Strawberry anyone....

[ffemt128]

Well I had approximately 65-70 lbs of strawberries in the freezer so I thawed them and steamed juiced them this am. I ended up with 5 1/2 gallons of steamed strawberry juice which had an initial sg of 1.028. I increased this to 1.082. To the 5 1/2 gallons above I added 2 1/2 lbs of raisins.

After I was done steaming(didn't steam each batch as much as I normally do) I took the remaining pulp and added 1 1/4 gallon of water to it. It is very thick and syrupy. I added 2 cups of sugar to that and figure I'll check sg tomorrow on both after the soak and cool for the night. I'm hoping from the pulp to get another 2 gallons of wine or 1 1/2 after clearing. THis whould end up a very full body wine with good flavor. Even after steaming it had a very srong strawberry smell and taste to the juice. Time will tell with this experiment.

If I end up with 6 1/2 - 7 gallons of wine, It will be about 9 lbs per gallon. I'll get more berries to make a fpac if needed at a later time or mayber try some toriani syrup as an fpac. Berries can be had at 8lbs for $5 in the Strip District where I work.

I'll adjust acid in the end. Planning on using D47 yeast.

 

[Deezil]

Sounds good, you've got my attention. Cant wait to see how it progresses.

Any reasoning behind the yeast choice? I have strawberry on my to-do list this year.. Curious minds wonder why..

 

[GreginND]

Let us know how it turns out. Personally I don't care for strawberry wine. There's something about the flavor that is off putting to me. It's not that the wine is bad, it must be my personal taste. That and the color is usually dreary orange rather than bright pink/red. Please post pictures of yours when it's finished. I'd like to take a look.

 

[Turock]

You might want to rethink the D47. My opinion is that it is the worst choice for strawberry because the strawberry flavor is really tamped down by this culture.

When we make strawberry, we use no water. I think acid adjustment upfront is better than at the end. If it's too acidic, it takes too much sweetening to balance it out.

We had color problems too until we started using different strawberries. Now, our strawberry wine has a deep, ruby red color.

 

[ffemt128]

Actually goint with 1122 for the yeast. It's what I have on hand. On the strawberry, I've always adjusted acid on the back end. Never had a problem being too acid, of course we only made 2 batches so far. Pitching yeast today.

 

[bob1]

I really think its the ripeness of the strawberries is what really makes a difference in the color and flavor. Mine also is not orange but really red. I think most try making this wine from market berries and they have been refrigerated. Once this happens as with most fruit the berry is ruined.

 

[Turock]

We always use fresh berries from the field, but had color problems until we started using a different variety. We now get our strawberries from the Amish fruit auctions and they grow a berry that they call "jam strawberries." They are small, but have excellent flavor and very deep red color. We go around the auction tasting fruit until we find the high flavor one and then bid on them. It's made a world of difference in our strawberry wine. There are a LOT of strawberry varieties and picking the right one is key to good strawberry wine.

 

[Auburn-Bob]

I bottled my strawberry jam wine last weekend. I used Montrachet yeast, which I use for all my fruit wine.

 

[ffemt128]

Just checked the SG of the Strawberry, after a week we went from 1.082 to 1.002. I was kind of surprised by this seein ghow the Juice buckets I picked up on the 24th are just now sitting at 1.000.

 

[Turock]

A fast ferment is a good thing. Our ferments are always complete by 5 or 6 days.

 

[SBWs]

Doug, I made a Niagara Strawberry last year with steamed strawberry juice and Welches White grape frozen concentrate and it was short on strawberry flavor in the end. I used Bacardi Strawberry Daiquiri Mixer as a f-pac and it added lots of flavor and even some body. One thing it did do was raise the acid, I wasn't figuring on that. I've got great comments on this wine. Recipe is on my BLOG.

 

[ffemt128]

I'll have to check out the blog. Still has great strawberry smell to it. I'll likely use 10+ lbs of berries for an fpac then decide what it needs from there.

 

[ffemt128]

Just an update, I did not make an f-pac for this. I back sweetened a gallon of this to 1.006 over the weekend. It has great strawberry flavor. We grank a bottle, and gave a bottle away so I now only have 5 1/2 gallons left. I will back sweeten the remaining 5 gallons next month and prepare for bottling.