Defrosting and getting supplies

Hi,

Since it is now strawberry season around my neck of the woods (Montreal, Quebec) I froze 4 pounds of strawberries over the week-end to be used within a couple of months to make wine.

I read somewhere that defrosting fruit helps extract the flavour of the fruit and is actually better than using fresh fruit (your opinion here) but is there a preferred way to defrost fruit for wine making?

Should I just put in primary fermentator and add very hot/boiling sugar water or would it be better to have the frozen fruit first sit in the fridge or on the counter and let it defrost slowly there? Does it make a difference?

Also, I was wondering if anyone could suggest where I can find smaller primary fermentators than the 5-6 gallon ones at the wine supply store?

Since I would like to make 1-3 gallon batches I really don't need those big buckets (and my wife would be more annoyed with me if I had a bunch of big buckets around the kitchen)?

Lastly, I would like to find out where I can find smaller wine bottles (375ml or less) when it comes to bottling? I like to savor the wine and give some out to family and good friends but a gallon isn't that large and I want to make it last :)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Mike

Reply to
mhorlick
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4# would barely make 1 gallon Strawberries have alot of water. When I make Strawberry wine I use 25-30 #in primary for 6 gallons THEN I make a "F-PAC" ( 5-10# )for flavor before bottling.

Tom

Reply to
Tom

Hello Mike -

I use 5 3/4 lb per imp gal batch. Metja Roate recipe, turned out superb in

1964, and again in 2007.

Just picked and froze enough for three more batches on the weekend.

I started ferment> Hi,

Reply to
Jack

Rossi "jug" wines come in a 4-liter glass jug suitable for making 1-gallon (actually a little bit larger) batches. Around here just about every grocery store seems to stock these. You can also buy empty 1-gallon jugs mail-order from wine supply places, but with shipping they will probably end up costing as much as the Rossi, and they don't come pre-filled with wine. :-)

Utopia in Decay

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Kevin Cherkauer

Reply to
Kevin Cherkauer

What is your method for making a "F-Pack"?

Reply to
Mark_OK

From what I've read on that web site, it seemed to me like one of the implicit goals of many of the recipes is to make fruit wines that taste as much like grape wines as possible. A lot of the recipes seem to be something like 1/8 fruit juice and 7/8 water.

I think it is a matter of taste. Personally if I wanted every wine I made to taste like a grape wine, I would make only grape wine. It would simplify things a lot. Since I am interested in discovering new flavors, I usually use 100% fruit juice and no water, whatever I am making. So far I have not been disappointed (well, except for that one orange juice experiment :-), but of course YMMV. (And I haven't yet tried that 100% blackberry juice batch I started last summer. ;-)

Utopia in Decay

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Kevin Cherkauer

Finally, I am a bit surprised that people use 5 to 6 pounds of strawberries to make 1 gallon of wine. I imagine that the more fruit you put into the recipe the fuller in taste it would be. The "Joy of Home Winemaking" has a recipe for strawberries using 4 pounds, on Jack Keller's web site his recipes call for 3 to 3 1/2 lbs.

Reply to
Kevin Cherkauer

I use 25 lbs avg for fruit wine. Then I add an F_PAC. FPAC is concentrated flavor. Start with 5 lbs of strawberries (get them frozen in the whse stores). You can do this on the stove. SLOWLY bring heat up LOW so fruit can "mash" with a spoon. DO NOT BOIL or you can get jelly. When you see juice coming out you will get a great smell. Take "mash" and using the back of a spoon press it through a food strainer leaving the pulp in another one. Repeat till fruit is gone from fry pan. I use 5# min for strawberry wine. after you have the "juice" run it through again leaving seed and pulp behind. Now you need "simple syrup" that's a 2 to 1 mix sugar to water I think you know how to do that. Add Strawberry to wine and also add more Sorbate so fermentation don't start

1/2tsp. Stir, taste, then start to add simple syrup to "taste' for sweetness. let it sit 3-4 weeks and rack and as necessary for clear wine. this is the short version.. Good luck, Join a Wine Club in your area you would be surprised who is making wine.
Reply to
Tom

Mike,

I am somewhat of a minimalist in winemaking, in that if it was too much work, I would find a different hobby that was more fun. So my approach tends to minimize the work involved. :-) I do not measure SG. However, I do use a rule of thumb to calculate the total amount of sugar I need to add to a batch to get an alcohol content that is in the normal ballpark for most wines (e.g. 9-11%). Since each batch I make is only four liters, if I screw something up, it is not a major disaster.

Most of the wine I make is done using frozen juice concentrates from the grocery store. (I know -- many readers are now cringing in shock and horror....) I find several advantages to this, such as:

-- The juice is already sterilized at the "factory" -- The pectin has already been "enzymed" because sellers of juice for drinking at breakfast have just as much motivation to deliver a sparkling clear product as winemakers do. With no effort on my part (i.e. no pectic enzyme, no fining) the wine almost always comes out crystal clear -- Lots of different juices to choose from, with no special trips to make or orders to place -- One can mix and match a few different juices to create even more different blends -- The exact sugar content is already conveniently listed on the label (in grams, no less, which is just what I want) -- If I want, I can easily make the wine that is even more intense than 100% juice simply by adding more cans of concentrate than needed to reconstitute it officially to 100% juice

So, I use the rule of thumb that 2g of sugar produces roughly 1g of alcohol, and one cup of granulated sugar is approximately 200g. In a 4L batch, then, each 80g of sugar will produce roughly 1% alcohol (40g) in the final product. I just add up what's already in the juice (six servings per can times whatever grams of sugar per serving) and then figure out how much more sugar to add to get a final alcohol level that is in the ballpark.

For a "100% juice" wine, I use three cans of frozen concentrate per 4L batch. (This is actually slightly less diluted, i.e. slightly juicier, than it should be for official reconstitution, as 4L will not quite hold 9 cans of water on top of the 3 cans of juice.) For something heavier, you can use four or five cans of concentrate and less added sugar (though with five you have to make sure it's not a juice that already has a very high sugar content or you might end up with too much sugar). For something lighter, just use two cans and more added sugar.

How juicy the final product tastes is largely determined by how long it is aged. The longer the aging, the more like wine and the less like fruit juice it tastes. For example, after about a year of aging, a wine made from Welch's White Grape Peach concentrate (which also contains apple juice) tastes pretty much like a regular white grape wine, but with a faint hint of peach in the background that you wouldn't have in a pure grape wine.

If you are a connoisseur attempting to hit a very specific flavor, acidity, alcohol content, etc. in the end product, obviously my approach would not be for you. But if you are more interested in having fun while discovering new flavors and making wines that are all perfectly drinkable, though not 100% predictable, which is where I'm coming from, then perhaps you might give it a try. Total effort per batch for me is probably less than an hour of labor from beginning to end. (I ferment it in the 4L jug, rack into other 4L jugs, and just call the final racking my "bottling" -- no corking to mess with. It just stays in the 4L jug.)

Aging is the real key. Drink one of these wines before its time and it will be pretty acidic. :-)

Utopia in Decay

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Kevin

Hello Kevin,

Very interesting. By using 100% juice do you get the SG that you want? I was thinking that I should get to 1.08-1.10 before adding other ingredients and then yeast (I'm just going with what I read on the web).

I haven't tasted anything other than grape wines except for a blueberry mead and honestly I am not sure I was able to taste the blueberries in that one. Of course, I am no expert. I would like to get other opinions on whether using more than the usual 2-4 pounds of fruit per gallon produces a "better" wine ( a wine that tastes more of the fruit but not an alcholic fruite juice).

Regards,

Mike

Reply to
Kevin Cherkauer

I've made some kit wine with FPAC's and wondered why you would want to add grape juice to the wine. But I could see were it would be beneficial to fruit wines. Think I'll give it a try with the last Peach and Apricot harvest. Thanks.

Reply to
Mark_OK

My strawberry wines are pretty simple and I use 3- 3.5 pounds per gallon too. They are nothing like grape. I use lemon juice left over from making Limoncello to acidify. around 1 quart per 6 gallons. You are better off making simple syrup for the sugar addition. I mash up the strawberries, add PE let it alone for a least half a day, add the calculated sugar to get me to 1.085 SG, add the lemon juice and balance with the water. I use taste as a guide but measure pH and TA with as goal of 1.085 SG and a TA >5 g/l.

The more strawberry the more alcohol tolerant the wine can be; some make more of a brandy than wine by using a few more pounds per gallon.

Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

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