Manley,
I'll be making (I think to start) a 3gal batch with strawberry.
Do you have a good recipe.
I want to make my first fruit wine without water, just juice.
..
A 3 gallon batch of strawberry, for me, looks something like this:
Shoot to make 3.5 - 4 gallons of must; you'll lose some during racking, and some to sediment, but should end with at least 3 gallons of finished wine.
40lbs of strawberries, after slicing; probably start with 50lbs whole
Mash them into mush, and add sulfites to keep the fruit from browning/spoiling.
Add either
Lallzyme EX or
Lallzyme EX-V; you'll want the smallest package of one of the two.. EX if you want to craft this more in line with a 'white wine', or EX-V if you want to make it more of a 'red wine'. This is the beginning of two separate paths I'm going to lay out for you, either of which, I wish I could try myself.
If you go the 'white wine' route, I'd suggest additions of
Booster Blanc and
Opti-White; the 'red wine' route is
Booster Rouge &
Opti-Red. You'll really only need 1/2 of the smallest packages they offer, but I dont think it would hurt to use the entirety of the packages, being that you want all-fruit here.
The object of these additives is to stabilize the color, improve the mouthfeel, enhance the aroma, and 'fill in the blanks' somewhat, on the structure.. I find it really helps with fruit wines, that can seem to come off somehow 1-dimensional, or lacking complexity. Dissolve and add them to the must, before you pitch the yeast.
Re-hydrate the yeast with
Go-Ferm
If you want the 'white wine', I'd go with
71B-1122 or
Rhone 4600
Or the 'red wine',
RC 212 or
ICV-D254
You'll want to look into the yeast you choose, I can help if you wish, to look up its nutritional demand - low/medium/high - to know how intense of a nutrient schedule you'll need. In any case, the Booster & Opti products have some organic forms of nutrients, very minimal however, but it's enough that you dont/wont need to add any nutrients to the must until after the 'lag phase'.. Basically, you wont need to add nutrients until there's a cap formed on top.
When you do add nutrients, I would separate the total amount of nutrients needed into 2-5 doses, spread out over the length of the fermentation. The length of the fermentation is dictated, a lot, by the temperature. For a 'white wine', I'd keep it cooler, in the 68-72F, but for the 'red wine', I'd go for 74-78F.. In neither case, would I want to let it creep above 80F.
I personally reach for
Fermaid-O, but others have had success with
Fermaid-K.. And it's partially dependent on the yeast strain.
I've made a lot of berry wines, but not strawberry yet, so I'm not certain on the specific acidity level that you'll want, but I do know it's something that you'll want to address before you pitch the yeast. Hopefully someone can chime in with that tidbit, but other than that, most of my fruit wines generally follow these guidelines, although I do swap out a decent variety of yeasts as well as introduce some tannins to particular batches.
Don't run strawberry 'hot', keep it around 1.080 - 1.085 SG; under 12% ABV
That's my general format for a fruit wine though. No water; I tend to use honey over sugar; adjust acidity pre-ferment; keep the yeast healthy; use Booster & Opti additives to stabilize color, aroma and mouthfeel; keep temps reasonable; and never forget to have patience.
