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 so around $4 a bottle.
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. I'll start around 5/15. Make sure I have enough sugar and get the whole thing up to 14%PAV.