Here begins the chronicle of this Strawberry/Grape wine. This probably isn't a final version of the recipe and I'll make note of things I'd do different in the future. Should be worth a laugh in a couple places. Here goes:
May 16
Prepared sterilizer solution 4TBL sulphite to gallon
Prepared starter for five gallons
2C prev boiled water
¼ tsp acid blend, ½ tsp fermax nutrient, 2 TBL sugar,
Most of a package of Lalvin K1116, I measured it out and had at least a full tsp. Mixed in quart mason jar.
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Sterilized bucket, funnel, hydrometers and test jar, and nylon bag.
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15 pints of berries ended up being about 16lbs. Measured on scale with me subtract bucket. Looked over a few recipes and decided to take middle ground from most of them.
16lbs berries, walmart had sale, .98 a lb, rinsed, hulled, chopped well.
4.5 campden tablets, (had a half tablet), berries were pretty clean, took out any bad spots, also bag and bucket still little bit wet with sterilant.
4 tsp acid blend to start, recipe calls for 5, thought I would need to add more, smart to start low. Easy to add, hard to take away.
2.25 tsp pectic enzyme. Had to make an educated guess. Directions on enzyme say both ½ tsp per gallon, (2.5 tsp), and 1/10 tsp per pound of fruit, (1.5 tsp). The method I am using is different than most due to strawberries, lots of pectins. You let the sulfite and the enzyme work on the berries with half the water for a day before you add the yeast.
¾ tsp tannin
0300
I chopped up all the berries into the bag suspended in the bucket. Takes a LONG time, get help. Added about 1.5 gallons to cover berries of lightly warmed (got out of fridge) water with pectic enzyme, crushed and dissolved campen tablets, acid blend, and wine tannin. Tannin is very sticky.
Starter is going well, swirled and put in the dark covered by napkin.
0700
Starter foaming well
Mixed berries
1600
Mixed berries
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Added water, sugar, nutrient and yeast
Dissolved sugar and nutrient in warm water. I thought 16 pounds of berries when removed, would take out about 1.5 gallon of volume, we’ll see. I raised the bag and only had about 2 gallons of juice so far. By the time I got everything dissolved and mixed and sugar to where I wanted it. I had about 6 gallons of volume.
4 tsp regular nutrient, 1 tsp fermax nutrient. Fermax is like a nutrient/energizer, and has yeast hulls in it.
Sugar to 1.090 gravity, in this case about 20.5 Cups, just over ten pounds.
Titrated acid, about .65, little bit high if I am measuring correctly but will decrease with fermentation. Next time use 3 tsp and work up.
Swirled yeast and added to must, stirred shallowly.
Yeast action was immediate, within an hour it was foaming.
I was a little spooked about the foam coming over the edges of container, only had about three-four inches to work with. I took a 1.75 liter wine bottle of must off of the drain cock and held in fridge, two days later added it back in.
May 18,
0600
Foaming well, stirred
1800
stirred
May 19
0600
stirred
1800
added back rest of must, shouldn’t foam too much more than it already is.
Throwing off a lot of CO2. Not much left of the berries. Hope I didn’t overshoot the water.
May 20
1000
Moved outside to garage for B.Day party, temp from 69 at night to 78 during day, not too bad. Covered with towels. I don’t think I could do much better inside unless AC is running.
Time to look where I am going to put this stuff for the next couple months.
May 22
Moved back inside yesterday. Fermentation has slowed down noticeably. Took out bag of pulp. Ended up being about a half gallon loss. Yeast and enzyme action did a number on the strawberries. Got a little more juice than I figured out of them. Took a reading. .996! Checked twice. Had to rotate hydrometer fast there was so many bubbles sticking to it. I had to rack it two days early, it was only five days and all the sugar was about gone. I guess that nutrient and warm weather really sped things along.