Strawberry wine tasting

[CaptZav]

Hey guys, I have been brewing beer for about a year, and over this past summer I had a access to a bunch of fruit from a berry patch. I decided to put my beer equipment to good use, and find a nobler use of strawberries than pie. I made 5 gallons of strawberry wine, I found the recipe on Jack Keller's site, and here it is as follows. I did freeze the strawberries for storage before I made the wine.

Frozen Strawberry Wine


* 3 lbs. frozen strawberries
* 1 11-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
* 1 lb 14 oz. light brown sugar
* 2 tsp. citric acid
* 1/4 tsp. grape tannin
* water to make 1 gallon
* 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
* 1 sachet Red Star Côte des Blancs wine yeast


Thaw strawberries and grape juice concentrate. Dissolve sugar in 5 pints water and bring to boil. Strain juice or syrup from fruit and save liquid. Put thawed fruit in nylon straining bag in primary and crush fruit with hands. Pour boiling water over fruit, cover primary, and set aside to cool. When cooled to 80-85° F., add grape juice concentrate, tannin, acid, yeast nutrient, reserved juice or syrup, and 1 pint water. Stir well to blend ingredients. Add activated yeast, cover and stir daily. Do not further crush, mash or squeeze bag of strawberry pulp. Remove bag on 7th day and allow to drip drain, saving drippings. Return drippings to primary and transfer to secondary fermentation vessel. Top up to one gallon if required, attach airlock and set aside. After 45 days, rack into secondary containing 1 Campden tablet dissolved in a little wine and reattach airlock. Rack again after additional 60 days. Stabilize wine when clear and rack after additional 45 days. Bottle and age at least 6 months.

I also made a peach banana wine at the same time, that I bottled tonight, and it tastes amazing. For my schedule for the strawberry wine however, the wine should be ready to bottle as of today, but I tried a small sample and it wasn't very good. I am not the best at describing tastes, but I will try.

Smell- Faintly of strawberries, with a slightly unpleasant yeast finish.
Taste-Has an immediate sour taste, and somewhat bitter, but not like vinegar. Tastes like tannins or a cheap cooking wine, sherry comes to mind. There is a strawberry taste in the finish, but the taste is subtle to the acrid upfront sour. The sour is not strong like a lemon, but very noticeable.

I am just a little worried that there may be a contamination, either with microbes or O2. I followed all of the instructions very carefully, and did not forget the campden tablets. I also have some pictures, of the glass I poured and the carboy used. The last picture I shown a flashlight behind the carboy. I know it still has to age and condition for an additional 6 months, but tasting this compared to the peach wine has just made me worry. The wine also darkened during the first racking in the secondary.


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[Justibone]

Darkening + sherry taste usually means oxidation, right? Then again, in the pics it doesn't look like a "brownish" darkening, so maybe not? Hard to say, I guess.

The yeast flavor should settle out, maybe cold crash it? If that were the only problem I'd say don't worry, but from your description maybe it won't be okay.

Is it in a 6 gallon carboy? Isn't the recipe for 1 gallon of wine?

EDIT: oh, yes, you mention 5 gallons now that I re-read it.

 

[CaptZav]

Yes, I have read that browning can mean oxidation, and I know that the wine did darken during to first 45 days, however it is still quite strawberry red in a glass.

 

[Justibone]

If you draw off a sample and chill it in the fridge for a few hours (two days would be better), then taste it, you can see if that will get rid of the yeast flavor. If so, then you just need time.

As for the other flavor, I don't know.

 

[NaZdrowie]

How long since started? Did you add pectic enzyme at any point? I haven't been at it any longer than you, but I would say leave it be for now and rack when there is some good lees at the bottom. I had a blueberry wine that I thought would not be gift worthy, then all of a sudden it smoothed out and is delicious.

The yeast and haze will hopefully settle out, rack and sulfite again and leave it be a month or 2 and if its clear bottle it up or rack and bulk age it some more and enjoy. I have no experience using strawberries but do have a gallon of the jack keller peach/banana wine and agree it is awesome.

On a side note, I left my most recent peach wine on its yeast cake in primary for 3 weeks and it tastes decent, had a firm cake at the bottom and I think I transferred less lees/yeast than normal and expect minimal top up compared to other batches. Any reason this is a no-no in the wine world? Seems popular in the beer brewing, I figured I'd see if it crosses over.

EDIT: What was your starting and final gravity readings?

 

[Yooper]

Yes, I have read that browning can mean oxidation, and I know that the wine did darken during to first 45 days, however it is still quite strawberry red in a glass.

Just from the one photo of the carboy, it looks like you've got WAY too much headspace. You will have oxidized wine. It's important to top up the carboy, or make a smaller batch that fits in your carboy.

If you use campden as directed, and top up the carboy as directed, you won't have any oxidation problems. If you don't, you will have a sherry-ish wine that will not improve.

Have you had a ton of headspace all along, or is that a new development? Have you used the campden tablets as directed at every other racking?