July & August 2015 Wine of the Month

Hi everyone!
Since summer is such a busy time, I thought I would combine the next two months into one thread. If you all are like me, winemaking is definitely in high gear, but you may not have the time to drop by as often as you would like.

(Here comes the usual blurb...)
Please join us! This thread is for anyone, from newbie to experienced winemaker, who wants to document making a 1 gallon experimental recipe. We like the whole recipe posted (pretty please), pics of the process, notes, questions to others, comments, support, and updates.

After a year (Summer 2016), we invite you to pop back with some tasting notes as it ages. If the recipe is a keeper, put it in the recipes section! If it's a bust - no worries - one gallon isn't too much of an investment, and it's a great learning experience.

I will update this post at the end of the month with a list of everyone who is participating.

Come on folks! Who's joining me?!?


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Wines this July-August 2015 - we had 9 wines, and 8 participants! Well done everyone!
Please do keep us updated periodically as to how your wines are doing, and give us tasting notes as you go along.
Cheers! Ray

@the_rayway - Strawberry Wine
@wineforfun - Tej
@dralarms - Leftover wine
@quiltertoo - Gooseberry Wine
@aryoung1980 - Cherry Wine +
@stressbaby - Lychee Wine
@aryoung1980 - Raspberry Wine
@jh0330 - Blackberry Wine
@schattenmann - Black Cherry/Blueberry/Concord

I'm starting out with something I've been wanting to do for quite some time, pure juice strawberry. Not just any strawberries either: fresh-picked-that-day-ripe-to-the-core-Manitoba STRAWBERRY!!!!

So, I planned ahead to get out on the very first picking date for a nearby U-Pick. Did 7x4L pails, three of which went to jam, fresh eating, and freezing.

Then I took the last 4 pails, washed and hulled them, then threw them into the pail - SPLAT! And layered them with sugar to macerate over night with some k-meta. After 24 hours, I added pectic enzyme.

Today, I strained the berries (panty hose are still dripping over the pail) and took and S.G. reading: 1.066. Not bad! Added 2 cups of sugar, hoping to get to 1.095, but overshot to 1.102. No problem. I'll likely need to top up with a bit of water or further juice after primary. I don't want the alcohol to be so high that I love the delicate flavours.

And let me tell you about this juice!! It is pure strawberry bliss red. You can absolutely tell that it is the real deal. And it tastes divine. I'm surprised that it's so light though, even without any water. I understand now why people say it's a really delicate wine.

Anyhoo...I've got a few things to decide between right now:
a) Booster rouge? Or no booster rouge? I like the idea of more colour stabilization, but am not sure I want a big mouthfeel. Don't want it to be too heavy for a light wine.

b) Yeast: ICV 254? D47? 71B? Something else all together? I'm leaning towards 71B as I like the way it sounds in the description.

We'll see what happens tonight, and go from there. I don't want to wait any longer before pitching the yeast. I'm going to do a bit more research and make my decisions.

Pics to come!

Don't be too suprised if the red leaves your wine. I made one with my garden strawberries, had a great red color. Racked it off the lees and lost the color in it. Wound up more yellow than red, but it still was a great tasting wine. If making it again and it strips the color out, I might give it a little shot of food coloring. Also, it takes a really long time to fall clear. It was one of those wines that I thought was clear and after not too long in the bottle there was sediment that fell out. No problem with the way the wine tasted, but made it look not as good. Arne.

Must be strawberry month.
I started a strawberry(technically last month) from frozen strawberries bought at the store. Racked it last weekend and added an fpac of simmered down strawberries to it(per Tom's instructions, from WMT).

Also, with much help from Bernard on WMT, I have started 3/4 gal. of Tej. It is on day 4. At day 10 I will remove the gesho and let it finish fermenting.

I will do my best to update my progress.

Hey @Arne that's what I hear about strawberry, so while I can hope it will have a bit of pink left - I'm prepared for it to go more of a yellow colour. I decided to go with the 71B for my yeast, and it looked pretty happy this morning.

Here are the promised pictures:

So do you two think the color issue is to do with fresh strawberries? Mine is still holding onto quite a bit of the color after the initial racking. It is still similar in color to Ray's pic or just a tad darker.
Or might it lose the color as time goes on?

I made strawberry wine last summer (planning on cracking open a bottle in the next few days ) and the color seems to have been pretty stable. I don't know for sure but I think that the loss of color is due to oxidation although I have read claims that excessive amounts of SO2 can bleach the color from strawberries (I wish my knowledge of chemistry (organic and bio) was better than it is ) .. and on hear say, I believe that Jack Keller has suggested that one way to inhibit (or repair ) the loss of color is to add a few dried elderberries to the carboy.

No pictures yet but mine is called leftovers wine.

1 gallon blackberry juice
1 gallon strawberry juice
1 gallon noble Muscadine juice.

Sugar to 1.095

Rc-212 yeast.

wineforfun said:

So do you two think the color issue is to do with fresh strawberries? Mine is still holding onto quite a bit of the color after the initial racking. It is still similar in color to Ray's pic or just a tad darker.
Or might it lose the color as time goes on?

Click to expand...

Just found an article on line that suggests that there are a number of factors that can degrade or destroy the anthocyanins in berries like strawberries:

"The intensity and stability of anthocyanin pigments is dependent on various factors including structure and concentration of pigments, pH, temperature, light, intensity, quality and presence of other pigments together, metal ions, enzymes, oxygen, ascorbic acid, sugar and sugar metabolites, sulfur oxide, etc. (Mazza and Minitiati, 1993; Francis, 1989)".

http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jbs.2007.1412.1417&org=11

and high concentrations of sugar can lead to the degradation of the red pigment.

BernardSmith said:

Just found an article on line that suggests that there are a number of factors that can degrade or destroy the anthocyanins in berries like strawberries:

"The intensity and stability of anthocyanin pigments is dependent on various factors including structure and concentration of pigments, pH, temperature, light, intensity, quality and presence of other pigments together, metal ions, enzymes, oxygen, ascorbic acid, sugar and sugar metabolites, sulfur oxide, etc. (Mazza and Minitiati, 1993; Francis, 1989)".

http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jbs.2007.1412.1417&org=11

and high concentrations of sugar can lead to the degradation of the red pigment.

Click to expand...

Good stuff, thanks Bernard.

So far mine is retaining color well but I still have another racking to go, plus clearing.............so we'll see. I'm ok with whatever it does as long as I get the taste I am looking for.

I would like to join the club this month. I have not done this before and do not know how to post pictures. Where can I find instructions for posting pictures? I have 9 1/2 lbs. of wild gooseberries that I picked last month and froze. I think I can make 2 gallons of wine from them. I am thinking I will ferment them in either apple juice or white grape juice instead of water. I have not been able to find much info on gooseberry wine so any suggestions will be appreciated. What yeast would be good for this wine?

Mary Lou

Thanks too @Bernardsmith! I guess one always feels like strawberry wine should be red

@quiltertoo under "Quick Reply" (where you typed your message), there is a little paper clip. Just click it ans a window will pop up where you can choose your pics. Let us know if you have any issues!

I would think that doing 71B might be a good idea. I think gooseberries have a fair amount of malic acid, and it should help calm that down a bit. Whatever you mix it with, make sure it is fairly low acid (banana juice? mellow apple?). You don't want to get overwhelmed with acidity. Of course, I eat my gooseberries when they are still greed!

Jack Keller's site has some recipes you could use as a starting place: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request100.asp

Looking forward to seeing how it goes!

Everyone else may be going strawberry but my cherry tree is in full fruit mode. Last year I made some mistakes but came out with three gallons of really good wine.

Here is this year's first one gallon batch:

6.5 lbs pitted Montmorency cherries
2 lbs white sugar
4 pts filtered water
12 oz Apple-Raspberry juice concentrate
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1/2 g potassium metabisulfite
1 tsp Wyeast wine nutrient
1 g EC-1118

I froze/thawed the fruit and added the k-meta for 16 hours. Brought the sugar and water to a boil. Poured it over the fruit. Added the rest of the ingredients except for the yeast. Let it cool to pitching temp over the next few hours. The fruit is in a nylon bag and will be squeezed every time I stir the must. OG was 1.106.

After looking at the recipes on Jack Keller's site I am wondering if 9 1/2 lbs of gooseberries is too much for 2 gallons of wine. I could use less berries for 2 gallons or maybe make a 3 gallon batch.

Mary Lou

quiltertoo said:

After looking at the recipes on Jack Keller's site I am wondering if 9 1/2 lbs of gooseberries is too much for 2 gallons of wine. I could use less berries for 2 gallons or maybe make a 3 gallon batch.

Mary Lou

Click to expand...

Hi Mary Lou. I don't pretend to be an expert but those who make wine from grapes don't routinely add water. Those who make "country wines" (from fruits other than grapes) tend to but I would think that the less water added and the more juice from the fruit used would make for a richer tasting wine with far greater mouth feel. I would love to hear from others on this forum why that assumption is wrong. Again, the less water you add the less need to add sugars from sources other than gooseberries... Of course, I could simply be looking for wines with more intense rather than thin flavors ...

quiltertoo said:

After looking at the recipes on Jack Keller's site I am wondering if 9 1/2 lbs of gooseberries is too much for 2 gallons of wine. I could use less berries for 2 gallons or maybe make a 3 gallon batch.

Mary Lou

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that Keller's recipes are usually light on fruit. I just got done using 9lbs. of blueberries for a 2 gal. batch. Most recipes called for 3-4lbs. per gal. but I wanted to make sure there was alot of flavor and blueberry body.

I would stick with your 9.5lb. Also, I would make the initial volume around 2 1/4'ish gal. as you are going to lose volume with each racking. By the time you are finished, you can then have 2 full gallons.

wineforfun said:

Good stuff, thanks Bernard.

So far mine is retaining color well but I still have another racking to go, plus clearing.............so we'll see. I'm ok with whatever it does as long as I get the taste I am looking for.

Click to expand...

So here is a (poor) image of some of the strawberry wine I started last fall, bottled in February and cracked open last night (the bottle on the left (the top) was the open one) with my wife - Intense strawberry flavor (My wife poured herself a second glass).
(sorry am not able to rotate the image) but you can see, I think, the red color.

BernardSmith said:

So here is a (poor) image of some of the strawberry wine I started last fall, bottled in February and cracked open last night (the bottle on the left (the top) was the open one) with my wife - Intense strawberry flavor (My wife poured herself a second glass).
(sorry am not able to rotate the image) but you can see, I think, the red color.

Click to expand...

Looks very good. That is what I am assuming/hoping mine will turn out like.

wineforfun said:

Looks very good. That is what I am assuming/hoping mine will turn out like.

Click to expand...

Me too!

I put in booster rouge and bentonite last night, and now am wondering if I should have checked the S.G. first. Today, I checked and it was already down to 1.016!! Holy fermenting yeast Batman!

It was a bit stinky (now I know why), so I beat the snot out of it for awhile.