Strawberry Opinion

[Winepig]

OK, I've been reading up on strawberry wines and I'm concerned.

All the recipes on Jack Kellers site call for 3 - 3 1/2 pounds of berries per gallon. Seems like I've seen alot of posts that say you need to use way more than that.

Here's the recipe I was going to make:

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient


Place all ingredients except yeast in crock. Crush fruit with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water. Stir with wooden paddle to dissolve sugar and simultaneously mash the strawberries. When cooled to 85 degrees F., add yeast. Cover and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside. Rack after 30 days and again after additional 30 days. Bottle when clear. Allow to age at least 6 months. Will improve to one year.

Sounds nice and easy but if it's not going to be good, I'm not going to mess with it. I don't know if I can talk the wife into letting me use more than 4 pounds of berries for an experiment.

I may have to find another project for tomorrow evening.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[ffemt128]

You'll find that most of the recipes on the keller site are low in fruit. Most on the forum here will suggest 5-6 lbs per gallon. My batch of strawberry I have going now, I used 44lbs for a 6 1/2 gallon batch then when complete I will take probably another 10 lbs and make a f-pac to sweeten and also bring back more of the strawberry taste.

The other thing, don't add sugar blindly. You will want to shoot for an sg of about 1.085 to start with.

 

[PCharles]

OK, I've been reading up on strawberry wines and I'm concerned.

All the recipes on Jack Kellers site call for 3 - 3 1/2 pounds of berries per gallon. Seems like I've seen alot of posts that say you need to use way more than that.

Here's the recipe I was going to make:

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient


Place all ingredients except yeast in crock. Crush fruit with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water. Stir with wooden paddle to dissolve sugar and simultaneously mash the strawberries. When cooled to 85 degrees F., add yeast. Cover and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside. Rack after 30 days and again after additional 30 days. Bottle when clear. Allow to age at least 6 months. Will improve to one year.

Sounds nice and easy but if it's not going to be good, I'm not going to mess with it. I don't know if I can talk the wife into letting me use more than 4 pounds of berries for an experiment.

I may have to find another project for tomorrow evening.

Thanks,
Tim

Tim,

Your post motivated me to go down to the cellar to taste my 2011 vintage of strawberry wine. I used Jack Keller's recipie from the June-July WineMaker magazine where 8 Great Berry Wine Recipies are detailed. I very much enjoyed the tasting. The wine was clear and flavorful as a wine. I will not be bottling until September and am excited to see what the final wine tasts like.

I don't care for sweet wines and am fine with the light aromatic flavor so I will not be adding an F-pak or back sweeting. As many have posted here, there are as may opoinions about preferance as there are offering one. I don't believe you would be wasting your time should you choose to use the recipie. I would suggest making a bit more than a gallon in your fermenter as the berries will take up some room that will be subtacted when the strawberries are removed. Heck, it is only a gallon that you are making which is a relatively small investment. My guess is you'll be kicking yourself for not making more.

Best regards,
Paul

 

[mmadmikes1]

First of all any recipe that adds sugar with out regards for the SG is not going to give a consistent wine. I just put 25 pounds in freezer and need 10 more before I start a 6 gallon batch. I will get more to make an f-pak with. Next a recipe that adds acid with test PH or TA first will not have a consistent wine either. In other words, it could turn out crappy or good depending on the berries. I dont mean some berries are better either, just different.

 

[pwrose]

I know not everyone would be able to do strawberry the way I did it this year but I will never do it any other way.

Check out the recipe that I used in my blog on this site
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/blog.php?b=25

This recipe made 6 gallons with just a little over a gallon of water added to the berries.
Like I said not everyone would be able to make it this way for one reason or another, but heres the hint to getting this many berries for cheap
Get to know one of your local pick your own (if you have one) strawberry farmers and tell them that you want all the throw outs or overripe berries. They should either just give them to you or cut you a heck of a deal on them.
My close to 100 lbs (90+ actually) only cost me about $40-45. I could have gotten more but I had no space for them. I am actually waiting on the blackberries now. I was supposed to have gotten those last week sometime but oh well still waiting.

This might not have helped much but let me tell you the end result is more than worth it.

 

[Winepig]

Thanks for the replies, I'll jack up the poundage a little bit. Hope it turns out, last weekend we racked and tasted almost everything from this Spring....... the Lilac was a little disappointing but everything else is on the right track.

We have a new patch of black raspberries coming on right now, I don't think I'll get any away from the Mrs though.

Tim