Re: Bananas

"William Frazier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I made a cranberry wine to serve at this year's Thanksgiving dinner.  Used
a
> recipe from Jack Keller's site that called for 2# cranberries and 1#
> currants (plus Jack's other ingredients) per gallon.  I used raisins
instead
> of currants and fermented with Cote Des Blancs yeast.  The wine finished
up
> at pH 3.38 and TA 1.0%.  It was tart, like I think cranberry wine should
be,
> but it was a bit too sweet for my tastes.
>
> I'm going to try a new cranberry wine for next Thanksgiving.  I think I'll
> eliminate the raisins in this new batch to see if I can bring out more of
> the cranberry flavor and finish dryer.  I'll use a starting specific
gravity
> that will result in an alcohol content similar to German Rhine Wines.
> Without raisins I believe the wine will be too thin and I'm considering
ways
> to build body in a fruit wine.  I read where bananas are used for this
> purpose.  For those who know, how many pounds of bananas should you use
for
> a five gallon recipe of wine?  Any other ideas on ways to build body into
> fruit wines will be appreciated.  Thanks.
>
> Bill Frazier
> Olathe, Kansas

Bill,

Two years ago I  made a cranberry mead to my (soon to be) mother-in-law's
Thanksgiving cranberry relish recipe, and I didn't find it to be thin at
all.  The recipe was very simple, 2 12 oz bags of fresh cranberries, 2 navel
oranges, 3/4 cup sugar, and spices.  My conversion of this to a beverage was
to make it a mead, using the 2 12oz bags of fresh cranberries, the fruit and
zest of 2 navel oranges (eliminating the pith, which adds a bitter component
to a wine or mead), and the spices.  I used honey to bring it up to wine
strength, fermented it dry, and I thought it was a very nice mead.  It
wasn't a heavy bodied mead, but it wasn't thin at all either.

The above doesn't precisely address your question, and so I offer the
following:  If you start with a wine or mead of 1.090-1.100 SG, and use
nearly any commercial wine yeast, you should end up with a dry wine or mead.
This may eliminate the issue you had with your wine, which you say was too
sweet for your tastes.

Alternatively, you may use grape juice to add body, or you may blend with a
full bodied  wine or mead to bring the cranberry wine to the body that you
will enjoy.  I've made many gallons of both golden and black raisin mead for
the purpose of blending, as this mead has an incredible body to it that
blends well with a lesser bodied wine or mead to hide that deficiency.


-- 
Cheers,
Ken