First Strawberry Wine

[Drtywhtboy]

Ok so I got a strawberry wine recipe from a friend of mine who had great success. Started out great, still fermenting and getting ready to rack it off. So heres my issue... So far the wine tastes like coors light and strawberry, which is kinda tasty in a weird way. Has anyone else had these kinds of issues?

 

[mgonbrewlab]

Your wine as it is fermenting is almost never a good indicator of how it will finish. What is your SG reading? Strawberry wine will finish (and should finish) dry dry dry with the right yeast. Strawberries have almost as much complexities as a grape, and will take a while for the true character to come out.

Chill out, stick to the process, and wait at least 4-6 months to pass judgement. I had wines that were thin, watery and insipid at bottling that 2 months later are delicious. It just takes time, much more time than with beer.

 

[bdogg171]

Care to share the recipe?

 

[Drtywhtboy]

Care to share the recipe?

OK sorry to have waited so long to respond but I've been away and powered down.

The recipe as was told to me is as follows:

5-6 pounds of strawberry stemmed and chopped (fresh if ya got'em)
about a half handful of raisins (chopped)
a pint and a half of honey
tsp of lemon juice
tea bag

Take berry honey raisins and lemon and cover with water and heat to just under boiling for about 10 min. I was told that if you boil the mix it will have no flavor. Pour through a colander then strain through cheese cloth and split into two gallon containers. Top off with water and shake to mix. Once cooled off pitch your yeast, air lock it. Stir once a day for five days. Rack it. store in a cool dark place and rack it off every 2-3 weeks for about 2 months...

OK so with that being said, I know that there are issues with the recipe, This is what I was given to work with. I don't have a brix so I cant tell you potential or any of that. I have hope that it will work. I have since had a look at some of the recipes and found this one to be kinda primitive. So thats what I got.

I'll take any advice that you may have to offer.

All the water was fltered and everything was sterile. I didn't see the need to write that in.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not sure why any wine recipe calls for cooking the fruit unless the original recipe was for making jam and so the goal was to set pectins... But that said, looks like most of the sugar is coming from the honey and 1.5 pints of honey is about 3 cups - I think. A cup of honey weighs about 12 oz and so you have 36 oz of honey or about 2.25 lbs. Two pounds of honey will increase the gravity by about 80 points and the other 1/4 lb will add another 20 so your starting gravity is about 1.100 - and a starting gravity of 1.100 will have a potential ABV of about 13 %. BUT if you divided this into two gallons then you need to half the gravity and the potential -- so this is more like a cider or beer - about 6.5% ABV .
Personally, I would want about 10 lbs of strawberries to make a gallon of wine so I would assume that the strawberry flavor is going to be a little thin (You want the juice expressed from the fruit to dilute the honey rather than use water to dilute the flavor of the fruit... but if your honey is very flavor rich the strawberry may simply add complexity to the honey flavors...
This is really a melomel (a fruit flavored mead) . Not sure that ia primitive recipe but I don't know that I would add lemon juice - willy nilly. Strawberries are quite acidic and honey has few buffers and reacts to fermentation by dropping its pH often to levels at which yeast are stressed... You may want to check the pH - You want it to be around 3.5 while fermenting. If the taste of the mead has no kick you can then add the lemon juice but that is a flavor issue before bottling and not anything that you really need for the yeast to do its job...
I would rack about every couple of months and not twice a month. You rack when the amount of sediment dropping out of suspension reaches about 1/4 inch. The raisins are for nutrient for the yeast and the tea bag is to add tannin
In my opinion, it is always better to freeze the strawberries and allow them to thaw. The freezing damages the cells and that forces out more juice. I would add pectic enzzyme to help break down the pectins and so produce a brighter - more clear wine when you are ready to bottle...

 

[Drtywhtboy]

Ok so at this point in the game and seeing now that this is more of a melomel can I add strawberry to it or is that pointless. I have about 10 lbs frozen in the freezer. As far as this goes I'm not too concerned about ABV I can fix that next time with you advice. I'm looking to try to make this have a good flavor in the end. Also when you say a brighter wine what are you referring to color of taste?

 

[bernardsmith]

By brighter I was referring to the clarity (not so much the color). Pectins result in haze. And pectic enzymes break down those pectins and so reduce or remove the source of the haze.
You can always add more fruit to the "secondary" fermenter. That is to say, after you have racked the mead (or wine) off the gross lees (when the gravity drops close to 1.005) then adding fruit with their sugars will allow the yeast to continue fermenting but the fermentation will not be so active and vigorous. That means the flavors and aromas in the fruit will not be blown out the fermenter.

I would add about 1.5 (crushed) campden tabs to the fruit and allow it to thaw. I would add pectic enzyme to the fruit as it thaws and then wait about 24 hours before pouring the melomel on top of the fruit (the campden will protect the fruit from fermenting and will also inhibit oxidation.
I have made strawberry wine only once and used about 10 lbs per gallon but I did not dilute the juice with water. I also made a strawberry wine and not a melomel so you are getting some of the flavor from the honey. But in my book when it comes to fruit wines more fruit is almost always better than less and 15 or 16 lbs of fruit in what will likely be 3 gallons of mead is going to be far richer in flavor than 5 or 6 lbs in 2 gallons... but that is your call.
Last point: strawberries are notoriously unstable when it comes to color retention. In other words, a wine may start off with great color but over time the color changes from red to orange or even yellow. I am not certain - and others on this forum with far more experience and knowledge than me may have far more information about how to preserve the color than I do but my sense is that lower fermentation temperatures and minimizing the fruits' access to oxygen help secure the color as does a low pH in the wine and minimizing the wine's exposure to light.