So I tried my hand at taking the thousands of cherries on the tree in my backyard and turning it into delicious Cherry Wine. Cherry Wine - yes... delicious - not so much. So I was left with a decision: either drink this very tart wine, throw it out, or figure out something else to do with it.
So I decided to make most of it into Cherry Wine Vinegar, and some of it into a Cherry Wine glaze for BBQ.
First the Cherry Wine. I needed to measure one gallon of the Cherry Wine to be made into vinegar, and the rest I was going to reduce into the glaze.
So here's a gallon measured off. It's pretty simple stuff here. Pour the cherry wine into a 3 gallon car boy (glass container.) I guess the Mother of Vinegar needs a lot of air to do it's thing. I got the mother of vinegar online. It was about $10.
It takes 3 months for the conversion to happen. So I just mixed the Mother with 8oz of water and poured it in. Watch towards the end of the video, you can see the "Mother" slide into the funnel. She will float around in there and convert the alcohol into vinegar.
Then I put some cheese cloth over the top of the car boy to keep any bugs out. Again, it needs a lot of air. The directions call for 80-90 degrees, but fall is in the air up here. I put it in a closet closest to the furnace, and we'll see if it works.
The BBQ Glaze is super simple. Just put in the Cherry Wine, about a cup of sugar, and reduce it by at least half.
Here's how the glaze looks when it's done. Now just find some pork or chicken, and put it on near the end so it doesn't burn. Yum.
See You Next Time!
