the only guy left around here who still occasionally uses Montrachet in anything (and those things are limited -- but they do turn out well for me), but in this case I would use either DV10 or D-47. The DV10 will provide the neutral character Oskaar is describing, but the results I'm getting from D-47 with extended sur lie and periodic batonnage in the cranberry-blueberry-juniper batch that I now have in secondary suggest to me that this might also be an interesting approach for a cranberry-citrus brew.
 
You might want to recheck that recipe though.

SG of 1.090 will be right for sugar, but remember that honey only clocks in at 79% of sugar sweetness so in order to get that to the right sweetness level for your final product you'll want to up the starting gravity into the neighborhood of about 1.1073.

D47 will do fine in this recipe, but the DV10 is closer to the influence of the Montrachet without the nasty poly-vinyl flavor that is typical of Montrachet. D47 will tend to "smoothen" this one out and hide the crispness of this recipe. The DV10 is very faithful to acidic crispness since it is a champagne yeast made to deal with low sugar, high acid grapes.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
I did not know that about honey and sugar. I usually make my wine OG aroung 1.100 and my mead at 1.130+. That is a very interesting fact, thanks.
 
Whoops, sorry! I was on an SG vs. Pounds tear in an email to someone who was saying that using pounds is more accurate than using SG. Starting SG of 1.090 is the right target.

Oskaar