My First Recipe from Scratch - Not Sure if This is Going Right

[PaulyWally]

Hi All,

I started a strawberry wine from berries 10 days ago. I just filtered it and moved it to secondary fermentation last night. The specific gravity was 0.998. I looked at it this morning and there appears to be no fermentation. At least, there are no bubbles.

Should it have continued fermenting? Is there anything I should do at this point (add yeast/sugar/etc)?

Recipe and other details:

~2 gallons of water
8 pounds of strawberries
5 pounds of sugar
Yeast
Yeast Nutrient
Pectic Enzyme
Campden tablet

Primary fermentation was done in my dark basement at a steady ~75 degrees. Fermentation was very active for 7-8 days. During which, I stirred every other day. Before I filtered/moved it last night, fermentation appeared to have stopped (no more bubbles).

FYI - Anything that touches the wine (like the stir stick) is rinsed with sanitizer. So I'm not sure adding that little bit of sanitizer every so often may have killed the yeast over time... or if there is just no more sugars left.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jtratcliff]

Sounds like it's probably finished at that FG. Very dry...

Might still need some time to drop clear.

Did you taste it? You might also need to stabilize and back sweeten.

 

[PaulyWally]

Sounds like it's probably finished at that FG. Very dry...

Might still need some time to drop clear.

Did you taste it? You might also need to stabilize and back sweeten.

Yes. It still needs to clear. I just tasted it now. It's pretty gross. lol. As you said, it's very dry. And if I had to guess it tastes like its well above 20% ABV. Could this be right?

At any rate, it sounds like I need to stabilize ASAP. Or do I have time stabilize it through clearing/racking?

 

[jtratcliff]

Let it clear first... Rack it to a fresh carboy when the lees build up...

Add Camden tablets every other racking or so to combat oxidation

Once it stays clear for a month or so with no more lees, then you can stabilize...

 

[Raptor99]

Do you know the OG (= original SG)? If so, you can use a calculator to estimate the % ABV. Here is one you could use: Alcohol By Volume ABV Calculator | Brewer's Friend

I didn't see any acid blend in your recipe. Do you know the pH? If the pH is too high, it will not keep well.

 

[bernardsmith]

Five pounds of sugar dissolved in water to make 2 gallons would increase the gravity of the water by 5 * .045 = .225/2 = 1.112. So absent the strawberries, I would assume the SG was 1.112 which has a potential ABV of about 15% ABV. Not sure of the sugar content of strawberries but I would assume that they may contain about 40 points of sugar and I am guessing that 8 lbs of fruit would have produced let's say half a gallon so we are talking about another 40 points over 2.5 gallons - so another 16 points (1.128) so the total SG would have had a potential ABV of almost 17%. What kind of yeast did you use?
final gravity of .998 tells us that there is virtually no more sugar left in the wine.
Given how thin strawberry flavor can be, relatively speaking, and given the high ABV or your wine I would think the wine is likely to be out of balance with the alcohol swamping the flavor of the fruit...

 

[PaulyWally]

Do you know the OG (= original SG)? If so, you can use a calculator to estimate the % ABV. Here is one you could use: Alcohol By Volume ABV Calculator | Brewer's Friend

Unfortunately, I forgot to check the original SG.

I didn't see any acid blend in your recipe. Do you know the pH? If the pH is too high, it will not keep well.

Yes. I forgot to include that in my original post. I added 1 tsp of citric acid and 1 tbsp of lemon juice.

 

[PaulyWally]

What kind of yeast did you use?

Lalvin 71B

 

[bernardsmith]

Do you know the OG (= original SG)? If so, you can use a calculator to estimate the % ABV. Here is one you could use: Alcohol By Volume ABV Calculator | Brewer's Friend

I didn't see any acid blend in your recipe. Do you know the pH? If the pH is too high, it will not keep well.

Strawberries can be quite acidic. You may want to check the pH and TA before you add acid blend, but certainly acidity is important if you want to fix the color (ie not allow the color to drop out of solution so that you end up with a strawberry blond wine rather than a wine that is fire-engine red.