Tasting the Strawberry Wine

As we had some guests round on Tuesday, we opened one of the half bottles of Strawberry wine, os that the girls could have a glass each with their meal:

(Please forgive the quality of the last few images on here – my camera is still full of holiday pictures and I keep having to delete pictures to make just enough space for the odd beer blog picture. They all looked ok on the little camera screen, but I didn’t have the space to take 2 or 3 like I normally would, just in case.)

After only a few days, its no surprise the wine tasted much as it did on bottling day. Its definitely not a wine lovers wine, but its sweet and tasty, though still with a very slight chemically after taste. It certainly went down very well with the girls.

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Bottling the Strawberry Wine

At last I finally had a free weekend, so I had lots of brew related stuff to do. I started by bottling the Strawberry wine which has been clearing for about a month. I had already knocked up some labels:

As it had been my girlfriend who had wanted me to brew this wine, I decided she could take pride of place on the label.

So, back to the bottling. I soaked 3 full sized wine bottles, 6 half sized bottles and 3 third sized bottles in sanitising solution. I shouldn’t need them all, but i wanted to be prepared just in case. I rinsed these, lifted the demijohn onto the kitchen side and inserted the syphon. The syphon had a tap at the end, and I didn’t have any tubing to put on the end of this and insert into the bottles, so I decided I would just insert the end of the tap in the bottle and hold it on the edge to minimise bubbles. I started the syphon with a quick suck, and we were off.

The first bottled filled without any problems at all. I had previously purchased a corker, but this would be the first time I used it, so wasn’t sure how easy it would be.

I had already placed some corks in a bowl of warm water to soften, so I inserted one of these into the corker, placed the pincers over the top of the bottle, and squeezed the handles. Effortlessly the cork went into the bottle. Easy 🙂

I continued with the next two bottles without any problems. However, the forth bottle wouldn’t fill. The syphon stopped sucking wine through, and even another suck on the end of the tube couldn’t get it going again. This was a real pain given I was dealing with such a small amount of wine (compared to the beer) and I really didnt want to damage over half the batch. I decided to remove the tap and see if it would come through better. It did, but too quickly now. It raced into the bottle filling a full-sized in a couple of seconds. I tried to stem the flow by squeezing the tube, but this just increased the speed the wine came out at, so I grabbed the next bottle and filled that. I continued until the wine dropped below the level of the syphon in the demijohn. All of the wine filled without the tap was massively aerated of course. I’m really hoping this doesn’t adversely affect the wine too much. I had a taste of the wine that was syphoned without problems and it tasted great. It wasn’t a very strong strawberry taste, but it was a lovely subtle and light rose style wine. It would be horrible if half the batch was ruined. I did taste some from the aerated batch, and this too tasted ok so fingers crossed. When I tried to lower the syphon in the demijohn to bottle the last bit I only succeeded in disturbing all the sediment, so I called it a day with the equivalent of 5 full bottles filled.

Having corkered all the bottled I then attached the labels and placed the bottles on the wine shelf (well it is now) in the brewery.

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Shaking up the wines

24 hours after wracking the Strawberry, and a couple of days after wracking the Merlot, I was continuing to shake the wines as often as I remembered. This involved simply removing the airlocks and covering the hole with a cleaned thumb and shaking until it stopped fizzing when I removed my thumb (or until I got bored, which ever came first).

Following the instructions, this would be the last shaking of the Strawberry, and given my busy weekend, tomorrow would be the last shaking of the Merlot. The Strawberry will now sit for a few weeks until it is completely clear, where the Merlot will tomorrow have the finings added before also being left to clear.

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Racking the Strawberry

Having given the Strawberry another 11 days after it seemed to have got to the edge of its target gravity, I decided it was time to wrack it to the secondary demijohn. Like the Merlot, I decided to take a gravity reading anyway, which was again easiest from a picture:

The gravity was really hard to read, but it definitely wasn’t any lower than the 1.008 I had measured last time.

Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite
1	8
3	4	1062
6	1.5
12	50
19	103 (after hydrometer reading)	1.008
30	103 (after hydrometer reading)	1.008

In fact, I even thought the gravity might be 1.009, so I’m not sure if that suggests a misread last time, or perhaps the gravity has dropped with the clearing of the wine. Speaking of which, the wine was already very clear, and was noticeably lighter in colour than the Merlot, which was a very dark red.

Anyway, onto the racking. I had sterilized the demijohn that had previously contained the Merlot, as well as the tubing, a grommit and an airlock. I placed the wine on the side in the kitchen, and positioned the empty demijohn in the washing up bowl on the floor. (I actually placed the washing up bowl on top of my wine making tool box so that the tubing would reach to the bottom of the demijohn.) I again sinned by sucking to get the wine going, and away it went, again without so much as a sip of win for me. 😦 As it got near the end, I very gently tipped the demijohn in order to get a little more of the clear wine off the top of the sediment.

I tried to pour a little of the remaining wine from the nearly empty demijohn into a glass to taste, but as soon as I moved the demijohn the sediment mixed with the clear wine to turn it very sludgy. I was impressed at just how much the wine had cleared, and how well the stiff tubing had taken the wine from above the sediment without disturbing it.

The instructions suggested mixing the stabiliser with a couple of tablespoons of water and then adding it to the primary demijohn. As I was wracking to a secondary to remove much of the sediment, I actually added the stabiliser into the empty demijohn before wracking the wine into it. As instructed, I then added the Strawberry flavouring to the wine. This took the form of a small clear sachet containing a surprisingly small amount of red liquid. Unlike with the Merlot, the instructions then told me to add the finings straight away, before shaking the demijohn vigorously for a few minutes. I must then shake it on at least 6 occasions over the next 24 hours, before leaving it a few weeks to clear. I wondered whether the difference between this and the Merlot (where I hat to add just the stabiliser and shake the contents regularly over 3 days before adding the finings and then leaving to clear) was a genuine difference, or just lazier instructions given with a cheaper kit where it wouldn’t make much difference, and might be being made by a less professional brewer.

I found after a few minutes of shaking, the wine stopped fizzing when I removed my thumb.

I replaced the airlock and placed the demijohn back in the brewery, with the intention of shaking it a few times over the next 24 hours.

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Strawberry Wine looking good

After checking on the Merlot, I decided to see how the Strawberry was doing too. After leaving the hydrometer to soak in the sanitising solution for a couple of minutes I rinsed it and dropped it gently into the strawberry wine. Again, I photographed it so that I had a definitive record to compare against next time. Unfortunately I couldnt take a picture through the glass demijohn, so I had to take it through the opening:

 

Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite
1	8
3	4	1062
6	1.5
12	50
19	103 (after hydrometer reading)	1.008

As the picture shows, the gravity is around the middle of the small black band on the hydrometer, which is the 1.008 mark. This actually puts it in the target of 1002-1008, however, as it is still bubbling, all be it slowly, it has clearly not stopped fermenting yet. The instructions do state that it should not drop below 1.002, so hopefully it is fairly close to finishing.

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Massive slowdown in the Strawberry

After checking on the Merlot, I realised I hadn’t done a bubble count on the Strawberry in a while, so I sat down by the demijohn with a watch and timed how long it took, on average, between bubbles:

Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite
1	8
3	4	1062
6	1.5
12	50

Comments:

• The bubble rate has dropped massively, but I did forget to take any readings for 6 days.
• Given the very fast bubble rate previously, it is possible that this could have could the Merlot up and almost have finished fermenting.>/li>
• Given the goings on with the Merlot uncertainty, despite the suggestion from the bubble rate that the Strawberry might be coming to the end of fermentation, I will be leaving this alone for a week or so yet.
• I will give the Strawberry plenty of time to finish. All the advice is that leaving it in the primary for longer, even if fermentation finishes, should do no harm at all.
• It should continue to provide me with feedback via the airlock.

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Strawberry bubbling like crazy

While I was checking on the Merlot, I spotted that the Strawberry was bubbling away much faster than it was previously, so I decided to do another count for future information:

Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite
1	8
3	4	1062
6	1.5

It really is bubbling fast now. The temperature in the brewery is around 17 degrees currently so I don’t think it is too hot, so hopefully this is fermenting as it should. Interesting at this point the Merlot had already slowed to more than 9 seconds per bubble. It will be interesting to see if the Strawberry finishes fermenting any quicker.

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Topping up the Strawberry

Yesterday evening marked 3 days since I had set the Brewmaker Strawberry wine going, so according to the instructions it was time to top up the demijohn to the 4.5 litre level. Before doing this I measureed the bubble rate again:

Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite
1	8
3	4	1062

Now onto the topping up. The instructions stated that “tepid” water should be used, so I filled up a sanitised jug a couple of times with cold tap water and a hint of boiled water and topped up the wine to the 4.5 litre level I had marked when starting the Strawberry. The instructions then stated that I should shake the demijohn well. This still seemed very strange given the beer and wine I had done previously required air to be kept out. However, I placed a sanitised bunk in the demijohn and shook fairly lightly for 30 seconds. There was a noticeable sediment layer on the bottle of the demijohn already, so I wonder if this instruction is about re-suspending the yeast (though the instructions only suggest this for certain flavours of wine – and the flavour is only added at the end of fermentation – all very strange).

Anyway, with the demijohn now filled to the required level and mixed I thought I would take a hydrometer reading. This came in at 1062. I then replaced the airlock (after replacing some lost water from it) and took a picture.

I finally placed the demijohn back in the brewery and wrapped the tea towel around it. I will continue to monitor the the bubbles over the next few weeks.

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The Strawberry is fermenting

Having started to Brewmaker’s Strawberry wine, I was keen to check whether it had started fermenting, so I did a bubble count yesterday:

Day	Time per bubble (secs)
0	infinite
1	8

Observations:

• I was pleased to see it bubbling, though a little concerned its not as quick as I’d hoped.
• My first Merlot reading was after 3 days, so it will be interesting to compare then.

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Brewmaker Strawberry Wine

Given that my lovely ladyfriend has not only been ok with my new hobby but she has actively encouraged me, I thought I should have a stab at Strawberry wine she was eyeing up on our first trip to the brew shop. I was already planning a trip back to Harvey’s (see 4u2brew in my blogroll) so added 2 second hand glass demijohns (at just £2.49 each), 2 rubber bungs and airlocks, a bung without a hole in to help with shaking the bottle, and a pack of the Brewmaker Strawberry wine. There was a choice between Young’s or Brewmaker’s, but the owner said they were moving to sell only the Brewmaker’s as it was easier to make a good wine with.

The pack contained a tin of juice and, hidden in a plastic top on the tin, 5 sachets of ingredients and some instructions.

After giving one of the demijohns a good couple of hours full of a strong sterilising solution and then a good rinse, I got to work on the wine instructions. I opened the tin (having placed the end I was going to open in sterilising liquid) with a sterilised can opened. I didn’t have a funnel, so I poured the contents into a jug to ensure I could pour it into the demijohn without spilling any. In addition to the juice, I added a further 1.8 litres of cold water to the demijohn. (I did realise as I was getting started that I hadn’t sterilised the jug. It had already been cleaned, so I rinsed it with just boiled water, so hopefully that will be ok.)

I weighed out 16oz of granulated sugar (Tate and Lyne cane sugar) and poured it into the jug, which I had filled with 500ml of fresh boiled water, and began stirring. I was supposed to add the sugar to 600ml but the jug wouldn’t hold this plus the sugar (I found this out the stupid way but I don’t think I lost too much sugar, and I added some extra water to the demijohn). I took the boiling water from the kettle, and by the time I’d poured in the sugar I think it had cooled a bit so it was a struggle to get all the sugar to disolve, but I just about managed it, and then added the liquid to the demijohn.

I carefully poured the contents of 2 sachets into the demijohn, the first being wine yeast, and the second Nutrafine. I then placed the bug (without a hole in) in the demijohn and shook the bottle for around a minute to ensure everything was well mixed. I then placed the airlock in another bung and pushed it into the demijohn to seal it.

Finally I placed the demijohn in the brewery and wrapped a tea towel around it. There is nothing more to do now for 3 days, when I will have to add the remaining water to make it up to 4.5 litres.

Comments:

• I don’t have very high expectations for this kit. I’m more into my traditional wines, but hopefully this will turn out well, and more importantly my girlfriend will like it.
• The instructions suggest the wine should now be stored somewhere with a temperature between 20 and 30 degrees C. The brewery is definitely lower than this, and given the wine was made with cold water, I hope it ferments ok.
• I will be looking out for bubbles tomorrow.
• I am surprised that the kit suggests adding water and then shaking after three days at which point the fermentation will have begun. With the beer, and aeration of the liquid while fermenting is a big no no. I will try to do some research on this before the 3 days are up.

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