We have the recipe from Jack Keller's webpage. We have the fresh
Cranberries, but the currants that I could find were dried.

How many dried currants make one pound? And I would guess that one would
soak the dried currants before adding them to the concoction???

Thanks,

Vicki Baylus

Vicki -
I can't speak from direct experience, but from what I read, dried
currants are a lot like raisins. Grapes run somewhere near 25% sugar;
fermentation converts it into a little more than half that much
alcohol, ending up around 12-13% in most cases. Figuring that the
other solids contribute a little weight, I'd figure that maybe 70% or
so of the weight of fresh grapes (or fresh currants) would be water.
So a pound of grapes would end up as maybe 1/3 pound of raisins, after
almost all the water is removed. I'd round that up and try 1/2 pound
of dried currants, rehydrated with a like amount of water (8 oz). I
don't think it would make much difference whether you rehydrated
first, but you do need to add the cup of water to compensate for the
currants being dry. Either way, I think I'd chop them a bit to make
sure you extract as much sugar and flavor as you can during
fermentation. I think that's standard procedure in recipes that use
raisins.

Happy fermenting -

Doug

"Vicki Baylus" > wrote in message >...
> We have the recipe from Jack Keller's webpage. We have the fresh
> Cranberries, but the currants that I could find were dried.
>
> How many dried currants make one pound? And I would guess that one would
> soak the dried currants before adding them to the concoction???
>
> Thanks,
>
> Vicki Baylus