strawberry wine gone brown???

[B1GDave]

Today I made a 5 gallon batch of strawberry wine with 26 lbs of fruit and got the SG to about 13%. I added the chemicals plus 1tsp of tannin. I saw it in a generic recipe that I got from my LHBS. Problem is now the whole batch is brown! Will it return back to that beautiful red or did I just waste a butt load of time and $ on fruit? Thanks for your input.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

What chemicals did you add? Although it could have oxidized, I have a feeling that if you wait a few days it might turn back to its nice color.
Keep us posted.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Strawberries oxidize pretty quick ... particularly if they are kept in heat too long or are heated in some way.

While your wine will likely be just fine to the taste ... the brownish color may persist. You might consider nudging the color back a bit by adding something like cranberry juice or pomegranate juice.

 

[B1GDave]

I added pectic enzyme, acid blend, yeast nutrients, campdem tabs and wine tannin. No crazy amounts, just what was prescribed on the directions of their bottles. I also added a VERY small amount of oak chips that had soaked for an hour before adding. I removed them right after the color change. The color change was INSTANT while adding everything which lead me to suspect the tannin as that was the only extra ingredient I've added compared to other strawberry batches. It still has an awesome strawberry smell though.

 

[B1GDave]

Update. I checked in on it when I woke up and the top of the must was red. I gave it a quick stir and it went right back to brown. Broke my heart again!

 

[B1GDave]

And now we're back to red! Weird!

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Very cool, I had a feeling that it would turn back to red.

 

[B1GDave]

Its even better now! Had me worried for a bit! Lol

 

[B1GDave]

any idea on what might have caused that?

 

[pumpkinman2012]

My guess would be, and this is only my personal opinion, The sulfur (meta or campden tablets) that you added initially changed the color and as it stabilized, everything fell back into place.

 

[PatrickSweetman]

Yes, I have seen metabisulfite bleach red fruit. I soaked red-skinned cherry guava in strong solution to deworm them and the stronger the meta the weaker the red. Now I don't bother. What's a few fruitfly grubs going to do anyway.