# Flavor Pack for Strawberry Wine



## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

Does anyone have a recipe/ know how on how to make a flavor pack for my strawberry wine? I want it to be sweet with a good strawberry taste. Can anyone help me?


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## Terry0220 (Oct 11, 2012)

For mine I took two pounds of frozen strawberries and cut them up after thawing. Simmered them in a pot with a cup of water and two cups of sugar. After it had broken down I then strained the juice off and put it into a container to cool down (or into the fridge) then when I needed to add my f-pack it had the flavor and the added sweetner. Good Luck!


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## Terry0220 (Oct 11, 2012)

Or if you don't have extra strawberries around,, you might want to get a frozen grape/strawberry consentrate and use that (thawed)


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

Thank you for your help


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> Thank you for your help



How many #'s of fruit did you start with?

You want to get 30% of the original amount. Cut/core and freeze - a good freeze 3-4 days in the deep freeze.

Let thaw in a mesh bag in a bucket - once completely thawed - squeeze the bag a few times and discard.

Sweeten this with the amount of sugar needed to sweeten your entire batch - warm to dissolve sugar - then stir into your carboy.


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

I started with 18 lbs


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

How do I know how much sugar to add to my flavor pack? You said add enough sugar to sweeten the whole batch.


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> How do I know how much sugar to add to my flavor pack? You said add enough sugar to sweeten the whole batch.




Use the wineCalc application - it is a downloadable GUI that you can use to figure it - pretty nice tool..

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f65/winecalc-11337/


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

I can't use it, all I have are Mac products


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## BernardSmith (Oct 11, 2012)

Wouldn't adding juice from the fruit make any clear wine cloudy and result in more sediment forming? How long do you need to wait before bottling after sweetening with a "flavor pack"? Also would you add pectic enzyme to the fruit to help it break down?


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> I can't use it, all I have are Mac products



What is your ending SG?

How sweet do you want it?

How many gallons?

I can plug those into the app and get you an amount of sugar.


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

You can try this link:

http://mobile.brothersoft.com/winecalc-645566.html


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## Dend78 (Oct 11, 2012)

BernardSmith said:


> Wouldn't adding juice from the fruit make any clear wine cloudy and result in more sediment forming?



yes it would



BernardSmith said:


> How long do you need to wait before bottling after sweetening with a "flavor pack"?



like most of them wait till it clears and drops no more sediment



BernardSmith said:


> Also would you add pectic enzyme to the fruit to help it break down?



its not totally necessary, especially if you are going to simmer the berries anyway the heat will help break them down


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

Starting s.g 1.086

Now at 1.000

I want it to be fairly sweet with a decent strawberry flavor.

Hoping it to get down to .994


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> Starting s.g 1.086
> 
> Now at 1.000
> 
> ...



Let's wait until it is finished - so we can get an accurate ending SG.

Sweet is 1.020 - 1.030
Dessert Sweet is 1.030 - 1.040

So as an example - if you ending SG is .994 - amount of sugar to get to 1.025 for 6 gallons is 4.37#'s of sugar..


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

BernardSmith said:


> Wouldn't adding juice from the fruit make any clear wine cloudy and result in more sediment forming? How long do you need to wait before bottling after sweetening with a "flavor pack"? Also would you add pectic enzyme to the fruit to help it break down?




Yes it will cloud the wine - which is why i do this more up front when the wine is not clear.

I don't add pectic anymore on the strawberries - i find that freeze/thawing out produces enough juice by itself.

Strawberry takes a while to clear - so when you think it is clear - wait another 3-4 months - i guarantee you will seed tiny seed fragments fall out..


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

Appreciate your help


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## Rocky (Oct 11, 2012)

CEW, another alternative that you have which is more costly but requires less work and, I think, give a better product is to get a can of Vintner's Harvest Strawberry fruit base which come in a 96. oz can. It is all juice and strawberries. I have had good success in using this to enhance fruit flavors.


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## SBWs (Oct 11, 2012)

I used 2 cans of frozen Bacardi Strawberry Daiquiri Mixers and 1/2 cup of sugar to add flavor and sweeten my 3 gallon batch of Strawberry Niagara. Worked great!


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 11, 2012)

Rocky said:


> CEW, another alternative that you have which is more costly but requires less work and, I think, give a better product is to get a can of Vintner's Harvest Strawberry fruit base which come in a 96. oz can. It is all juice and strawberries. I have had good success in using this to enhance fruit flavors.



Rocky I've heard of that product, how much did you add for five gallons?


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## Rocky (Oct 11, 2012)

CEW, I am sure that someone will be able to give you a better answer because I have only used the Vintner's Harvest fruit bases in the primary fermentation to enhance a particular fruit flavor in a grape wine. For example, I just made a Barolo to which I added a can of VH Blackberry fruit base to give the wine a more pronounced blackberry undertone.

Since you are fermenting to dry and then back sweetening, if it were I, I would get the base, strain it to capture as much free run juice as possible and then squeeze the fruit as thoroughly as possible to extract all the juice possible. You could take the SG of this juice which will be very high and then calculate how much sugar is in the volume of juice that you have. I, however, am more of the Edisonian ("Trial and Error" or "Hunt and Try") school. I would start by adding a measured amount of the concentrated juice to about a gallon of the wine and take the SG. You are probably looking for something in the SG 1.015 -1.020 range, maybe more. When I reach that level in the gallon, I would scale up the addition to the remaining 4 gallons.


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## cohenhouse77 (Oct 11, 2012)

Is this the same purpose as the liquid flavorings sold in wine stores? Also, if I am going to use an F-pack, what stage is best? I am assuming after sorbate but prior to clearing agent. I imagine you only want to use a product like sparkalloid once?


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 11, 2012)

cohenhouse77 said:


> Is this the same purpose as the liquid flavorings sold in wine stores? Also, if I am going to use an F-pack, what stage is best? I am assuming after sorbate but prior to clearing agent. I imagine you only want to use a product like sparkalloid once?




Correct - you want to add this after you have stabilized - give it a few days - then you can sweeten and/or add an fpac and add in the clearing agent....


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 13, 2012)

Well my strawberry wine is at .994, I got 5 lbs of strawberries and 5 lbs of sugar. Im not going to add all the sugar and see how it turns out.


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 13, 2012)

My flavor pack turned out very nice, I siphoned some of the wine out, put it in a glass and put a little of that flavor pack in it and it was very good


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 13, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> My flavor pack turned out very nice, I siphoned some of the wine out, put it in a glass and put a little of that flavor pack in it and it was very good



Yeah the fpac for strawberry does wonders..


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 13, 2012)

Yea I had the 5 lbs in the pot heating up and I had to watch it because every time I turned around my wife was trying to eat my strawberries


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## winemaker_3352 (Oct 13, 2012)

CoastalEmpireWine said:


> Yea I had the 5 lbs in the pot heating up and I had to watch it because every time I turned around my wife was trying to eat my strawberries




Yeah - I have to over shoot my quantity as well - between my wife and kids - the consume a lot...


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 13, 2012)

Yea it's like watching over gold haha


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## RoyParker (Oct 14, 2012)

Might sound a little strange but when I back sweetened a batch of Strawberry wine I used store bought Hershey's strawberry syrup.

It is just strawberry flavored sugar. Is very clear and sweetened just fine.


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## cohenhouse77 (Oct 14, 2012)

How did you add the syrup? Did you measure how much you added per gallon?


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## RoyParker (Oct 14, 2012)

I measured out a few separate cups of the unsweetened wine and added teaspoon at a time until it tasted as sweet as we wanted. 

Then did a little math to figure out the per gallon ratio.

My wife had the overall decision, once she liked it, that was where we stopped.

I will admit it was more guess work than scientific, but was an enjoyable experience figuring it out!

It give it a definite strawberry flavor with out being to overly sweet.

Best part was that it is so clear that it didn't make the wine cloudy at all.


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## CoastalEmpireWine (Oct 14, 2012)

Yea, I wish I would have thought of that. The way I did it made my wine cloudy, and with a lot more sediment.


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## cohenhouse77 (Oct 28, 2012)

This is my strawberry muscadine. I back sweetened to about 1.01 last week and then used the strawberry syrup for finish sweetening and flavor, and added 2 tsp of strawberry extract for aroma. Worked like a charm. My wife even likes it and she is a tough cookie. Very tasty for a young wine. I can't wait to see what 6 months does to it. I bottled half in 750mL bottles and the other in 375mL so I could taste in a few months and see the flavor differences. I would be excited if the alcohol flavor exited stage left. My next strawberry I will definitely start with a lower SG.


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## geek (Oct 29, 2012)

Nice looking wine..


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