Strawberry Wine

Strawberry Wine!

I’ve been brewing mead for about 2 years now, and have been aching to branch out into wine. Carrado’s of New Jersey, a really nifty brewing supply store nearish to my locale, is going to begin selling crushed grapes by the gallon this year [in grape season ~September] as opposed to by the 6 gallon. I’m tremendously excited by this. Most likely it will not be economically feasible to do more than a 3 gallon of so, but it’ll still be a lot of fun.

And I wanted to do some experimenting before I shell out the big bucks for wine grapes.

Enter Strawberries. Over the last few months I’ve been slowly buying frozen strawberries as I see them for as good a price as I have found locally [roughly $2.50/lb], and the other day I found I had accumulated 6 pounds of frozen strawberries. Definitely enough to make 5 gallons of wine out of, thought I. So I set out to make an attempt.

Strawberry Wine

Ingredients:
6 pounds strawberries [frozen, even if using freshly picked yourself, freeze and defrost beforehand to break open the cell walls for easier yeast foodage]
1 can Juicy Juice Cherry juice
5 oranges, zested and juiced
4 cups of sugar [white, brown, molasses or maple syrup as per your tastes. I used white sugar cause it was cheap and I had it to hand]
strongly brewed tea [black tea, for tannins]
wine yeast, rehydrated [instructions below]
water you like the taste of/believe to be not filled with too much bacteria

The night before I set the strawberries on the bottom shelf of my fridge [I just knew they were going to leak, and of course they did, but I only have to clean one shelf cause they did not leak down the entire fridge!] to defrost.

Once defrosted, I tossed them into my large brew pot [read:huge stock pot], pouring tap water into the bags and dumping that ever-so-slightly-strawberry-flavored water into the pot with the strawberries. I firmly believe that NYC has magical, tasty, awesome tap water. Other cities and areas, not so much. So if you are not blessed with magical, great tasting tap water, consider distilled or spring water for brewing [and everything else].

So I set the strawberries to boil, adding the zest, orange juice, and sugar, as well as the ‘cherry juice’ [Juicy Juice is a great, cheap way to get 100% juice--but it is rarely ever 100% juice of the same fruit, regardless of what the title wants you to believe]. I used a low flame and did a few chores about the kitchen so as to be gentle with the flavor (as opposed to viciously boiling the heck out of it), but I’m not sure it made a huge difference. The important thing here is to make sure you boil it enough to kill any bacteria that might compete with the yeast.

A word about strawberries and fruit in general–fresh is vitally important. I am absolutely certain that the ‘fresh’ strawberries in my grocery store are no such thing. And since I do not have a place to go pick strawberries off the plant and thus know for sure how fresh they are, I turn to frozen strawberries. I figure, it’s the next best thing.

Another word about fruit fermenting–freeze the fruit before fermenting it. Freezing bursts the cell barriers, making it easier for the yeast to get their nutrients and make delicious alcohol for us.

Now, I love strawberries. I really do; they are delicious. However, they really are not the strongest flavor out there. So I’m gonna see what I can do to boost up the flavor quotient on this beverage by adding oranges and cherry. Add whatever you like and think will go with the strawberry. Taste the mixture as it simmers [try not to let it go to a roiling boil for a long period of time, but definitely simmer it long enough so you are sure any bacteria living on the fruit is no longer] to see what you think of it. My mixture tasted and smelled gorgeous. It was sweeter than I like my drinks, but I know the yeasties will love it.

Right now one of my favorite yeasts is Lalvin EC-1118. It is a champagne yeast, a quick fermenter, has a relatively high alcohol tolerance (18%), and has a fairly clean flavor that I enjoy. It is also supposed to be very competitive, which is a great thing because I worry that my sterilization techniques might be a bit lazy. I’m used to brewing in honey, which is naturally anti-bacterial and while I’ve never had *knock wood* any problems with infections in my ferments, I’m never sure if that’s due to my being careful or the honey being magical and picking up my slack. Thus, just in case, I’d prefer to go with a yeast that is known for kicking the butts of other bacteria that might try to come in and take over. It doesn’t hurt at all that I happen to also love the taste. Additionally, it’s nitrogen needs are low, and it’s happy with a wide range of temperatures including low temperatures which given that it’s winter here now, is useful.

However, any wine yeast [or maybe even a beer yeast] could be interesting with this. Hell, if you are confident in your environment or feeling daring, you could leave the must [the mixture sitting on your stove] hanging out at room temperature for a day or two and use whatever airborne yeasts you have going. And maybe one day I’ll try that, when we’ve moved out into land we love that loves us back. But not where we are now, I don’t trust it to not try to kill us.

After letting the must boil and then cool down [covered] until its at a comfortable temperature [I test this by touching my finger to a spoonful of must, but if you have a thermometer, anything around 85 degrees F should be fine, especially as we'll be adding a lot of cool water before we pitch the yeast], pour it into the fermenter. Use a funnel, and preferably have someone standing by to poke it with a [clean!] knife when the funnel gets jammed by strawberries. I use a 5 gallon glass carboy for fermenting. It’s not as simple to clean as a bucket, but I, in general, like them better than buckets. But some people [especially those who make beer] swear by buckets for the initial fermentation. And I’m sure when I start to make beer I will concur. Carboys can be got from your local brewing supply store, and I’d recommend that, because shipping them in the mail is tricky and expensive.

After pouring in the must, begin to fill the carboy with water, and pour the [at least somewhat cooled] tea [for tannins] in. When the carboy is about half full, pitch the rehydrated yeast.

If you are using [cheaper than the liquid yeasts, in my experience] dehydrated yeast in little packets, you will need to rehydrate them before pitching into the must in your fermenter. I’ve taken to using less than the full packet (to make them last longer), and thus I should be rehydrating my yeast a day or two in advance, but if you are using the full packet adding it to a jar of water while beginning to boil the must [and thus hydrating it for at least an hour] is sufficient. I did in fact not begin hydrating my yeast a day or three in advance. Bad kitty.

When hydrating an entire package of yeast, just putting it in warm [not hot, not cold, about 75-80 degrees F] water in a jar, swirling it gently and then shaking vigorously right before pitching it into the fermenter with the must is a very easy and pain-free process. I’d then refill the jar with water and also add that to the must, just to make sure you got all the little buggers out of the jar and working for you. However if you are trying to save the packages for future use, sprinkling out some individual yeast [depending on what I'm doing and how far in advance I am doing it (further in advance can get away with less granules) I use ball park 25-50] granules from the package into a jar of water should be just the initial step for you. At first, add no sugar to the water, because it will only dehydrate the yeast further, delaying your ultimate success. But after a few hours–5 to 12–add a bit of food to help the yeast begin multiplying. This can be a tablespoon of sugar, some fruit juice, a thawed strawberry or two, whatever. Just something to get them going. Keep the jar covered with a piece of fabric, wrapped around the top with a rubber band to keep other bacteria or dust from getting in while allowing the yeast to breathe. Ideally you would let them populate the jar for 36-60 hours before pitching it into the must.

But we do not always think this far ahead. This particular batch of strawberry wine’s yeast had only been hydrated for about 4 hours. They had been given a strawberry a bit of the must to munch on before being pitched. Thus the fermentation did not start in earnest right away, the yeasts had to multiply and take over a bit first. This was rather poor form on my part, because in theory in between the time of pitching and taking over, the must could have been colonized by a different strain of bacteria. However I believe this did not occur, as I was very careful about keeping things sanitary for the wine, given this danger. Also, I’m feeling lucky.

After pitching the yeast, fill the carboy up the rest of the way with water. However, leave a good 6-10 inches from the top free. I did not do this, leaving only about 4-5 inches and ran into some complications later because of this oversight. In my defense, this is rarely necessary with mead. What had happened was…

Once the carboy was thoroughly taken over by EC-1118, all the strawberries were propelled to the top of the must by these viciously active beasties. Their activity was so virulent in fact that it pushed the must and strawberries up past the 5 grace inches I’d given it and into the airlock [the 'cap' for the carboy that allows air/pressure to escape the container without causing an explosion, while keeping other things out--and if anything did manage to get in, it first goes through a rather toxic layer of grain alcohol, making sure it will not survive the trip]. I managed to catch it in time and it did not decorate my living room, but I did have to take over about 2.5 cups of the must and freeze it for later adding back. This appears to have done the trick, giving the yeast more room in which to expand without causing havoc.

So far this does not seem to be a problem with this recipe, but just a word of caution–always check to make sure that the airlock is able to ‘breathe’ allowing the pent up pressure to escape–and not by exploding all over the place it’s being stored. This can often be fixed by something as simple as shaking the carboy, breaking up whatever has formed a barrier on the surface. Sometimes the barrier might be firmer than that, requiring it to be broken up with the handle of a long spoon–sterilized of course.

As for this batch of wine–it’s my first, but I’m going to treat it as I do mead. Every 3-4 months I will rack it–siphon the must/wine into a new sterilized carboy and off of its lees [the dead yeast cells and various things that sink to the bottom] and taste it. That way I can determine in what direction the wine/mead/what have you is going and if I wish to interrupt that path and redirect it a different way. In this case, I will have the basic ingredients on hand–sugar, strawberries, oranges, maybe some cherry juice–so in case I feel it needs a bit of tweaking, I can add more of whatever I feel would benefit it. I expect it to be ready in about 12 months, but it could be ready sooner or later depending on how much & what type of tweaking needs to be done [if I decide 10 months in that it simply must have more fruit or sugar, the fermentation is going to restart making any bottles I put it into decidedly explosive, and thus extending the amount of time it needs to ferment and age in carboy before it is safer to bottle] and how quickly it turns into tastiness.

But I have high expectations and hopes for this, my very first wine. I am quite excited to see what comes of it.

~ by delectablesustainability on January 17, 2008.