my first wine, i choose strawberry, need advice

Hi, im a homebrewer (beer) and yesterday i begun in the winemaking process,
and since is strawberry season i decided to go for it

i read articles and recipes to understand the process and my kids help me out by crushing the berrys with their feet, they have so much fun doing it
heres what i put in to make 5 gal batch:

18 lbs strawberrys
6 lbs plain sugar
5 crushed campden tablets
3 tsp of Acid blend (tested the acidity with a titration kit to raise it to .60)

since i want a aproximate resulting alcohol wine of 10%, i calculate and have a 17.2 brix

i didn't find in my LHBS the Pectyn Enzyme and forgot to buy Grape Taninn!!
im a little worried about this to last ingredients and i know is specially for clarifiying and aging it,
what do you think? what should i expect??
tonight i put in some yeast nutrient and the yeast
thanks!

 

Pectic Enzyme would have been a nice thing but it isn't neccesary. It helps to keep your wine from becoming hazy. The grape tannin you can add whenever you can go buy it again. Other than that your recipe looks fine and it should be good.

 

thanks Noe, good to hear that...
i suppose i can clarify the wine later while is conditioning with another ingredient
im really excited

 

It's really hard to get rid of a pectic haze after the wine has fermented. It doesn't really hurt anything, it's just turns your wine hazy or cloudy. If you haven't started yet, you can freeze your strawberries. This could help and you won't even need pectic enzyme.

 

i have in mind that i can put some oak chips to the secondary, do you add usually some oak flavor to fruit wine?
just curious and how to make it more interesting after done

 

You may want to try some sparkaloid in it later before bottling. I bought some at my Lhbs for my first batch of sp. I had five gallons of strawberry about a month out from bottling and decided to try it.....man did it clear it up! Might want to give it a try if you have problems clearing.

 

I love me some strawberry wine -- and last years batch is just about ready for consumption!

I wouldn't oak it though -- it's too light of a wine for me to support the complexity of the oak. Up to you though.

Some of my notes from past batches:

Use Turbindor (RAW) sugar if you can get it
add 1# chopped raisins per 3 gallons for body
soak crushed berry must 12 hours in SO4 first
add pectic enzyme/tannis, sit another 12 hours

My best yeast for this has been Lavlin D47

 

I am interested in strawberry wine as well... Let me know how it turns out.

 

Yeah, oak tends to be for deeper flavours such as elderberry. Softer flavours would go nicely with it, such as elderflower or rose.

I don't think that strawberries are massively high in pectins, i think you'll be ok.

Did you leave your campden tablets for 24 hours before pitching the yeast?

Dicky

 

Yes i did ,add 5 of campden tablets 24 hours before pitching the yeast and use Lalvin Wine Yeast K1-V116previusly rehydrated in 100 ml of warm water according to manufacturer's instructions. I pitched last monday in the night and after day and half is bubblign like crazy!, wow..

is in a closed fermenter bucket with a bubble type airlock, cleaneded already a couple of time becouse went a little messy, use a sanitise pallet to stir a little bit last night and today in the morning

 

X2 on golden raisins. I did 2 1 gallon batches a year+ ago, one with and one without. Otherwise identical recipe. The plain batch is ok, very light taste. The raisin batch better body, better flavor. Both smelled amazing during primary. I stuck my head in the buckets a few times a day







I need to buy some strawberrys....

 

haha,,, i stuck my nose in the airlock 3 times a day...at least! smells incredible
now is 3 day and a half day fermenting in the primary, looks good so far
next time i'll tried the raisins

 

update:
two days ago i transfer to glass carboy, check the OG and after 5 days of pitching the yeast i got a 1.006!! wow, that was fast! OG 1.075, so i guess it will turn ready sooner than i expected, so what do you think? am i able to drink it in two months? i tasted and is very nice aroma and flavor, the acidity is great at this moment

 

after one week in the primary and one week in the secondary the FG is .990! that's two weeks and i tasted, it smells a very nice sweet fruity strawberry and in the aftertaste theres a kind a bitter of the dryness...unfortunelly since i didn't use the pectyne enzime the color turns a little pink only, so i dont care about the color, also is a little bit cloudy

i''ll stabilize it maybe i'll ad also a little bit of sugar for a little more sweetness (1.002-1.005 perhaps) and use a clarifyng agent, but i dont really care about the aspect..

So i want to know, when should i begin to drink it?