Strawberry wine question

They certainly would be good for making an OK wine and there have been several books written specifically about this (CJJ Berry's "Winemaking with Canned and Dried Ingredients").

As Negodki says, beware of preservatives that could inhibit initial fermentation. Unlike Negodki's recipe, however, I would use a lot more than just one fifteen and a half ounce tin of fruit - treat the weight of the canned fruit as you would the fresh ingredients minus the juice - remember that an average gallon of dry wine could contain up to 4 or 5 pounds of fruit. If the syrup includes sugar take this as part of the final sugar content you'll need to use - you may need a hydrometer but - hey - guesswork is good!!

Actually, the recipe came from the book you mention. Strawberry has a lot of flavour, and the single tin works well. Surprised me as well. :)

I agree that it is better to use a hydrometer than recipe to determine the precise sugar addition.

Well, I will say, so far, I have tried to make strawberry wine twice with fresh berries. I am wholly unimpressed with both the flavor profile (tastes funky for some reason) and the color (pale, brownish red). I suspect canned (cooked and color-set, flavor-set) berries would make a more fruity strawberry pie-like wine that would probably be an improvement over the fresh berries. Anyone else with more experience that can offer some comments and advice?

Sure, if you check the archives for a thread by myself, titled "pure strawberry plans" there is a lot of discussion about techniques. I ended up making ~20 liters of wine with ~30 kilos of strawberries. I cheated a bit and chapitalized with some strawberry syrup, but I set the colour of the berries my warming them to around 60 or 70C for a bit before fermenting the whole lot of them on the pulp for four days and then pressed and topped up with some commercial rose' and it's been aging since mid-july. The bouquet is nothing short of amazing. It still needs to be prepared for bottling but the colour is quite rich as well and it shows no browning you speak of either. Eventually I will put up a page and share my notes and recipe. HTH

Hi Negodki - I thought the recipe looked familiar! Many of the recipes CJJ's book call for just single tins of fruit - I've tried some of them and they do seem a little thin and in need of body. However, as you rightly say, strawberries are a very flavoursome fruit and maybe a single tin might be enough. Some of the more modern books about canned fruit winemaking do ask for a greater content of fruit and having tried these I feel that the extra couple of tins is worthwhile (personal taste!!!) - you must also remember that when CJJ wrote his book almost 40 years ago tinned fruit was somewhat of a luxury in his native post war ration concious UK and was probably quite expensive and in short supply!

You have to be careful with your expectations when fermenting any fruit -- the result is usually very different than the taste of the original fruit or juice. People who try my strawberry wine are always surprised by it and make comments like "it's not at all what I would have expected" but they generally enjoy it. I do too, but when I eventually do it again I'll probably use more fruit and less sugar. I basically followed Jack Keller's recipes but used a bit less sugar because otherwise it would've come out at >15% abv (not sure why). Anyhow, the bouquet is big and definitely has strong strawberry notes, but it's really nothing like fresh strawberries or even most strawberry-flavoured beverages.

Cheers, Richard

I made 2 batches last year (10 gal total) and I have none left. It is quite popular with my guests and friends. I made them from frozen strawberries from a local grocery. I pick a half of a bushel this spring to make wine, but my wife and I tried them in a margarita and thus they were all used for that ;)

I have done some taste trials with this year's strawberry batch. I do find that if it is sweetened to semi-sweet or more, the strawberry flavor really shines. As I usually drink dry wines, I was trying to make a dry strawberry

-- it has an ok flavor as a dry wine, but as I mentioned -- a little funky. I will definitely sweeten this one up and offer it to my friends! Now, I just need to find something to help me with the color . . .

Is it the pH? As I'm sure you know low pH will produce an unpleasant color. If the pH is adjusted during or rather at the beginning of fermentation it will make the color jump out like no bodies business. I'm not sure what ph adjustment after fermentation will do. Why not give it a try on a bottle and see what happens?

I heated my strawberry must to about 70C for about half an hour or so and then did my adujustements and such, much in the way Jack describes the Poteet winery's method for doing strawberry wine... the colour is akin to a light pinot noir actually... I should take a picture of it sometime.