2010 Strawberry Wine

15 pounds of fresh June strawberries makes 3 gallons of strawberry wine, ready to bottle in October! This batch took a bit of work, from the picking of the strawberries, to the mushing up and constant agitation through primary fermentation, to the straining of the yeast-digested fruit when it went into the secondary fermentation carboy. (Mushing vs. a blender, because the latter would've chopped all the tiny strawberry seeds, releasing a bitter component the wine could do without...)

I was concerned that the wine would go straw or golden in color, but it finished as a dark reddish-amber. The specific gravity started at 1.110 and wound up at 0.990 in the end, so it took a goodly amount of sweetener to bring it back to a semi-sweet bottling stage. Due to the high acid levels of fresh strawberries, I used champagne yeast, so there's a relatively high alcohol content - but it is subdued in presence by the strawberry flavor, with a very clean finish on the palate.

I'm sure this batch of 15 bottles will disappear well before I pick another 15 pounds next spring.

I'm still staying busy.

Freshly bottled - 3 gallons of lemon wine, AKA Murphy's Irish Lemon Elixir and Liver Tonic:


Coming next? Strawberry, and Watermelon's just finished in the primary fermentor...

The latest batch is white wine!

I just bottled 3 gallons of what I call "Wisconsin White", which was created during the tail end of last winter using Welch's White Grape Juice frozen concentrate and a Premier Cuvee' yeast. There was slightly more than 3 gallons' worth, so I ended up sampling several glasses of the "extra" after bottling was completed. Pretty darned tasty, I must say! Maybe my technique over the last 6 months or so is hitting its stride...

Dandelion Wine!

6 quarts of freshly-picked dandelions have become the start of 3 gallons of dandelion wine. This should be interesting...


I'm starting to convince myself that if it ain't nailed down, ferment it!

If you're gonna make wine...

You'd best have a place to put it all. This is a piddly little 180-bottle wine rack. It has 92 bottles of wine that I've made since last fall, which is but a fraction of my total output. (The remainder has been distributed to family and friends) Looks like I have some work to do to fill it completely, but we're getting there, slowly but surely...

Next up, 3 gallons of Bernie's Best Blush...

Which makes 15 bottles as seen below. This was something to keep all my glassware busy during the "off" season, and it worked just fine. The neat thing is, this blush started life as Welch's frozen grape juice concentrate - 2 cans dark Concord, 6 cans white grape, water, sugar, tannin, acid blend, pectin enzyme, and Montrachet yeast. Save for the lack of serious sediment, it behaved exactly like other wines I've done before during the fermentation and clearing process. It finished as semi-sweet, with just a hint of Concord fruitiness. Now I'm really tempted to try a white wine from frozen concentrate.

Raspberry Wine!

It's all bottled and ready to go. I used 5lbs of raspberries per gallon, with the berries provided by my folks from their farm in my Wisconsin hometown. After filling the 24 bottles, I had about 1/2 bottle left over, so I "sampled" the remainder tonight. Mmmm-good!

Raspberry wine

I had a few pounds of fresh raspberries from my folks' farm that I'd frozen last year for use later on. I needed the freezer space, and had a couple empty 1 gallon carboys sitting idle, so why not?

Mush 'em up and scoop 'em into the carboy:


Add sugar, water, yeast, etc. - then wait for the magic to happen!


They're sitting next to a couple gallons made from fresh McIntosh apples that I made into applesauce. Those in turn are sitting next to 6 gallons of pumpkin-raisin wine, almost ready to bottle and distribute:


The 2010 wine season is in full swing!

Fall is in the air!

And happily bubbling away in the basement. No, really. Last Sunday we picked about 20lbs of wild grapes from the fenceline in my back yard:


Sorted and rinsed to remove bugs, green grapes, wrinkled grapes, and all other nasty bits:


The fun part - mashing the wild grapes for juice and pulp, leaving the seeds and skins behind. What a mess!


Throw the juice, 12lbs of sugar, one Campden sulfite tablet, and the balance of water into the primary fermenter, and give it a good stir. Note the gorgeous purple color of my wooden stirring spoon!


The next morning, the yeast got thrown in there, the lid was attached, and the airlock installed. It began burping almost immediately as the yeast chowed down on the sweet stuff and reproduced at a prodigious rate. Now when the must gets stirred twice a day, I cannot feel any undissolved sugar in the bottom of the fermenter - so they must be doing their job. The bouquet released into the air when I open the lid to stir the batch? Absolutely unbelievable!

Next up, 20lbs of fresh Concord grapes from my dad's farm. I've already mashed them, and the liquid looks like it'll make something closer to a blush than a red. That's fine, I'm willing to give it a try, too. I also have fresh elderberries and plums ready for their turn in the fermenters...