Can I leave strawberry tops on when making must for strawberry wine?

[jay2020]

I usually run my fruit through a blender / food processor when making a must.
Can I leave strawberry tops on when I do this?

As a related question, what does cutting the tops off of 16lbs of strawberries do to a person's sanity?

 

[winemaker81]

Strawberry leaves are used to make tea and are edible. Using the leaves should be safe, but the flavor may not be what you want in a strawberry wine. I searched on strawberry leaf wine, and found nothing,. Given the odd things people make wine from, I'd be cautious in using the leaves.

Speaking of odd things to make wine from -- save the tops and make a small batch of wine from it, to see what it tastes like. Granted, this is not going to help you with hulling 16 lbs of strawberries, but it's an interesting experiment.

Regarding hulling 16 lbs of strawberries and sanity? It really depends on how much sanity you started out with. In my case, there's nothing to lose ...

 

[Rice_Guy]

there is a specification for how much stem matter in strawberries, this is considered a cosmetic issue only, ,,, it is edible

 

[jay2020]

I bit the bullet and just cut off the tops.
Thought about making smoothies (or a wine) with the tops, but then just threw them out. I'm kind of regretting that now but at the time I just wanted my kitchen to be clean after all that.

 

[Raptor99]

The first thing I would try is to blend some and taste it. Can you discern any difference with or without the tops? I realize that fermenting it with the tops might give a different result than a simple taste test, but for me that would be the place to start.