Strawberry Mint Honey Wine Recipe....

[Dr_Floyd]

Today I pitched the yeast in my new Strawberry Mint Honey Wine Recipe! Mostly just sharing but I'd love to get some opinions on the Mint part.

5 gallon batch primary ingredients:
- 16 lbs. local Raw Wildflower Honey
- ≈4 gallons water
- 1/2 lb. Golden Raisins (chopped and bagged)
- 2 lbs. Fresh Strawberries (De-stemmed, sliced, crushed, frozen, pectic enzymed and campdened)
- 2 tsp. Nutrient (SNA)
- 1 tsp. Energizer (SNA)
- 2 packets Lalvin 71b-1122

Secondary ingredients:
- 3 lbs. Fresh Strawberries (De-stemmed, sliced, crushed, frozen, pectic enzymed and campdened, added at 13% ABV so the juice gets processed a little before crapping out at 14% ABV)
- Mint (Type and Amount needing advice!)



Maceration in full force just look at that beautiful color! It dulled significantly with the other ingredients added after this photo but I think the additional 3 lbs. in seconday will leave it with a beautiful pink color!

Please give any opinions in comments as I like constructive criticism but especially if there's some mint opinions out there.

 

[Yeroc]

Subscribing to see how this turns out. I made a small batch of strawberry mint jam this summer that was very tasty.

Good luck with this batch!

 

[bernardsmith]

I think you need to up the acidity to keep the color. Strawberries are generally not very acidic and a lack of acidity allows the color to drain (think: strawberry blonde)..

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I think you need to up the acidity to keep the color. Strawberries are generally not very acidic and a lack of acidity allows the color to drain (think: strawberry blonde)..

Where on the PH Scale do you think I should land? As it stands I started around 4.0 according to my test strip which is exactly in the middle of what's ideal for Yeast Health. It is my understanding that acid balancing during fermentation is meant for Yeast Health and Acid Balancing post fermentation is for mouthfeel, taste and color retention. Do you mean and acid addition post ferment?

 

[bernardsmith]

I mean the need for acidity to fix the color. Nothing to do with the yeast or mouthfeel. Post fermentation is too late as the color will likely drain during fermentation.. Strawberry is notorious for losing color but most folk view the loss of color as the cost of doing business... It isn't.

 

[voltron]

Today I pitched the yeast in my new Strawberry Mint Honey Wine Recipe! Mostly just sharing but I'd love to get some opinions on the Mint part.

5 gallon batch primary ingredients:
- 16 lbs. local Raw Wildflower Honey
- ≈4 gallons water
- 1/2 lb. Golden Raisins (chopped and bagged)
- 2 lbs. Fresh Strawberries (De-stemmed, sliced, crushed, frozen, pectic enzymed and campdened)
- 2 tsp. Nutrient (SNA)
- 1 tsp. Energizer (SNA)
- 2 packets Lalvin 71b-1122

Secondary ingredients:
- 3 lbs. Fresh Strawberries (De-stemmed, sliced, crushed, frozen, pectic enzymed and campdened, added at 13% ABV so the juice gets processed a little before crapping out at 14% ABV)
- Mint (Type and Amount needing advice!)


View attachment 412160
Maceration in full force just look at that beautiful color! It dulled significantly with the other ingredients added after this photo but I think the additional 3 lbs. in seconday will leave it with a beautiful pink color!

Please give any opinions in comments as I like constructive criticism but especially if there's some mint opinions out there.

Long time ago I had made a mint flavored mead, I used 1oz of mint leafs that i put into an empty tea bag and threw it into the secondary fermentation, turn out well. Have also done this with a lavender, that I added to a blueberry mead, which was also very good.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

An update:

Holy crap it's completely dry, SG 1.002 now so the 71b eked out over 1.5% more ABV than it should have. I'm weighing my options but obviously I got more strawberries since there's probably no flavor left. I really don't like the taste of back sweetened honey wine but I may have to suck it up this time to even get close to what I imagined my original product to be. I suppose if I were to learn something from this it's that I should take hydrometer readings more often so I can catch this earlier and give the yeast a chance to process any honey additions I make. I have only had 71b get significantly above ABV Tolerance one other time but I always assumed it was a mistake in my measurements, now I'm thinking it may have been correct.

 

[kittycat]

How much mint did u add? Or nothing yet?

 

[Dr_Floyd]

No Mint yet, just trying to make up for my overzealous Yeast right now.

 

[Drewed]

Your yeast might not be done yet, they may just be out of food. Add more honey and see if the SG drops again.
I routinely have yeast blow right past the ABV tolerance using SNA. So much so that I pretty much only use ale yeasts now so not everything ends up at 20%

 

[Dr_Floyd]

Your yeast might not be done yet, they may just be out of food. Add more honey and see if the SG drops again.
I routinely have yeast blow right past the ABV tolerance using SNA. So much so that I pretty much only use ale yeasts now so not everything ends up at 20%

I was hanging on to the hope that I could squeeze a bit more from the yeast, gonna take a hydrometer reading today and see where it is. I added what honey I had left (around 1/2 lb.) a few days ago and I added 3 lbs. of strawberries yesterday but I'm pretty certain the yeast are spent.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I decided to make a high gravity one gallon batch with the same honey and yeast to add in to my now dry 5 gallon batch do bring up the sugar content. Haven’t done a taste test yet but it’s been sitting for a few weeks now and it has a stunning strawberry color! I’m pretty confident I saved it without sacrificing anything.

 

[CKuhns]

Definitely taste it. I have found that a 1.002 Mead with fruit often will seem sweeter than it is. I think the fruit flavor kind of tricks your tongue into thinking it is sweeter than it is. Or more likely the sugars in the fruit are not completely consumed as you added some fruit to secondary.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I realize now that I didn’t write down what it tasted like here but the 1.002 tasted like champagne it was so dry. Hopefully I’ll get around to tasting it in the next few days after the fixes when I finally add mint!