How to Make Raisin Wine (Are Raisins Yeast Nutrient?)

How to Make a Raisin Wine and are raisins really yeast nutrient? Well, almost any fruit can be nutrient if you use enough. So many people have argued, cursed, yelled, thrown tantrums and called us liars over nutrients and raisins. Well, the truth is we don't really use raisins as nutrients. They do have SOME, but probably not enough nutrients to be truly a nutrient for yeast. Raisin Wine however, uses soooo many raisins that it's not only a nutrient, it's the only source of sugar and fermentables in the wine, well, there's half an orange too for brightness.
For years, winemakers, mead makers and home brewers believed raisins were nutrients for yeast. Well, they are, but not as much as people believed. An interesting fact though is if you're making wine, you already have fruit in there to be nutrient and if you're making mead, unless you are making a pure traditional mead, you have other things in there for nutrient already. We don't believe in adding extra additives to our brews, so we try to avoid lab made nutrients when we can.
Yes, we did a test of nutrients vs yeast, but that was really only to prove that nutrients aren't 100% necessary. So what will happen if you use raisins instead of nutrients in your wine? Well, you might have a bit more lag time (that's the time it takes the colony to build up before they start producing alcohol), you might have a slower fermentation (not necessarily a bad thing, as fermentation can add flavor, think sourdough in bread, the longer it ferments the more unique the flavors 'can' be). You CAN get off flavors, and sometimes they aren't all that great, but the good news is those off flavors can age out.
If you add nutrients, you might get a slightly faster fermentation and might cut a few months off the aging time. You also might get a metallic or chemical flavor in your brew. I can taste the difference and thousands of people have told me they can too.
Anyway, back to raisin wine. Raisin wine used to be vastly popular because raisins were cheaper than sugar. Today, it's the other way around, but raisins still give a lot more flavor to the wine than plain sugar does.

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Ingredients:
 
3 pounds Raisins 
1 teaspoon Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast 
1/2 an Orange Quartered 
Water to a gallon


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