Strawberry time once again

[pwrose]

Hello All,
Again its been a while since I have been here and for those who remember me my main wine is strawberry. Last years strawberry (found here) didn't even get started until November. Wont get into why but lets just say that there was a slight delay. However it did get done and here is how it happened in a nutshell
1. Thawed the berries (actual weight was 197 lbs) and cooked them in a 5 gallon cooking pot to get the juice out. Nothing was done to the berries, ie topping, coring, cutting or anything else.
2. Total juice was around 12 gallons
3. Took and SG reading and added simple syrup to get to 1.090 (I like mine a little hot but not everclear hot)
4. Fermented out explosively as usual
5. Wine is now clear and ready to be backsweetened

So with last years in carboys aging away it is now time for this years start.
First stop by my strawberry provider netted me 65 lbs of berries. I will be leaving for two weeks but when I get back I will finish collecting berries for this years Strawberry wine.

Hope to start stopping by more often now that I'm in my new place.

 

[dralarms]

Wow.

I wished I could find strawberries that I could afford to buy nearly 200 lbs. I love a good strawberry.

 

[Arne]

Welcome back, PW. Good to see ya again. Arne.

 

[pwrose]

TY Arne
dralarms when I do pay for strawberries its at about 50 cent a lb. They are the rejects from the commercial field that just don't make the cut to hit store shelves. I have an in with the farmers because they rent bees from us for pollination. Just so happened the guy didn't have the scales handy when I picked these up so he said don't worry bout them he will just start tallying it up next visit.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

If you got bees why are you adding simple syrup to your strawberries instead of honey? We did a strawberry mead last year, all strawberry juice and honey, much better than just simple strawberry wine. Did your bees make it ok through the winter? WVMJ

 

[pwrose]

As much as I like honey I am not that crazy about it in my wines. I have made a couple of meads but prefer the simple syrup to the honey.
This winter wasn't that bad on our bees, however we still lost almost 3/4 of them to "various things", I say various things because according to the state bee inspector we don't have CCD in North Carolina. All the same we are building back up, we normally have around 1000 hives and are well on our way back to that number.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I know another beekeeper who makes wine with sugar instead of honey, I just figured he was so cheap he would rather sell his honey and buy sugar for his wines but mostly its because his recipes call for sugar so he never experimented by using honey. Did you guys try a strawberry meleomel or just straight up meads?

Since they dont know what CCD really is how can they say you aint got it? 75% loss must have you guys banging your heads against your extractor. I cam thru with 4 hives, one has bees just dying while the ones next to it are expanding. This beekeeping stuff is crazy.

 

[pwrose]

That's what the sate bee inspector said, since we don't know what CCD is then we can't say that we have it, therefore we can't claim losses due to CCD.
When you go to a hive that has plenty of honey and all the bees look as if they starved what do you call it, when you go to a hive and there are no bees to be found including any unhatched brood what do you call it. I could go on with different ways of loosing bees but remember none of it is "CCD".
Btw your hive that has bees just dying, have you checked for VM or Noseama (sp?) issues.
Ill try to post some pics of some of our hives we sent to blueberries this year.

Oh and to keep this thread on topic I backsweetened last years strawberry before I left this past weekend. I wont be back home til the 17th and hopefully it will have cleared back up by then so I can rack it one last time before bottling.

 

[pwrose]

A quick pic of some of our hives that went to blueberry pollination this year.
Total of 240 hives went and this is a pic of 60 of them.

 

[jswordy]

My wife for years has wanted to start a hive but never has. I told her she needs to do it so she can get stung. It's the "beekeeper's blessing" that some research shows leads to a better immune system, less auto-immune disease and a longer life. Still, she had a reaction to a spider bite and is unsure how she would react to bee stings. So it remains a dream for her.

It'd be great to have our own bees to pollinate the blueberries.

What's the electric fence designed to keep out? I see you have a LOT of rows there for an electric fence!

 

[pwrose]

Being in eastern N.C. and its the Black Bear capital of the world, that is what the fence is for. We don't have little black bears we have large black bears, more like mid sized grizzlies. 500-800 lbs.
We have had a bear bend one of those T-post over. I don't have a pic with me but when I get back Ill post a pic of that T-post.
There are five lines and the top two and bottom two are hot, with the middle one being neutral/ground.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Great pic PW! I put my top bar hive to sleep today, packed the combs in a milk carton and into the freezer. I pulled one drone larva, easy to see mites on it without trying hard, no big mystery now. So much for for not having to treat top bar hives. Langs are putting in apple honey, dandelion and probably mustard, going to be an interesting mix for our strawberry mead this year. WVMJ

 

[RegionRat]

1. Thawed the berries (actual weight was 197 lbs) and cooked them in a 5 gallon cooking pot to get the juice out. Nothing was done to the berries, ie topping, coring, cutting or anything else.
2. Total juice was around 12 gallons

Thanks for posting this.

You got me thinking. I Have a connection on fresh fruit close to me. I can get bulk at a reasonable price.

If you started with 197# of strawberries and ended up with 12 gal of juice then it would be about 16# per gallon of juice. I like you left them whole. No cutting off the stem. I assume you heated them to a mash the strained them, or did you put the mash in some type of mesh bag. I was thinking of using a food mill.

Any way. I am going to pick up 45# tomorrow and see what I can do about making 3 gal batch.

Thanks again.

RR

 

[pwrose]

I just cooked them down to juice in the 5 gallon pot and then put them through a paint strainer bag and let it hang until the next 5 gallon pot was ready to strain. I mashed them in the bag a little but didn't try to over do it. If I had a good steam juicer I would have probably gotten more juice per pound. So far the taste test have no signs of off flavors from the stems being left on.

 

[RegionRat]

I just cooked them down to juice in the 5 gallon pot and then put them through a paint strainer bag and let it hang until the next 5 gallon pot was ready to strain. I mashed them in the bag a little but didn't try to over do it. If I had a good steam juicer I would have probably gotten more juice per pound. So far the taste test have no signs of off flavors from the stems being left on.

Got it, thanks

RR

 

[pwrose]

Heres some pics I have gathered up

 

[Downwards]

I have nothing to add here but those are beautiful pictures! Love looking at a bubbling primary.

 

[dralarms]

Well,

Strawberries may be out for me this year, looks like they are going for 12.00 a gallon basket (what they called them, not me), takes 9 or so to get to my 40 lbs a for a 6 gallon batch.

 

[pwrose]

Leave it to my 16 year old son to make something out of the two big bubbles in that pic. I wont say any more bout that I'm sure everyone has an imagination.

If you look in my photo albums on here you will see more of the explosive strawberry that I ferment. I don't know why but strawberry is the most explosive of all the wines I have every made. Even when I use the left over slurry to make the strawberry skeeter pee it goes crazy.

 

[pwrose]

Back to this years strawberries.
This is after two stops by my strawberry connection.
Total is around 130 lbs. If ya are trying to count there are 12 bags on each self
with two extra bags on top of the ones on the top shelf. There is also an extra
bag that is only bout half full. Each bag averages in the 5 lbs range. When all
is said and done I will have an exact weight.