How to Make Cranberry Wine

Cranberry wine is among the easiest wines to make. With a strong balance of sweetness and tartness it also has a lot of taste appeal. You can drink this wine with almost any meal and it tastes best served at room temperature. The following will show you how to make your own cranberry wine.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• 2 pounds cranberries
• A nylon straining bag
• Primary fermentor
• 1 gallon water
• 3 lbs sugar
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1/4 teaspoon pectic enzyme
• 1 ¼ teaspoon acid blend
• 1 package wine yeast
• 1 campden tablet
• Siphon
• Secondary fermentor
• Airlock
• Bottles

1. Wash and chop 2 pounds of fresh cranberries and place the fruit and juice into the primary fermentor. You want to break the skin of all the berries to get the juice out of the berry.
2. Add 1 gallon of water to the fermentor, along with 1 pound of raisins, 3 pounds of granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient, ¼ teaspoon of pectic enzyme, 1 ¼ teaspoon of acid blend and 1 crushed campden tablet. Stir the mixture well. Let it sit in the fermentor overnight.
3. Add 1 package of wine yeast to the fermentor and cover. Let set for five days, stirring at least once every day.
4. Filter the mixture through a nylon straining bag and put the strained juice back into the secondary fermentor. Squeeze the bag well to get every bit of juice out of it that you can and throw the bag and pulp out after the juice is removed. Place the airlock on the fermentor.
5. Siphon the mixture (or rack the wine) in 3 weeks and return the mixture to the secondary fermentor. Do not add any more sugar if you would like the wine to be a dry wine.
6. Add ½ cup of granulated sugar to 1 cup of the wine and dissolve if you would like the wine to be a sweet wine. Pour the cup of wine and sugar back into the secondary fermentor. Repeat this every six weeks until formation does not restart when you add the sugar.
7. Rack the wine again in 3 months and then rack for 1 year once every 3 months.
8. Siphon the wine into good quality, clean bottles. Cork the bottles and store in the dark for about a year and a half before drinking.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also make this wine using frozen cranberries.
• If you are sweetening the wine, taste it at each racking to decide if you would like to add more sugar.