What To Do In The Off Season? Part 2

Ok with the first batch under our belts, we wanted to make a larger batch of from scratch wine.

Again this is following hours of internet research to find a recipe that would be good for beginners.

I found lots of information pointing to Jack Keller, a winemaker from Pleasanton, Texas, just south of San Antone. Wine making is his passion and for years he has been making wine from just about anything both fermentable and nontoxic. He has won many awards with his recipes.

We decided that we would like Strawberry wine and with them being out of season we opted for using frozen ones and Jack has a great recipe for that.

Frozen Strawberry Wine

• 3 lbs. frozen strawberries
• 1 11-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
• 1 lb 14 oz. light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. citric acid
• 1/4 tsp. grape tannin
• water to make 1 gallon
• 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet Red Star Côte des Blancs wine yeast

This makes 1 gallon so we tripled it all but the yeast and started our 3 gallon batch.

Long story short we had it put together and ready to ferment Sunday afternoon after we completed the 1 gallon red wine.



This is what it looked like in the fermenting bucket. The strawberries where divided up into 3 sanitized new panty hose socks. (To cheap to spring for a mesh fermenting bag & at $.33 a pair for panty hose why would you!)

Mal took this picture and also got to use it in her photo class at school under the heading of Scary Halloween photos. She had a lot of fun in class letting class mates guess what nasty things where floating in that bucket of blood colored juice!

Now other than checking on them daily to stir the strawberry and check specific gravity to see when they are done fermenting, we just have to wait and stare at them! Patience and time are very critical in wine making. The red grape wine from the kit will be ready to drink as early as 7 weeks or so. The strawberry from scratch will be best after 6 months or so. Can't wait!



On the 7th day we removed the bags of fruit and let the juice drain back into the bucket.

Then we racked (transfer with hose) the wine from the bucket to a 3 gallon glass carboy, leaving as much of the sediment in the bottom of the bucket as we could.



Now the strawberry is ready to sit for 45 days in the carboy to allow the dead yeast to settle to the bottom and the wine will begin to clear up.

Gonna be a long winter, I will probably start brewing something else real soon! This is very addictive!