The "curse" of 166# of strawberries

[Turock]

Well, you're probably wondering how it could be possible to get so many strawberries. In the past, I've recommended that anyone who has an orchard or farm market nearby them, to give these people your phone number and tell them you are a winemaker and will take damaged fruit off their hands. WELL---this is what you end up with!!!!!

The only problem is that, in taking these berries, I'm going against my own good advice in being very critical of what berries you buy. We're going to get some strawberry puree to bulk up color and flavor. It will be intersting to see how it turns out. But what winemaker can walk away from this much fruit for 25 cents a pound? Don't throw fruit at a winemaker---they'll take ALL they can get!!!!!!

 

[jamesngalveston]

166 lbs....well, you could make a few jars of strawberry jam....

 

[Turock]

Shame on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waste strawberries on JAM when you can buy it so cheap at Aldi's??? No winemaker worth his salt would suggest SUCH A THING----LOL!!!

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

So thats enough berries for only 3 gallons WVMJ

 

[Deezil]

Shame on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waste strawberries on JAM when you can buy it so cheap at Aldi's??? No winemaker worth his salt would suggest SUCH A THING----LOL!!!

I'm not worth salt, I'm worth sugar

And apparently you've never had a decent batch of freezer jam.. I cant eat that store-bought crap, I'm spoiled lol. Grew up on strawberry jam since diapers!

 

[dralarms]

Can you make strawberry jelly? My granddaughter only like strawberry.

 

[Julie]

I'm with Deezil on this, strawberry freezer jam is down as good as a glass of wine! OMG did I really say that?

 

[Sammyk]

OMGosh strawberry freezer jam is to die for! It is a yearly event here when we make it.

 

[yakhunter]

Strawberry rhubarb pie and strawberry rhubarb jam. mmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Deezil]

So.. Turock.......... Do we get 'walked through' a batch here?
You know... Numbers, pics, the works...

 

[Turock]

My mom makes freezer jam and shares with me, so I feel no need to make my own. But you guys are right--it's the best.

We made no strawberry wine last year since there were no berries around because of the late frost. So we really need to make wine this year. The orchard said there will be more berries--so once we have them all, and the fruit bases come in that we ordered we'll start the ferment.

I just wanted to tell all of you about getting fruit this way. Once you give your name and number to an orchard, they'll always be calling you. It's a great way to get a lot of cheap fruit. It can be difficult for many people to bear the cost of expensive fruit in order to make wine, and this is a good way to go because you have little money invested.

 

[saramc]

You can also make killer wine from the strawberry jam. The best of both worlds!

 

[Sammyk]

We made wine from freezer jam that was a mixture of blueberry blackberry and strawberry. It was very good. Had to defrost the freezer and though hmmmm all these containers of frozen freezer jam!

 

[pwrose]

Nice score on 166, ya still got a ways to go to catch up to 397. Our strawberry season is now over but this year has been my personal best so far.

 

[Turock]

I'm working on it, pwrose. Picked up another 170 pounds yesterday!!!!!!

 

[pwrose]

sweet, I have learned that you don't have to destem them or pick out every little bad berry. I just cook them down to juice and freeze the juice until all of them are done. Then I can start the ferment.
I really wish I still had my steam juicer, it makes the process so much easier and I get more juice.

Good luck and start a thread when you start processing them all.

 

[jswordy]

You can also make killer wine from the strawberry jam. The best of both worlds!

And you can make strawberry jelly from strawberry wine.

 

[Turock]

We've got the strawberry fermenting now. Two vats of 118# per vat. We bagged them yesterday after thawing for a couple days.

We ended up setting the PH at 3.4 because any higher and it started to lose flavor--kind of flabby tasting. We fortified both batches with some strawberry base. Used Montrachet. We're also going to get a dose of bentonite in the primaries.

 

[Norske]

What amount of bentonite do you use? We use bentonite in fining but would like to hear your thoughts of using it in the primary.

 

[Stressbaby]

Turock, what is the volume on each of those 118# vats?