strawberry wine newbie newb :D

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Hello any and all and thanks for taking the time to read me. :eek:

I am somewhat new to making wine from things. As a kid I made it and sold it in school and have since grown up but back then it was only due to mom leaving her wine making books out. So it’s been close to 30 years and a lot of forgetting that I come here :D

Recipe I used from what I remembered without reading anything, when all ells fails read directions rite? lol

19lbs strawberries de-stemmed sat in fridge all night in distilled water. Used that water.
10lbs sugar
2 cups Lipton tea made hot and cooled before added from 3 tea bags


Ok here is what I did. We found this place that had some really sweet awesome strawberries. They were not large berries, a little larger then wild ones. But really really sweet. So I got about 19lbs of them spent all day long getting the leafs and stems off.
K here is what I did. Took blender placed enough berries in it to fill half way then topped off with sugar. Liquefied and did this until I went through all ingredients. Simple? yeah smart? idk thats why im here ;)
It now sitting in a sterilized container in the basement (its cool down there) covered with a towel and then with a metal lid (stainless steel container)
I went up to the local wine store and got myself some wyeast for sweet mead. They are now closed and in the morning plan on going there to say something but the yeast is 6 months beyond its use date its a year old :( so its sat for 4 hours now and nothing has happened to the packet (smack pack)
Wrong way to start? Problems or ideas on how to make it work if I did it wrong. For some reason as a kid I remember using the wood stove to boil most the fruit wines I made but I didn’t boil anything this time. And yes I have 1 bottle of that youthful wine I made back then :) anyways someone tell me I did this rite please should of read more on it and the more I read the more I get confused. Some stuff says I did it rite where other stuff says I should of added this and added that and then other stuff says I did it completely wrong and its just going to be a waist. :) k long winded enough. I do not have a hydrometer or understand the theory behind it.
Thanks for anyone that made it this far for the reading specially with bad grammar and spelling
:mug:
 
Well hmm was hoping someone might have taken the time to read this. Oh well ive got time I am sure someone will :D
Anyways I think I might have forgotten to mention. I am making this as a 5 gal batch. But the liquid is really thick, it is more of a slushy slur then a liquid. I guess if it works out I may have to make it into a 13 gal batch.? Although it’s not a true 5 gal yet as I was going to add some more water to it once I added the yeast.
I am guessing now that it’s sat 2 days without any type of yeast that I might have to add something to kill anything that has started to grow in her already.?
 
I'm fairly new to this hobby as well, however I can answer some of your questions.

A hydrometer is essential to winemaking, as it indicates the potential alcohol level of the must. If you have too much sugar in the wine, the potential alcohol level will be higher then the yeast has a tolerance to. Thus, it is important to know the specific gravity of your wine.

Here's what seems to be a fairly simple recipe, in a one gallon format (multiply everything by 5 if you want 5 gallons.)

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient


Place all ingredients except yeast in crock. Crush fruit with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water. Stir with wooden paddle to dissolve sugar and simultaneously mash the strawberries. When cooled to 85 degrees F., add yeast. Cover and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside. Rack after 30 days and again after additional 30 days. Bottle when clear. Allow to age at least 6 months. Will improve to one year.
 
Other than the tea did you add any water? It just seems like there should be some more water there.

I tried to do some rough math on the figures you gave. For 19# of medium/small berries and assuming your blender is 1/2 gallon blender. You did the half & half berry + sugar blend about 6 times? If so your approximate gravity level for a 5 gallon batch should have enough sugar to ferment dry with a resulting alchohol by volume of 18%-19%. if you did the sugar berry trick more than 6 times then you are right about this being a slurry. Most any yeast could not tackle that. So if my original math is right then you can get this puppy going no problem. Don't use the sweet mead yeast, I hate that yeast personally. You want to look at Lalvin 1116 yeast but you need to make a yeast starter.

My starter recipe for 5 gallon high ABV must:

2 cups of water
1/2 cup of honey
10 fine chopped raisins
2 100mg B6 tablets crushed and mixed in.

Mix all that together. Sprinkle 5 grams of dry yeast on top and cover with paper towel and rubberband. Let sit for 6-12 hours. Then pitch into must.

If you have more sugar than I estimated in there then get a second 5 gallon bucket, cut this in half and top each off with water. Still do the starter but could probably use the yeast of your choice.
 
Yeah, I'm with the other guys. Sounds like you might need to add some more water. My strawberry wine recipe [http://goo.gl/hw4X2] yields 1 gallon from 4lbs of strawberries, so I would say you should be looking at getting 5 gallons from your 19lbs. But my recipe has much less sugar than yours.

Did you add the yeast which seemed to not be working? You can add campden tablets to wipe out any growth, but this stuff will start fermenting on its own pretty soon here. There is yeast on that fruit, even though you sat it in distilled water and rinsed it.
 
Sorry I have taken so long to reply to this.
Anyways here is what I did
Went up to the local brewing place. He recommended a few things. First was boiling the slurry to about 150degree witch I did. Then add a half table spoon of pectic enzyme. The pectic enzyme took the whole frothy looking stuff on top away and I could see the liquid. After that he recommended using the 1116 yeast. I went to Levin’s site and followed the directions to get it started from there. While I was getting the yeast started I was cooling my slurry in the tub. After it reached room temp I checked the gravity and it was 30 in the blue at the bottom of the meter so I added just enough water to make it 80 green just below the start point. Then I tossed in my yeast and placed in the cellar. It has sat down there for almost 2 weeks now and last night we spent the time and used a (got it from the brewers place) paint screen bag to filter the seeds and everything to place it in the secondary firmenter. It is now sitting in a cool dark cellar. I think all in all I should prob add a bit more water but since we do not drink wine while we eat and not much of beer or hard liquor drinkers we like our wine a bit sweet. So after filling a 5gal jug I topped it off and it only took a half gallon of water, leaving about 1/2 inch from top of liquid to bubbler. And there is sits waiting for phase 3. It’s very pink and bubbling like crazy still. The bottom of the jug has about 3 inches of what I think is the yeast or yeast poo :) idk. But it smells good and tastes delicious so far.
 
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