Basics of wine making ?

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Bobbybeef

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#1 crush strawberrys in bucket

#2 add boiling water ( kills wild yeast & bacteria ) amount needed for batch size

#3 let sit overnight to cool down

#4 pour in sugar to obtain 1.095 which = 14% alcoholic

#5 add yeast

#6 stir every day and check hydrometer

#7 when specific gravity hits 1.030 time to rack to glass bottle for secondary fermentation and to let impurities settle week or so

#8 rack into bottles leaving any impurities in the secondary bottle then cork bottles and let set

Between reading and forums and you tube i think this is the jest of wine making any comments please do tomorrow i am going to the wine making store and buy the stuff that i dont have
 
Welcome to the forum! Two steps you missed, that are not necessary but helpful, are to added a campden tablet per gallon of fruit and before that to add pectic enzyme to help clear the haze. I have never done strawberries and everything I have read is that they are a little more difficult than raspberries or blueberries for example. I also add the sugar to the boiling water to help it dissolve more easily.

Good luck!
 
#1 crush strawberrys in bucket

#2 add boiling water ( kills wild yeast & bacteria ) amount needed for batch size also add 1 campden tablet per gallon also add pectic enzyme 1.25 tea spoons per 5 gallons

#3 pour in sugar while hot water is in bucket to obtain 1.095 which = 14% alcoholic

#4 let sit overnight to cool down

#5 add yeast

#6 stir every day and check hydrometer

#7 when specific gravity hits 1.030 time to rack to glass bottle and strain for secondary fermentation and to let impurities settle week or so

#8 rack into bottles leaving any impurities in the secondary bottle then cork bottles and let set
 
#1 crush strawberries in bucket

#2 add boiling water ( kills wild yeast & bacteria, breaks down cell structure)

#3 add 1 campden tablet per gallon

#4 pour in sugar while hot water is in bucket to obtain 1.095 which = 14% alcoholic

#5 cover with a permable cloth and let sit overnight to cool down

#6 add pectic enzyme 1.25 tea spoons per 5 gallons

#7 four hours after adding the pectic enzyme, add yeast

#8 stir the cap down once or twice a day, keeping covered between stirrings with a permeable cloth. Do not stir vigorously.

#9 after a week, begin checking with a hydrometer daily (usually a couple days after the cap drops)

#10 when specific gravity hits 1.030 time to rack to a sealed glass bottle with an air lock

#11 let it sit for the impurities to settle - I let mine sit two months at a time

#12 if the wine has cleared, rack into bottles and let set
 
I've experimented with different methods of making fruit wines over the years, and my experience has been that using sugar to produce most of the alcohol results in a beverage that I just don't want to drink.
Also, the aroma and flavor from strawberries and similar fruit seem to disappear during the fermentation process and in the end I don't get much fruit flavor. I've basically given up on making fruit wines, although I do use some fruit in mead.

So here's my basic wine making method:
Obtain a bucket of the best wine grape juice I can get. Around here, we get South America juice in May, and California Juice in September.
Put funnel in sanitized carboy
Dump juice from bucket to carboy
toss in a couple of packs of wine yeast
Add airlock
Let it ferment
So that's it, two ingredients, but the key is to start out with the best juice you can get. Add Campden tablets when racking after fermentation is done, then bottle after it clears/settles out. White wine that is made in the fall is ready to drink in the spring, red wine usually has to age a year or two. Cost is about $2-3/750 ml bottle.
 
I wonder if the problem you have with country (fruit) wines is that you are diluting the juice with (too much) water. You take grape juice and you wouldn't dream of diluting that juice with water but you take delicately flavored fruits, press the juice and then drown that juice in gallons of water. Hardly surprising that the flavor ain't there.

One other thought - more for the OP Bobbybeef. Brewing (the use of hot or boiling water) is great for beer , coffee and tea, but wine typically does not require heat. That's why the verb for making beer is brewing while the verb for making wine is ... making.

Certainly, if you intend to make wine from fruit the use of boiling water fixes pectins so your wine will take on the appearance of jams and jellies AND will tend to taste like cooked fruit. If that is what you are looking for then more power to ya... but if what you want is a fruit forward tasting wine then a) use the least amount of water possible and b) use that water at the cooler rather than the hotter temperature.
One last thought about making strawberry wine. Speaking for myself I demand that my strawberry wine is red... not orange and not strawberry blonde. And strawberry wine will drop its color if the wine is insufficiently acidic and /or if there are insufficient tannins in the wine. For good tasting strawberry wine you want to pick the berries t the peak of ripeness (store bought , unless frozen are useless) AND you want to use about 10 lbs or more to the gallon. If they are not frozen you want to freeze them and then allow them to thaw - that produces the most juice and you want to add pectic enzymes - and THAT helps produce even more juice. There should be no solid pieces of fruit in your fermenter after a couple of days of active fermentation...
 
Or Buy a strawberry country wine kit and get a feel for wine making that way, then you'll be drinking the fruits of much less labour sooner.
 
For good tasting strawberry wine you want to pick the berries t the peak of ripeness (store bought , unless frozen are useless) AND you want to use about 10 lbs or more to the gallon.
If you use 10 lbs of strawberries per gallon of wine, how much sugar/gallon would be required?
 
I aim for 1.090 . As much sugar as needed. I generally assume that the USDA data on typical sugar content of fruit is reasonably reliable - USDA data suggest that 100 g of strawberries contains about 5.7 g of sugar. If 10lbs = 4536 g and then the total amount of sugar is about 45* 6 g = 270 g or about 9 oz and so I assume that there is a hefty 8 oz of sugar in the 10 lbs of fruit.
 
I just did some quick calculations and it looks like 10 lbs strawberries plus 1.5 lbs sugar/gallon of finished wine would be about 1.090, so with that much fruit, it looks like there is no water added?
 
I try to use as little water as I possibly can with fruit and that sometimes means that my batches are smaller than standard. But c'est la guerre.
 
Hey Bernard I really appreciate your opinions and ruminations on the art of wine making. I think the idea of hot water being added to the fruit has been promoted as a way to set the colour (Terry Garey) and maybe additionally a means to get the must to a good temp for the yeast. For me sterilizing the water (if I'm not using distilled) and quick dillution of the sugar are benefits. Cheers!
 
Since wine making isn't surgery I am not sure that sterilization is what is needed. Sanitization is the term that most brewers and wine makers use and sanitization simply means removing unwanted bacteria and other micro-organisms. The easiest way to do that in wine making is to use K-meta to remove wild (indigenous) yeast and spoilage bacteria on fruit and equipment. K-meta has the added benefit that at racking it inhibits oxidation. So with the use of K-meta (at different concentrations, you can sanitize equipment, remove unwanted bacteria and yeast, and increase the shelf life of your wine at aging...). Not sure that boiling water assures you of such benefits, not least that when the boil cools and the must is now ready for your yeast that it is not also a haven for any and all yeast that is in the air... But if boiling your must gives you the wine that you want and enjoy , more power to you.
 
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In my experience, boiling the must causes bad pectin haze. If I simmer short of boiling, it doesn't haze as bad. Pouring boiling water onto the fruit seems to be a good compromise. Just be sure and mash that fruit as well as you can to extract more of the juice and flavor.
 
To be clear I don't boil my must but do add boiled sugar water to the fruit. I was led to believe that boiling was good practice for sanitation when using tap water but bow to those with more experience if this is an unnecessary step when also using k meta (which I also always add to my frozen fruit).
 
The bigger problem with using tap water (for most of us who have our water connected to the municipal supply) is that tap water is chlorinated. If chlorine is what is added then allowing the water to stand (uncovered ) for 24 hours will allow the chlorine to outgas, but if the city uses chloramine the chlorine cannot evaporate. The thing is that any phenols produced by the yeast will bind with the chlorine and you end up with chlorophenols in your wine and THAT is one of the reasons why cough syrup tastes like it does. The solution is to use spring water or bottled water that is essentially chlorine free. Any minerals in the water is good for the yeast.
 
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