Does Dark Cherry Wine from Pure Juice always produce this much lees and how do you handle it?
So for fun I decided to try making wine from Dark Cherry Juice (Knudsen Pure Pressed Dark Cherry). I was surpised to fine the native SG of the juice was 1080. I was almost tempted to just ferment it without adding sugar, but well I like my wine's above 12% so I pitched a cup of sugar into the 1 gallon must.
Anyway, after about 7 days the primary fermentation has mostly settled down and where the wine seemed devoid of solids while it was fermenting it has dropped nearly a whole quart of lees once it stopped. I am not sure how to deal with this, because well I don't want to waste a whole quart of juice (wine) to the lees.
I am considering racking the clear stuff off and then pouring the lees through a funnel filter (300 or 400 guage filter screen), but if anyone else has experience dealing with such a huge less drop and refused to give up on the wine that was in it, I would sincerely like to hear your thoughts on the best way to handle this situation.