This is my first ever batch of Strawberry Wine. We have a awesome little strawberry farm here in town. They have the most flavorful strawberries ive ever had and at a good price. I picked right at 106 pounds through my handful of trips to the farm. My goal was to get 10 gallons of finished product and while that will not happen I am still very excited about this wine. I used 0 water with this wine and did not follow a recipe.
I cut the green tops off of each berry and split them. After I had processed about a gallon of berries I sprinkled some sugar on them and stirred them real good and put them into quart freezer bags. I let them sit in the fridge over night and then into the freezer. The berries released some juice in the fridge but when they came out of the freezer and thawed the entire bag was pretty much juice and the berries completely macerated. After thawing I poured all the juice into a bucket and gave the fruit a light squeeze to get any extra juice out. In the end I had almost 6 gallons of juice and 5 gallons of fruit. I put all the fruit in panty hose and used a 32 gallon brute trash to ferment in. I added my campden tablets and pectic enzyme to the must. The SG before any addition of sugar was 1.040 and after adding 7 ½ pounds of sugar I had the SG at 1.080. My initial PH reading was 3.65 and I got it to the target PH of 3.4. I let this sit for 24 hours and pitched my yeast. I used Montrachet red star. I accidently added all my yeast nutrient at once instead of step feeding it. Not sure what happened there but I will chalk it up as a brain fart because I knew better. I was concerned about having a problem ferment but everything worked out. By 5/24 the must had reached the dry stage and I racked into the secondary.
The first day
After pitching the yeast
The morning after racking to secondary. I could not find my half gallon jug so I used the gallon for the time being. It is now in the half gallon jug. My 2 glass carboys are currently in use so I used some purified water jugs I had.
There is a great many lees in the middle jug. They have since settled more. After my first racking I anticipate on having roughly 8 gallons.
I cut the green tops off of each berry and split them. After I had processed about a gallon of berries I sprinkled some sugar on them and stirred them real good and put them into quart freezer bags. I let them sit in the fridge over night and then into the freezer. The berries released some juice in the fridge but when they came out of the freezer and thawed the entire bag was pretty much juice and the berries completely macerated. After thawing I poured all the juice into a bucket and gave the fruit a light squeeze to get any extra juice out. In the end I had almost 6 gallons of juice and 5 gallons of fruit. I put all the fruit in panty hose and used a 32 gallon brute trash to ferment in. I added my campden tablets and pectic enzyme to the must. The SG before any addition of sugar was 1.040 and after adding 7 ½ pounds of sugar I had the SG at 1.080. My initial PH reading was 3.65 and I got it to the target PH of 3.4. I let this sit for 24 hours and pitched my yeast. I used Montrachet red star. I accidently added all my yeast nutrient at once instead of step feeding it. Not sure what happened there but I will chalk it up as a brain fart because I knew better. I was concerned about having a problem ferment but everything worked out. By 5/24 the must had reached the dry stage and I racked into the secondary.
The first day
After pitching the yeast
The morning after racking to secondary. I could not find my half gallon jug so I used the gallon for the time being. It is now in the half gallon jug. My 2 glass carboys are currently in use so I used some purified water jugs I had.
There is a great many lees in the middle jug. They have since settled more. After my first racking I anticipate on having roughly 8 gallons.
