Am I doin ok?

[1lonewolf75]

I have a old fashioned strawberry wine fermentin away. I just cut up 3lb of strawberries and 15 black grapes put in a cleaned and sanitized 5 gal bucket. Covered with a towel sit fer 24 hours added yeast(k1-v1116). Then 5 days later pulled the fruit and transfered to my carboy. Let everythin settle when i transfered it to remove from lees it tasted bitter. I ran it through cheesecloth when transferin it. My question is am i makin wine or vinegar?

View attachment 1471131031081.jpg

 

[1lonewolf75]

I am ok with either one but just would like to know......

 

[CU_tony]

I am by no means an expert in beer or wine making, but yeast eat up sugars to make alcohol, so most of the sweetness in a wort or must will be consumed by the yeast. If it is bitter, you may be able to backsweeten at bottling time with a sweetner that is not fermentable.
Also depending on how long this has been at it, it may just need more time.

Was it undrinkable the last time you sampled it or just not what you were expecting??

 

[1lonewolf75]

Just very bitter. And not **** alcohol. And definitely not what i was expectin. My mead-which is in green bottle in pic and from wild yeast- is right on par with what i expected. I am wonderin if maybe it will loose the bitter and get more on par with what I expect from a wine as it continues to ferment. Or if it was the lees causin the bitter.

 

[lukebuz]

Dude, just spend some time researching. There will be someone nice enough who will spell it out for you, but there is a wealth of resources on the most basic of basic wine making.

 

[1lonewolf75]

Dude, just spend some time researching. There will be someone nice enough who will spell it out for you, but there is a wealth of resources on the most basic of basic wine making.

Unfortunately I have researched and the best i can find is POSSIBLY I left it on the lees too long and it MAY be unusable fer anythin. But nothin definite one way or the other.
My research is how I came to try to make mead from some unusable honey I had.

I lean a lot on advice from people who have been doin somethin fer a while.

 

[rlmiller10]

Unless you really need that jug, you have time. Not sure where the bitter would come from, 15 grapes should not have that many tannins. So let it sit for a few months and check back.

 

[1lonewolf75]

I am in no hurry fer the jug. I actually plan on buyin another either this month or next to try another fruit wine in. So thank you rlmiller10!!!!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Well, I have a small bit of mead making under my belt so to speak, as long as it isn't very sour I don't think you are making vinegar I had a blueberry Melomel that was noticeably bitter then I read about how to correct it and it reminded me of cough medicine... I made another addition back to bitter. Aged it with a oak spiral bottled it with the addition of time it turned out pretty nice.
What is the age of your wine?

 

[1lonewolf75]

Bout 3 weeks. 2 weeks into the secondary. Bout 1 week off of the lees from the primary. I did not let them settle adore rackin the 1st time.

 

[1lonewolf75]

I think i located the source of the funny smell and taste. The bung that came with the carboy smells like cheap rubber. I am gonna switch it with the other one and see if that changes anythin. Hopefully this batch is not ruined.

 

[ong]

Did you add any sugar to this? 3 lbs of strawberries and a few grapes are not going to get you to the starting gravity you want.

 

[1lonewolf75]

Yeah 2.5lb. Sorry i fergot to add that on the 1st post. It has slowed down on the bubblin and is startin to clear.

 

[Aristotelian]

The airlocks should keep it from turning to vinegar (unless you screwed up somehow). To make vinegar you want it to be exposed to air.

 

[1lonewolf75]

Well I also want to make vinegar so if it does I will not consider it a failure. Ibam juat lettin it sit with the airlock from the liter n half bottle on it. I corked the mead that was in that bottle.

 

[1lonewolf75]

Well i bottled 4/5ths of it. It is dry but not bad. The last fifth was really cloudy and had some of the lees in it so I put it in a jug with some Bragg's Apple cider vinegar.