An update on my big strawberry venture.

[myakkagldwngr]

Okay, I wanted to do at least 10 gallons of strawberry and Saint Vino blessed me with the u-pick.
So to give every one an idea of what's going on. I ended up with three five gallon primaries with 25 lbs in each. In each I put 1 3/4 gallon of water, 1 1/2 teaspoons of P/E plus my nutrient and energiser. That was on Sat. evening.
Now 4 days later I transfered the mess into carboys to do it's thing. The starting SG on Sunday was 1.03 because I was a little short on sugar. I added another 10 lbs Monday.
Today when I put it into carboys I had a SG of 1.035.
What I'm getting to with this is that after straining out everything I could with a long handled strainer, I only got 2 gallons of strainable solids. Now I had added 12 gallons of water to 75 lbs of strawberries. I ended up with 18 gallons of carboys. I know there will be a lot of sediment in these carboys. I hope to end up with 10 to 12 gallons of wine.
My point is that I think you could add very little water to the berries with the P/E. From 75 lbs of berries, I ended up with 6 gallons of juice.

 

[Tom]

1st I would have DOUBLED the primaries to 6 5 gal primaries. 25# in a bucket will not leave much room for water. So, Based on what you said I'm thinking its gonna be light in % If you only got 2+ gal of must you are off by 3 gallons. so, your sg is cut by more than 1/2.

What I do is add 3 gallons of water to bucket w sugar to 1.085 add 12-15# of strawberries to a paint straining bag and tie it off. Then continue w/ PE, Nutrient acid test, yeast..etc.

 

[myakkagldwngr]

That is how I cleaned the berries, right into a five gallon primary. I put just enough water into them to cover the berries and add the P/E. Then the next day I transfer all of it into one big tub and added 15 lbs of sugar in 4 gallons of water. The next day added another 10 lbs in 2 gallons of water. All together I added about 12 gallons of water to the 75 pounds of berries.
The first and second SG was in the big tub.

 

[Tom]

oh OK guess i'm confused ...LOL
I misread ...

 

[myakkagldwngr]

How ever it turns out, I'll be happy. I figure if I have to I'll add a BIG f-pac to it. I hope to let it ferment for a while in the carboys and start to settle out. Then slowly get down to my 10 to 12 gallons of clear drinkable wine. I have a carboy of strawberry jam wine going now. About to stop fermenting in a few days. I have added one 2 lb of additional strawberrys to it and the color is very very red.
If my all strawberry turns out like this one looks, fine.

 

[myakkagldwngr]

I know the carboys are all fermenting very strong with quite a bit of foam coming to the top. I had to take a little out of one from where it puked into the air lock. So it must still be making alcohol.

 

[Wade E]

Sounds pretty good but I must admit I get lost in the post as I have a short attention span.

 

[Tom]

LOL and I thought I was the only one "lost" LOL

 

[myakkagldwngr]

To shorten it up,,,
75 lbs of cut up berries
25 lbs of sugar
12 gallons of water,
all in one big bucket.
After 4 days of falling apart, I ended up with about 18 gallons in carboys, but there will be lots of sediment settling out.

 

[Wade E]

Tats a little low on frit after everything is tallied up for volume but not bad.