Strawberry Wine

Recipe

Makes one gallon.

Combine and boil

• 1/2 gal water
• 6 lb strawberries
• 1 lb raspberries
• 2 lb sugar

Then put in primary and add

• 1 t acid
• 1 t pectolase
• 1/4 t tannin
• crushed camden tablet
• 1/2 gal water

then blend or mash

After 12 hours, make up a yeast starter and add with 1 T yeast nutrient.

Cost

Fruit was ~$25, so this is a bit more expensive ($5/bottle).

Fresh strawberries in late May are around $1.5/lb so $6-$8 (@Meijer). Less than $2/bottle.

Check out this around late June for U-pick. Also check out this for raspberries in late July. Or this for raspberries and blackberries.

Frozen berries are $12/4lb or $3/lb.

Early 2017

I made one batch that came out decently well. But I over sweetened it. There was one bottle left a year later and it was ok, but it was both too sweet and too acidic.

2017-06

I started a batch of 6 gallons on 6/25. About 35lbs of strawberries. Boiled all of them and let them sit overnight with 2T pectolase and 2 camden tablets. The next day I got as much of the pulp out as I could and added enough water to get it up to 6 gallons. It was only at about 3%PAV. I added sugar until it was around 10%PAV (~4lbs), then I ran out of sugar. I added 2 T yeast nutrient and the yeast. The sulpher smell was pretty strong, that might be because it's more than I'm used to making or that the natural strawberries have more nutrients.

I want to be really careful with this batch - it was a lot of work and kind of expensive ($90 or $2.50/lb for the strawberries). When I sweeten it, I want to have another wine for comparison - I want to keep it kind of dry.

Next year I want to get the strawberries a little sooner.

It ended up being too dry so I back sweetened and it started to ferment in the bottle. Which brought it back to being too dry and it was sparkling. I got a lot of compliments on the sparkle, but it could have popped the corks or burst the bottle.

2018

About time to start a batch this year. I'll shoot for 42lbs bought over a few days. Make sure I have enough sugar and get the whole thing up to 14%PAV.