Strawberry wine fermenting too fast?

[NyQuil]

I posted this on another forum but am hoping for some help here too:

Hello, so I decided to make a Strawberry wine (for summer) and pitched my yeast on Christmas Day, 12/25. I'm not a huge fan of grape wines.

My brewing experience is two batches of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead which turned out great.

The recipe for this wine is as follows:

4 lbs of frozen strawberries
2 lbs of white sugar
1 gallon of spring water
1 tsp of yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp of acid blend
1/2 tsp of wine tannin
1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme
1 packet of Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast

I put the strawberries in a pot with 3/4 of the gallon of water, brought them to 170 for five minutes then reduced the heat to steep them for 30 minutes. Mashed them up, stirred in the sugar and chemicals and put them in a muslin bag. I put the bag in a 2 gallon fermenter and added the rest of the water. I let it sit overnight to make sure the temp would drop to 70-80 (house is at 70) and added the yeast. I did not add a campden tablet to the must.

SG 12/25 before yeast - 1.070
SG 12/27 - 10.014

This seems like an awful drop in gravity for barely 48 hours. For the experienced fruit wine makers does this seem too fast or just about right?

 

[DoctorCAD]

Heating the fruit is never a good idea in winemaking, it sets the pectins in the fruit and makes cloudy wine, or very hard to clear wine. Next time try freezing.

Yeast will do what they do, when they want to. We dont have a whole lot of control over it.

 

[Yooper]

I always have my fruit wines fermented out by day 5-7, so it seems like you're right in there. It does seem like it was pretty warm, and a warmer fermentation will go very fast.

Since you're at 1.014(?), I'd remove the fruit and rack to secondary.

 

[NyQuil]

Heating the fruit is never a good idea in winemaking, it sets the pectins in the fruit and makes cloudy wine, or very hard to clear wine. Next time try freezing.

Yeast will do what they do, when they want to. We dont have a whole lot of control over it.

Just put the frozen berries directly in the muslin bag and set it in there?

I always have my fruit wines fermented out by day 5-7, so it seems like you're right in there. It does seem like it was pretty warm, and a warmer fermentation will go very fast.

Since you're at 1.014(?), I'd remove the fruit and rack to secondary.

Still a bit sweet on taste, I'll see what it does tomorrow.

 

[Yooper]

Just put the frozen berries directly in the muslin bag and set it in there?



Still a bit sweet on taste, I'll see what it does tomorrow.

No, use campden tablets for the fruit.

Sweet taste doesn't matter- SG readings will tell you when to move to secondary. You want to do it between 1.010 to 1.020 or thereabouts.

You want to move to an appropriately sized carboy with very little headspace after the wine gets below 1.010 or so.

 

[NyQuil]

Well I waited too long as today it is .998.

I'll still let this one age and see what happens. Next weekend I'll try another batch and rack it once it drops below 1.015.

Any more thoughts on why it completely fermented down in less than 72 hours? Could the heating have done that?

 

[Yooper]

Well I waited too long as today it is .998.

I'll still let this one age and see what happens. Next weekend I'll try another batch and rack it once it drops below 1.015.

Any more thoughts on why it completely fermented down in less than 72 hours? Could the heating have done that?

Yes, maybe- but it's common for wine to reach FG at 3-7 days.