Strawberry wine - How to Pasteurize?

With the very wet spring we've been having here in Eastern Iowa the conditions seem to be perfect for producing beaucoup strawberries, so I have more strawberries than I know what to do with. I was considering making a wine, but I have the following problems:

1) No K or Na-metabisulfite or Campden tablets and the LHBS that would carry them is currently underwater here in Iowa City.

2) I only have Munton's Standard Yeast packets.

Could I somehow pasteurize these strawberries and get away with a wine using Munton's?

Or should I chop the strawberries, throw them in the freezer, and order ingredients from Northern Brewer or Midwest?

If it were me Id throw them in the freezer, some fruit will lose quality from freezing but I think strawberries are fine and freezing helps them dissolve in the must and release flavor. the campden will help insure the yeast gets the first foothold but Id worry more about the yeast, muntons doesnt have the alcohol tolerance or ester profile you would want for a wine.

I'd chop them & freeze them. It will give you more flavor & buy time to get the yeast nutrient, some wine yeast, etc. Munton's would have trouble with wine ABVs.

I don't know about doing a wine with Mutons, I suspose you could go for more of a strawberry cider like concoction. As for the pasturizing thing, I wouldn't worry too much, I finished up a strawberry wine a little bit ago using fresh strawberries and some D-47 lalvin yeast, I washed, de-leaved and diced the berries, then ran them through the blender with some water and sugar, threw in some pectic enzime and just let it go in the carboy, with good results. I'm really tempted to try a strawberry wine wild ferment though, one gallon tester of course.

Freezeblade, what was your OG on that or the mass of strawberries/gallon of water? I don't have any idea what 7.8 lbs of strawberries will give me in terms of an OG.

I have decided to freeze them for the time being. I was against this in the first place since once I freeze something like that I never get around to actually making it... sort of like a pound of wild hops I dried and packed away into the freezer a year and a half ago. But the volume these strawberries take up in my freezer should be good motivation.

Levers101 said:

Freezeblade, what was your OG on that or the mass of strawberries/gallon of water? I don't have any idea what 7.8 lbs of strawberries will give me in terms of an OG.

Click to expand...

Well, it was 4 pounds of strawberries per gallon of finished must, I actually think I'll add more next time, strawberries actually don't contain much sugar, usually around 7% by volume (http://www.hbd.org/brewery/library/SugAcid.html) after I added about a cup of cane sugar per gallon the OG was around 1.10, of course some of this weight could be from the suspended pulp solids, which I tried my best to strain out, but you know, can't get it all.

Any recommendation on acid additive? And grape tannin? Some recipes I see call for them and some don't so I imagine it isn't necessary. These things seem weird to the purist in me who thinks that if it isn't sugar or strawberries it shouldn't be in the must.

Grey area for the purist... If you don't like the idea of adding powered grape tannin, you can add like a cup of strong black tea (cold)... I'm not sure of the converstion/equivelents but it seems somewhat more "natural" to me...

How long would one age a strawberry wine?

Not sure to be honest but most recipes I've seen call for at least a year of ageing but this seems to be a starndard quoted timeframe for any wine...

Oh, man, what did I get myself into. Apparently you need to know the % acidity of wine so it doesn't spoil? Its not that I can't do an acidity titration... but this makes it so much more like work than a hobby. (I'm an environmental engineering/chemistry grad student.)

Anyone have any SWAG's on how much acid blend to add to the following:

13.7 lbs Strawberries in 4 gallons water.

Levers101 said:

Anyone have any SWAG's on how much acid blend to add to the following:

13.7 lbs Strawberries in 4 gallons water.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't use any, Strawberries actually have quite a bit of acid in them, taste it after primary fermentation is over, if you think it needs tartness, add the acid blend into the secondary. of course, I like my wine sweet, so YMMV

Levers101 said:

(I'm an environmental engineering/chemistry grad student.)

Click to expand...

Snap... I be an environmental science postgrad too...

rmck1, What do you do research in?

I got an unexpected vacation this week because half of our university campus is flooded, been spending it trying to catch up on brewing, but my LHBS also got flooded. Still waiting on small things like Campden and grape tannin to show up via FedEx to start making this strawberry wine.