Make Strawberry Wine

Strawberry wine is a taste associated with summer, a light, refreshing drink that can be made easily at home. It's a great way to use up a glut of strawberries, especially if they're on the turn. While it will be a least a month, if not more, before you can actually drink your wine, many find strawberry wine to be as complex, exciting, and drinkable as classic grape wines.

Steps

Making Simple Strawberry Wines

  1. Make sure you have a clean set of wine-making supplies. Making wine is the process of fermenting fruit, which is when you use the controlled use of yeast to create alcohol. Doing so, however, requires specialized fermentation equipment. Luckily, most of it is inexpensive and easy to procure at your local kitchen supply store:
    • 2 gallon (7.6 L) crock or glass jar, sealable
    • 1 gallon (3.8 L) carboy
    • 1 airlock top
    • 1 thin tube for siphoning
    • Clean wine bottles with corks or screw caps for storage of final product
    • Campden tablets.[1]
  2. Wash and remove the stems from the 4-5 pounds of fresh strawberries. The fresher your strawberries and the stronger the taste, the more you can use. While this article will touch on ways to modify, adjust, and personalize your wine recipe later, first time winemakers should focus on this easy 1-gallon recipe first. Rinse the berries in cool water and then cut away all the greenery to prep the fruit.[2]
    • If the strawberries were frozen, completely thaw them before proceeding.
  3. Coarsely chop the strawberries with a knife. You don't want to crush them or get them too small just yet, even cutting into halves or quarters will make your life easier later. Try not to push or smash the berries as you cut -- you want as much of the juice as possible, and you'll be crushing the berries later to extract the juices.
    • This step is not explicitly necessary. However, as you make bigger batches with 15-20 pounds of berries you'll realize that they are much, much easier to crush into a pulp later on when they're cut beforehand.[1]
  4. Mash the berries to a pulp in a large, food-grade bucket. If you're only making a gallon, a large sauce-pot will do. However, remember that you're eventually adding another two pounds of sugar and a gallon of water -- so you'll need plenty of room at the top. Use a potato masher, or even well-cleaned hands, to gently crush the strawberries into a mash. They don't need to be pulverized, just mashed enough to release the juices inside.[3]
    • If you're looking to work professionally, you should invest in a "primary fermenter," a specialty bucket used to prep your fruit for winemaking.[4]
  5. Add enough water to cover the strawberries, plus two pounds of sugar, then stir. The sugar is food for the yeast -- which turns it into alcohol -- so don't worry about the final drink tasting like a sugar cube. Cover the strawberries with water, then add roughly half the amount of sugar as you added berries -- if you used 8lbs of strawberries, you want roughly 4lbs of sugar.
    • In general, you can sweeten the wine to taste later on in the process. For now, just add the sugar to help your alcohol ferment.
    • If you have a wine-making hydrometer, you can check the Specific Gravity (S.G.) to get the perfect sugar amount for your desired alcohol content. A good SG to aim for is 1.086.[1]
  6. Add a sterilizing tablet, pectin enzyme, tannins, and an acid blend if making professional-style strawberry wine. The ingredients above, with the potential exception of the sterilizing tablet, are all optional ingredients used by professionals to make high-quality, easily standardized wines. Use the following amounts for your 1 gallon of wine, adjusting for larger quantities as necessary:[3]
    • Sterilizing Agents: You can use one Campden Tablet or 1/4 teaspoon metabisulfite or sodium bisulfate. Unless you are making wild-yeast wine, you must sterilize the fruit mash.
    • Pectin Enzyme: Helps extract juices and flavor, and prevent a milky or cloudy final color. Use 1/4-1/2 tsp per final planned gallon of wine, whatever your enzyme bottle calls for.
    • Wine Tannins: Tannins give a wine that slight pucker, or dryness. Add 1/8-1/4 tsp or so per gallon, depending on taste.
    • Acid Blend: Used to balance the pH of the wine for better fermentation and flavor. Mostly for serious winemakers, Use a wine-specific titration kit to get your acid level to .60% tartaric.[1]
  7. Cover the top of the bucket with a clean towel and let it sit for 1-2 days. You need air to be able to pass through, but not bugs or dust. A cheesecloth or towel rubber-banded to the top of the bucket will suffice. Check it each day -- you should see bubbles forming regularly. As they die down and form less often, usually around the end of day two, you're ready to move on.
    • This mixture is called a "must."
    • Many people like to stir this mixture gently once when checking it each day.[4]

Fermenting Your Wine

  1. After two days sitting, add a packet of wine yeast and 1 tsp of yeast nutrient. Both of these can be found online or in many specialty stores/supermarkets. You can experiment with different types of wine yeast to find the flavor you love -- many wine-makers use Champagne yeast, others use specific wine yeasts like Côte de Blanc. Stir everything in well.
    • Be sure to follow the instructions on the back of the specific yeast for activation. Some yeasts may need to be mixed with warm water before they can be added.
  2. Re-cover the mash with a towel and let the yeasted mixture sit for a week, stirring 3-4 times a day. Stirring keeps the yeast moving, accessing other sugars and promoting air flow. Each day you should notice bubbles, and a yeasty, alcoholic smell growing as they days go by. By the seventh day, this activity will likely slow down, meaning you're ready to move on to the next step.
  3. Siphon the liquid into your carboy, removing as much sediment and pulp as possible. Transfer the mixture to your glass carboys for storage. If you don't have a siphon, you can pour your mixture over a new, clean cheesecloth or fine mesh strainer. If you do use a cloth, keep the pulp in the towel, then run 1/2 a gallon of water through the pulp to get the last bits of juice, sugar, and yeast.[4]
    • Siphoning off the liquid, removing sediment and pulp, is known in wine-making as "racking."
  4. Cap the carboy with an airlock and wait until fermentation is complete. Close off the carboy and set the bottle aside in a dark, room-temperature place. Check every single day -- fermentation is complete when there are no more small bubbles rising their way to the surface.[3]
    • Note that fermentation can cause the liquid level to rise, causing overflow. Place a towel or bucket under your bottles to prevent a mess.[4]
  5. Rack the wine one more time, moving to a clean carboy and sealing with an airlock. This last stage usually takes only 1-2 weeks, and is over when the wine clears up in color and flavor. When siphoning, take care not to get any of the sediment (small, natural particles in the wine) from the bottom, keeping the hose an inch or so above the bottom to avoid sucking it up. It is okay to waste a little wine at the bottom to avoid adding sediments, though it is impossible to miss them all.
  6. Taste the wine, adding a bit of honey to sweeten it if need be. Once your wine has cleared in its second carboy, you're ready to start drinking! If this is your first bottle, or you simply want to adjust the flavor, you can add some sweeteners now, usually honey.[3]
    • Note, however, that adding sweeteners may change the appearance of the wine unless a stabilizer, like Potassium Sorbate or a filtration system, is used as well. It is not a big deal, but worth noting for burgeoning professionals.[1]

Creating Your Own Recipes

  1. Use a ratio of 2:1 when planning the weight of fruit and sugars. This is the first ratio to remember -- you always want roughly half the amount of sugar as strawberries. So, if you have 20lbs of berries, you want roughly 10lbs of sugar. While you might use 9lbs for sweeter strawberries, or 11lbs for tougher ones, you want to hew close to this 2:1 ratio.
    • Always measure in weight, not cups or liters -- sugar packs tightly without air holes in a measurement cup, strawberries don't.
    • Purchase a wine-making hydrometer to ensure the correct sugar levels -- anything from an S.G. of 1.06 - 1.09 is generally acceptable. More sugar means more alcohol later.
  2. Keeping the total level below 1 teaspoon per 20lbs of berries, use more wine tannin with fewer strawberries for a drier taste. Fruit naturally contains tannins, so less is more when using lots of berries. The exact level is not crucial, however, and mostly comes down to taste. As long as you use less than a teaspoon total your wine will be fine.
  3. Use 1/16lb of Sodium Bisulfate for each 8lbs of strawberries. For large batches, dispense with the Campden tablets and use Sodium Bisulfate instead. This sterilizes the wine as you make it, eliminating competing yeasts and bacteria from your mix so the wine yeast can do it's job.[1]
  4. Add an extra teaspoon of yeast nutrient for each 4lbs of berries, up to 5 teaspoons total. If you're making over 25lbs of wine, you'll need to adapt this entire recipe for mass production. Anything less than that should be fine with 1 teaspoon per 4lbs or so, sticking to one full packet of wine yeast the entire time.[1]
  5. Consider trying out a "wild yeast" version by ignoring all sterilizers entirely. This uses naturally occurring yeasts in the air and fruit for fermentation. If you do, know you must extend your first fermentation from 1-2 days to one full week.[5]
  6. Add other fruits for new flavors without having to adjust the recipe. As long as you strawberries are the key fruit, you shouldn't have to adjust the recipe much, other than adding a little more or less sugar depending on your preferences. All of these fruits are added with the strawberries. While any fruit can be used to make wine, some popular additions with strawberries include:
    • Substitute 1lb of blueberries, apples, cherries, or pears
    • Add 1-2tb of fresh lemon or orange peel.[3]

Things You'll Need

  • Colander, for washing strawberries
  • Strawberry huller (or knife and fingers)
  • Strainer
  • Cheesecloth
  • Fermentation equipment
    • Crock, or another large food-grade bucket
    • Carboy (glass bottle with thin neck)
    • Wine bottles for storage
    • Airlock
    • Siphon
    • Campden tablets

Tips

  • Fresh or wild strawberries make the best wine. If you want to grow your own, the varieties Albritton, Cardinal, Dunlap, Earliglow, Empire, Fletcher and Sparkle are considered great wine-making berries.[6]

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-strawberry
  2. ↑ http://www.homebrewit.com/two-strawberry-wine-recipes/
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Household_Cyclopedia_of_General_Information/howdoyou_bhb.html Household Cyclopedia
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 http://imbibemagazine.com/homemade-strawberry-wine-recipe/
  5. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/jun/22/how-to-make-strawberry-wine
  6. ↑ http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-strawberry#sthash.dUjCekfg.dpuf
  • D.T. McKechie, Home Winemakers Recipes, (1979), ISBN 86868-004-4
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