Strawberry wine experiment

[Coolcanuck]

Hello, I had some strawberrs left over in my freezer from months ago that we're starting to look a little burnt lol, so I decided to dig out an old hobby I had wine making, so I got all my old equipment out and discovered my yeast was two years expired (ec-1118) ;( so I decided to go ahead with it anyway I used 2 pounds of sugar and three pounds of berries in a one gallon glass jug, mashed the Berrys and disolved the sugars fully, cleaned and steralized everything using a bleach salution, but the reason why I came here was how strange it looked only 4 hours after completion and wanted to know why it had a thick film on the top of it, I had prepared the yeast in some of the sugar water and strawberry juice and dumped it in

 

[porterpounder]

Look like fermentation to me. Careful, it looks like it's going to blow the lid off.

 

[Coolcanuck]

Yea I know it's making its way up the air lock now

 

[Coolcanuck]

UPDATE- My wine seems to be doing very well this is day two and I put an overflow tube into it to stop it from going j to the airlock, I'm just not sure when to rack it for the first time p, here's a picture, I want to take a hydrometer reading but don't know how to go about it lol it has this thick slugs on top of the liquid

 

[vistabrewer]

yeah, that's completely normal looking. as it ferments out the dark red will go to a light red color as well.

 

[Coolcanuck]

I have never had a fermentation so powerful as this one it's filled the overflow bottle with yeast looking stuff and it's currently boiling like water in a pot, I'm just hoping it's not like a full 20 percent like Ec 1118 is know for! I like my wine kinda sweet

 

[vistabrewer]

wow, that's some crazy overflow going on. lol especially with the amount of head space you left. i've never had that issue, might be the yeast, never used ec1118 for the version i had made.

you'll probably have to back sweeten from what i remember, as mine turned out dry and kinda funky. back sweetening was the key for my batch...it made the strawberry flavour really come out.

 

[Coolcanuck]

It's nuts but the mistake a made was turning the berries into purée I thougt it may maximize my flavour but I truly just think it's gonna be an epic issue when it comes to racking other than that the gasses smell like a good wine and from what I've read Ec 1118 sucks the life out of strawberrie wines but unfortunately it's all I can get. so backsweetening is the only way to fix it

 

[buMbLeB]

It's nuts but the mistake a made was turning the berries into purée I thougt it may maximize my flavour but I truly just think it's gonna be an epic issue when it comes to racking

Maybe not. I've done apricot twice (it comes as a puree, and if it doesn't I made it one), plum and concord (which I boiled into "jam"), and in all cases the mulch rose to the top or sank to the bottom over time. You just need to rack from the sweet middle.

 

[Coolcanuck]

Am I going to loose a lot of my wine if rack it from the sweet spot lol and the best part is this wine yeast was in my basement since 2014 and expired in November 2014 I didn't realize how badly expired it actually was but it seems to be fine

 

[buMbLeB]

It'll settle over time, the sweet spot will grow, I (almost) guarantee it!

 

[Coolcanuck]

Hahahaha almost it's day four and it's boiling so we will see when it slows down how "almost" settled it gets. I thought it had to stay in primary for a week but what do I know, all the little strawberrie bits are turning like a ghostly white and look pretty used up

 

[Coolcanuck]

Just an update wine is still boiling strong no sign of a slowing down yet, just am unsure what to top it off with when it comes to racking for secondary any ideas? I was thinking frozen apple juice concentrate you guys let me know if this sounds like a decent idea or not and any suggestions very open to criticism I can only make better wine. BTW I'm shooting for like a girls night out lol just a little stronger and just as sweet it's for my girlfriend ;(

 

[buMbLeB]

You realize the sugar in the aj will restart fermentation, right?

 

[Coolcanuck]

Wouldn't the yeast die off at a certain alcohol percentage though? It couldn't possiblly eat forever I was just thinking I'll have a ton of head space and don't want to ruin the batch with water so maby a ton of marbles will do....

 

[buMbLeB]

You're correct, the yeast you're using goes up to around 18% or so, do that's some pretty potent wine. I use 1118 a lot, but have never pushed it that high. Marbles are good, or perhaps a matching light-bodied wine? I hear you about not wanting to water it down though.

There are organic apple juices (Knudsen where I am) that come in compact mini carboys, and I've used those to step down into a secondary rack. FWIW.

 

[Coolcanuck]

Thanks for the advice I've currently got a blueberry on the go as per jack kellers recipe

2 lb. blueberries
1 lb. raisins
2 lb. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. pectic enzyme
1-1/2 tsp. acid blend
1/2 tsp. yeast energizer
1 gallon water
crushed Campden tablet
wine yeast

So I've got my hands full ATM the blueberry isn't showing signs of fermentation so now I'm shifting over to addressing that but as of tomorrow the strawberry will be on day seven it hasn't slowed down at all lol, although I just started the blueberry today so it hasn't been long enough to say it's an issue