Strawberry Wine Help

[Rice_Guy]

* the neighbor was cleaning a newly purchased property this week and shared a ten year old grosch bottle of strawberry. . . .
appearance: clear, light transparent orange (some brown notes) color, ,, typical of year old state fair samples = 3 points
aroma: good identifiable strawberry = 3 points
flavor: missing front notes (old), the longer acid notes were present, = 3 out of 6 points
aftertaste: clean, no off notes, fast not lingering
overall: one of the best strawberries I have sampled (note most strawberry wine is missing front notes and a fresh/bright pink color) 2 points (I would have been tempted to add 1% of a stable red color as raspberry juice)
ie ,, technically age is possible, this would point out as a low blue ribbon wine

I heard when I first got started that Strawberry has a shorter shelf life than other wines but since then I've hear a variety of things. I should guess that 2-3 years will be fine.

As far as aging time - I think most folks count aging time from end of fermentation until you open the bottle to drink. You can age it in bulk or in a bottle. The reason many more folks age in a bulk (Carboy/Barrel - At least a year in most cases) is so that they can make any needed adjustments, filter, back-sweeten, change pH, and of course avoid any surprise sediment dropping out before they lock it down in a bottle.

 

[AJH89]

* the neighbor was cleaning a newly purchased property this week and shared a ten year old grosch bottle of strawberry. . . .
appearance: clear, light transparent orange (some brown notes) color, ,, typical of year old state fair samples = 3 points
aroma: good identifiable strawberry = 3 points
flavor: missing front notes (old), the longer acid notes were present, = 3 out of 6 points
aftertaste: clean, no off notes, fast not lingering
overall: one of the best strawberries I have sampled (note most strawberry wine is missing front notes and a fresh/bright pink color) 2 points (I would have been tempted to add 1% of a stable red color as raspberry juice)
ie ,, technically age is possible, this would point out as a low blue ribbon wine

Great info. I will say the color is exactly as you say. It's a clear orangish looking color. I would actually like to make it a little more red. What would you add product/brand?

 

[KCCam]

Post some pics of what it looks like in the carboy (is it still in the carboy?) and what it looks like in a glass.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Great info. I will say the color is exactly as you say. It's a clear orangish looking color. I would actually like to make it a little more red. What would you add product/brand?

for a five gallon I would start with two oz/ of raspberry juice (thaw some frozen raspberry and squeeze juice out), for more intense another two oz etc, ,,, raspberry is time stable / eight oz is probably over kill.
If you can’t find that cherry juice will do the same but it isn’t as time stable, or raspberry frozen punch, ,,, and as a fourth option frozen Hawaiian Punch ,,, but that punch should have synthetic die

 

[AJH89]

Ugh, super annoyed after bottling yesterday. After bottling and letting them sit for a day every bottle has a small amount of this kind of slush at the bottom. I do feel I've given proper time and amount of racks including using the sparkalloid that all the lee's definitely dropped out, but I think my issue is racking over without disturbing the sediment and sucking it up through my siphon. Any tips? I'll probably keep this batch for self consumption and do a dragons blood next. I guaranteed everyone a bottle by Christmas also could I just pop all the corks dump it back into the carboy, let it settle for a couple days and rebottle it?

 

[Rice_Guy]

When I have tried to make “perfect“ wine and noted sediment in the selected flavor I vacuum from the contaminated bottle to a clean bottle, being sure to keep the racking setup above the sediment. Yes I will wind up with seven clean per eight you start with. My impression doing a whole case was it settled faster in the 750 (peach with pectin) than it was doing in a five gallon carboy, so I didn’t really want to mix it up again, and for vinters meetings I wouldn’t worry about topping a bottle up.

Yes , , some in the vinters club dump it back into the carboy. , , and yes I have heard of others doing a single perfect contest bottle and drinking the left over 7/8 of a bottle.

 

[AJH89]

When I have tried to make “perfect“ wine and noted sediment in the selected flavor I vacuum from the contaminated bottle to a clean bottle, being sure to keep the racking setup above the sediment. Yes I will wind up with seven clean per eight you start with. My impression doing a whole case was it settled faster in the 750 (peach with pectin) than it was doing in a five gallon carboy, so I didn’t really want to mix it up again, and for vinters meetings I wouldn’t worry about topping a bottle up.

Yes , , some in the vinters club dump it back into the carboy. , , and yes I have heard of others doing a single perfect contest bottle and drinking the left over 7/8 of a bottle.

Siphoning the individual bottles sounds like my best bet. But where do you get an auto siphon that small? Lol. Mine is made for a carboy, definitely wouldn't fit in a 750ml. I looked online with no luck...

 

[KCCam]

Siphoning the individual bottles sounds like my best bet. But where do you get an auto siphon that small? Lol. Mine is made for a carboy, definitely wouldn't fit in a 750ml. I looked online with no luck...

When @Rice_Guy says he “vacuums”, he is using a vacuum pump to suck the top clear part out of the bottles. It would be difficult to do without a vacuum pump setup (check out the All-In-One pump sold by a member here).

 

[Rice_Guy]

The low tech way is a turkey baster.
I have access to a science store, so if only cleaning one bottle for a club meeting I would use a 50cc syringe and a 1/8 vinyl tube

Most of the vacuum pumping is done with a $12 plastic pump from the science house that pulls 19 inches Hg, it is similar to what amazon sells for $20. all fittings/ tubes are available at the hardware store. Pump is hanging on the wall in the back, you need a trap to keep mistakes from gumming up the valves. The T fitting with finger let’s me fine tune how fast and can instantly stop. I use a lot of soft tube to connect inexpensive hard poly tubing which is bent on the gas stove for whatever shape I need.

When racking, the source container always is at an angle to keep from sucking gunk.
I first tried the concept with a vacuum cleaner, since starting siphons by mouth with SO2 is nasty, loud but it workEd.

When @Rice_Guy says he “vacuums”, he is using a vacuum pump to suck the top clear part out of the bottles. It would be difficult to do without a vacuum pump setup (check out the All-In-One pump sold by a member here).

 

[franc1969]

I would love to know which pump to look for on Amazon or elsewhere. I am hoping for an AIO for the holidays, but am pretty handy with the extra tubing...

Most of the vacuum pumping is done with a $12 plastic pump from the science house that pulls 19 inches Hg, it is similar to what amazon sells for $20. all fittings/ tubes are available at the hardware store.

 

[Rice_Guy]

the blue pump on top will do 19 in Hg when run in tandem, it actually has two heads on it and runs on 12V DC, ,,, at some point this pump was intended to power a sprayer in the vineyard
the unit on the bottom is what lives above the process area all the time, it is a piston unit connected to a trap and vacuum gauge, the micro switch lets me pulse and the slide switch lets me run constantly, again it is 12V
the cork is two hole with 1/4 poly tubing which was heated and bent to that shape, ,,,, i have lots of variations in fitments and this was put together for filling 750 bottles, tubing is cheap, also note the 4cm pieces of silicone get used every time I patch together a setup to a carboy or the floor or bottling

Looking at Amazon you will have the option of high volume pumps as the AC vacuum which runs for four hours at a time evaporating moisture from refrigeration installs (the one here uses oil so it is dirty/ loud/ can pull 24 to 25 inches Hg) ,,,, and low volume systems, this setup has never evacuated more than a six gallon carboy/ run over 90 minutes. If you do lots of run time the 120 volt setup should be more robust.