Strawberry Wine

[Wade E]

If you like the wine dry then leave it alone for a few months with the exception of adding k-meta or(campden tablets)every 2-3 months to protect your wine from oxidising. Without going back and reading this post in entirety, Im guessing that you havent stabilized this wine yet or degassed so do this now by adding 1 campden tablet per gallon well crushed and dissolved in 1 cup of wine that you can extract from your batch along with Potassium sorbate at a ratio of 1/2 tsp per gallon. At this point you can sweeten your wine after you have stabilized it. That can be done by making a simple syrup consisting of 2 cups of sugar dissolved into 1 cup of boiling water, cooled down and then added slowly to taste so as not to over sweeten!

 

[rymily]

Thanks for all the great advice!

What does it mean to let the wine clear? It doesn't look too cloudy right now. Do we have to have clear wine before we stabilize?

We're going to rack it one more time because there's about a half inch of sediment at the bottom and I think the strawberry seeds floating at the top are sprouting roots!

About the acidity. . . do we need to add something to lower it, such as chalk?

 

[Wade E]

Have you tested for acid, if not I dont recommend paying around with these things. If you have seeds floating on top of your wine then either your wine is still fermenting or you have a lot of C02 in your wine and need to degas it. You should stabilize your wine with both k-meta and sorbate. Then you should degas your wine at a temp of around 75 deg. Then you should sweeten if you so want to and then clear your wine. To clear your wine you can go about this 2 ways, 1 being using a fining agent such as SuperKleer KC which works very fast and costs about $1.75, the other being just using time and that can take as long as a year in some instances but uually a few months. If you dont do either of thes yhen you will have bottles full of muck!!!!! Here is a pictuer of what a strawberry wine should look like once its cleared, it has some sediment in the bottom which has to be racked off but you grt the idea.

 

[rymily]

Thanks for the picture - ours is not yet this clear but gives us a good visual to be going for.

We got the bung out! Used a fork and only took a few minutes. The bung came with the kit, but I agree we should probably get a bigger one. I honestly wasn't too impressed with the kit we purchased. The rubber liner on the plastic primary fermenter also fell off and this is our first batch!

We just finished racking it again. We're going to let it settle, scrape any seeds off the top then finish it and bottle! Hopefully we can get the sweetening right. It almost tastes like a sparkling dry strawberry wine at this point.

Does anyone have an opinion on adding chalk to lower the acidity?

 

[Wade E]

Like I said before, if you havent checked the TA on this wine then you dont know how much to add to reduce the acid by if it really is too high, but if I were going t reduce the acidity I would use this Calcium Carbonate.

 

[rymily]

We measured the acid yesterday and we're at 0.75 or 0.80. The box said fruit wines should be at 0.60. About how much calcium carbone would be needed? Should this be added before or after we stabilize?

Thanks much for your help, i'm glad I found this site. . it has been so helpful!

 

[Wade E]

Thats not too high, I would leave it unless you have tasted it and really think its way to tart. 1/2 oz reduces acidity by 1 ppt in 6 US gallons of wine.

 

[wingnutooa]

PM wade...

 

[rymily]

We stabilized our wine this weekend, added the Super Clear agent and sugar syrup (4 cups sugar and 2 cups boiling water). The wine is GREAT! Thanks to everyone for your advice!

 

[Wade E]

Glad it came out to your liking!

 

[rymily]

Thanks for the help, as always! Our Strawberry Mead is foiled and labeled, everyone loves it!!! We have given out quite a few of our 350mL and 750mL bottles (47 in total.)

Emily just got an allergic reaction all over her upper body and arms, although not in her throat. Could it be the clearing agent Super-Kleer with chitosan, a shellfish / shell fish (sp.)derivative. I'm not noticing much myself, execept seeing her itch!

Nobody else has had any reaction, and the wine is amazing. It smells like fields of strawberries with a soft vapor of fermentation and orange honey.

 

[Wade E]

Anything is possible but it is said by many pros including the makers that during the process the proteins from the shellfish are rendered null and that it is safe to anyone with shellish allergies, could be the meta bisulphites though maybe but i dought that also. let us know if you find out the answer to this as it will be the first time and I have talked with thousands of people on this subject with many of them being shellfish allergic, 1 being my brother-in-law who's throat will close up and he drinks my wines and now makes his own with no problems at all.

 

[rymily]

You're an pro Wade ^

I haven't seen anymore problems with the allergic reactions, so either we are immune to the sulphites or shellfish or it was just a freak incident.

 

[Wade E]

Thats good to hear!