Strawberry Wine

[mrchaos101]

Berries are on sale. $1/lb I grabbed 30lbs.

Berries are OK. Not super sweet...were kind of picked early. I know I cant let t hem just "sit" to ripen more so Im gonna use what I got.

Seems to be 3lbs/gal of wine. So I got enough to do 10gal.

Question is..... I was thinking of doping 4 to 6 cans of Welch's White Grape frozen concentrate in it before I top it off with water. I will add sugar.

Do you think that would be a good idea or should I stay whit straight berries.

Most Recipes call for acid blend. I dont have any. How much Lemon Juice should I use to off set it?

 

[ACbrewer]

Wow so many questions.

Well with the berries not being super sweet I have to ask are their flavor strong? If they aren't, you might consider more berries to water (like 3.5 or 4lb) I say might.

Personally if I had access to 100% juice in concentrate, I'd use it. I think that the juice is better than sugar water because it is a mix of glucose and fructose, not of sucrose, plus it will contain some of the 'other' you get from making juice - maybe about 1% is that other than sugar and water, things like flavor molecules, skin molecules, etc. Exactly what it is? I don't know. but it is something. gives it IMO better body. So more juice you use, the less sugar, and I think the better results.

Acid blend? I'm not sure how much lemon juice to use per gallon. Acid blend it a blend of citric acid and others. Lemon juice is I think all citric acid, and about a ph of 2 to 3. I'm not sure of the ph level of the acid blend. Personally absent numbers, I'd swag it at a 1 for 1 lemon juice for Acid blend.

 

[mrchaos101]

The berry taste is ok. Wish it was stronger. I can do how ever many lbs you think would be best.

I wont be home for another 10 hours. WHen I get there I will pull the sliced up berries out of the fridge and get them in the ferment tonight. Gonnd drop 6 camp tabs to kill off any nasties that may be on em.

I don't have a fruit bag. I do have a cheese cloth. How long do you think the cheese cloth/berreis should stay in the wine?
Recipe was a bit vague on that.

 

[lukebuz]

Personally, I'd use all 30 lbs in 5 gallons. What would you rather have? 10 gallons of "meh" wine to have to plow through...or 5 gallons of delicious wine you can't wait to get to?

For me, it's quality over quantity, anyday.

Keep the berries in the cheesecloth until they are basically disappear. Squeeze regularly.

 

[WVMJ]

30 pounds is about enough for 3 gallons of really good strawberry wine. You say you wish they tasted stronger and only want to use 3lb/gal?? Dont add any water, just sugar, pectinase and even if you fell crazy a little touch of oak kept in the background. Using honey is even better than sugar. WVMJ

 

[Texconsinite]

One thing to consider is that you could stress the yeast if you add TOO much sugar/honey on top of what's in the berries, and it will be hard to measure with the whole berries in there.
Use water. 5 gallons of Berries an honey will be far too high gravity for your yeast to ferment healthily and will lead to off flavors if it gets going at all.

Using honey is DIFFERENT than sugar, yes, and it will add a veery different flavor to the wine and probably cause it to take much longer to get smooth enough to dry. White sugar has a more neutral flavor than honey, so it depends what you want your wine to be like. I've made meads in the past, and it's not bad, just very slow to ferment and age.

One solution to the berries being picked under-ripe (provided u have freezer space) is to freeze them for a day or two then thaw and make wine with them.

This will break down the capsules so your berries will get more fully fermented and will taste sweeter.

Either way, since you are using whole fruit and no bag, you'll want to invest in a large strainer to use w that cheese cloth when you transfer this out of primary, because it will be messy.

I would NOT use white grape juice. I've used it before and found it lacking in flavor when fermented. Strawberries are much better already, won't hep them IMO.

If u wanted to add juice, then gallons of Strawberry Kiwi Juicy Juice 100% juice are $3-4 at Walmart, better option than white grape

If u were looking to add the nutrients from grape juice to balance out any deficiencies in the strawberries, then there's another way. I would look up Jack Keller's recipes for strawberry wine and see wha t he uses, I think acid blend, yeast nutrient+energizer and one other thing, all of which can be picked up at LHBS. Another easy way to add nutrients is just put some chopped golden raisins in the must.

I just made wine with the Juicy Juice on Saturday so I should remember the amounts of acid blend, etc, but I wrote it down somewhere that's not handy now,and was drinking all day, so yeah....

Good luck with your wine, I love strawberry wines, all mine have turned out really well sofar.

 

[WVMJ]

You would be lucky if your strawberries are at 1.06 SG, plenty of room to calculate how much sugar to honey to add to 100% fruit. We typically buy frozen strawberries, thaw them out, crush them and add pectinase overnight and strain a little bit of juice out for an SG reading, nothing hard about that. We also like to just ferment with the pulp floating around free, with so much pulp we want it to be in contact with the must at all times when we stir it, then its simple to put a strainer bag in a bottling bucket and pour the must thru the straining bag and drain into a carboy. When you open up a bottle of strawberry make with 199% fruit the aromas fill the room with strawberry and sunshine WVMJ

 

[ACbrewer]

If you can get to a Lowes or Home Depot (or even Walmart I think) you can get 5 gallon paint bags. The BIAB guys use them. You could look at the mesh level and see fi it would work to partial strain your berries as they ferment.

Some have said use more berries, less water (ie more as berry juice). Typically a high water fruit is like 50% juiceable, meaning if it is 1lb of fruit, you can get about .5lb or juice - or about 1 cup. So 30lb of strawberries should get you maybe 15lb of juice - say 1.5 gallons. But I personally think (don't know mind you) that strawberries are dryer than that and have less juice per pound. Maybe the breakdown of the berry itself yields more, but I don't know. This means to get more wine, you will need more liquid in the form of juice or water (and probably sugar).

My experience has been that table sugar is ok, but really the least desirable in fermenting. Using some other source, be it juice, honey, or something gives better body (mouth feel), less hot boozy feel. BTW, I consider HF corn syrup - or any corn syrup to be below table sugar, and thus only 100% juice with no corn syrup adative should be used.

The others posting here seem to have put in a good many ideas. I think WVMJ's comment about first juicing everything and then sampling to be a good chunk of wisdom, it will allow you to find out how much you have for must, and the OG of it, and then tune from there with either more fruit juice - grape, strawberry, etc or water and sugar.

 

[mrchaos101]

So....I put the big bowel of cut up berries in the fridge over night. No plastic wrap. Yes I know this would start to dry them out.... it is an experiment.

Next night I filled the bowel up with good water and let it set 3 hours in fridge.

Taste test on berries.... GOOD berry flavor... not sweet still...just meh.

SO... I was looking at this recipe:

3 1/2 lbs. fresh wild strawberries
2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
1 gal. water
1 tsp. acid blend
1 tsp. pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp. grape tannin
1 crushed Campden tablet
Champagne yeast and nutrient

Was going to use all 30 lbs BUT i dont own a strainer bag (ordered one today) and my cheese cloth was too small to do this.

I put the berries in a the bucket (saved the water they were soaking in). I smashed em up with a clean empty wine bottle.

I dissolved the sugar on the stove in the water I saved. Poured it on top of the berries. Then topped the buck off to 6gal mark with water.

I let it set about 45 min to 1 hour then dropped 6 Campden tabs (crushed).

I also had added the tannin listed above.

Did not have acid blind....so gave it a shot of lemon juice.

It sits over night......when I get home....I will pull a good sample off...and see if the yeast will start in sample. If it gets going....I will pitch that starter into it.

I figured being i am experimenting on this .... might as well just do it.

Figured I would stir it ever day like 2 times a day..... and here in about 7 days I will get the fruit off the top.... and rack the wine off any strawberry sludge from bottom.

AT THIS POINT I need to figure out what to top it off with.....this is where I was gonna use white grape (I know I am starting fermentation process up again...im ok with this.)....the suggestion to use the strawberry kiwi above perked my interest.