Two homemade strawberry wine recipes

The British of the 17th and 18th centuries did not appreciate strawberry wine. Apparently, the lack of experience in winemaking and an overabundance of a sense of their own greatness did not allow them to prepare this wonderful drink properly. We will do everything at home as if by science.

It may seem strange to you, but the history of strawberry wine begins long before the appearance of many alcoholic beverages in principle. Perhaps the French were the pioneers, but they always had grapes. So I tend to think that the first strawberry wine was made in Great Britain, whose land is so scarce that it is almost impossible to grow any wine-growing material on them. In any case, the first strawberry wine recipe dates back to 1745. It is believed that it was at this time that strawberries were brought to England from neighboring France. It was a hybrid from North and South America.

Do you think the inhabitants of foggy Albion appreciated the new drink? Ugh, right now! I especially liked the recipe from 1832, which says: “take two hundred baskets of good, ripe strawberries for a barrel (about 166 liters) of wine and 64 pounds (about 28 kg) of brown sugar …” and, for a moment, add “fourteen gallons (about 53 k) good white rum.” In general, the British did not appreciate the new wine. In 1830 the Bishop of Calcutta declared (author’s translation):

Rejoice strawberries! You are always a divine fruit, but not wine …

We’ll see…

Recipe for strawberry wine “folk”

In general, wine made from strawberries is not bad. True, if you expect a dense, rich, sweet-tart taste from it, then you are deeply mistaken. No, dessert or liquor strawberry will be nothing at all, but a completely “dry” product, in which sugar has fermented completely and completely, gives real pleasure. Unlike most fruit wines, which require sweetening to round out the flavor and bring out the fruity character, strawberry wine is self-sufficient, with a strong flavor and almost perfumery aroma.

When you drink your homemade product, you will have no doubt that it is made from strawberries. For example, pear wine can be easily confused with apple wine. This will not happen with strawberries. In addition, strawberries have optimal characteristics for making wines – acidity in the region of 0,6-0,8% and sweetness up to 9,2% sugar. In other words, to prepare a delicious drink, apart from the berries themselves, you may not need anything else. True, for the preparation of pure dry wine, you will have to acquire serious patience.

If you are not ready to wait 3-4 months and work tirelessly, take a closer look at strawberry liqueur – it cooks much faster and is similar to wine in many ways. Also less laborious is strawberry liqueur, the tax of the legendary Xu Xu.

I called this recipe folk, because for its implementation you only need strawberries and nothing more. Actually, it is difficult to call it a recipe. Just a step-by-step instruction, following which you can get good wine material without resorting to additional winemaking equipment and ingredients. The only thing is to sterilize the entire inventory very well – strawberry wine with wild yeast sometimes behaves very unstable. So let’s go.

1. Strawberries try to choose the best quality, the freshest. Get rid of every spoiled or suspicious-looking berry. Remove cuttings. If the berries look clean enough, then you don’t need to wash them, but it’s better not to risk it and rinse under running water – wild yeast is everywhere, so the must will definitely become infected. One can only hope that the infection will pass with the right yeast cultures. You can prepare the starter in advance.

2. Grind the berries with your hands until smooth, into a liquid puree. It is better not to use mechanical crushers – damaged strawberry pits will give the drink a bitter taste. Transfer the resulting puree to any sterile container, and cover it with a lid, and preferably with gauze in a couple of layers. Put it in a secluded corner at a temperature of 18-23^оFrom day 3-4. Then start stirring the wort intensively every 2-3 days so that the cake from the cake does not mold, and the wort is saturated with the necessary oxygen.

3. Two weeks after crushing the berries, we leave the wort at rest until a dense cap forms on its surface. Collect the hat with a sterile saucepan and transfer it to a sieve over the pan so that the juice remaining in it drains by gravity. This usually takes several hours, so cover the top of the sieve with a clean cloth. You can also transfer all the cake in a canvas bag or cheesecloth and hang over a saucepan or bowl.

4. Pour the collected juice from the cake and the one that remained in the first container into a sterile fermentation container from the water seals. You can use a glove, but it’s better to build a simple water lock from a dropper or buy a factory one that costs a penny – it will be more reliable. In this form, the wort under the water seal should ferment for 8-10 days, after which you need to remove the water seal and, if possible, collect the pulp accumulated on top with a saucepan or sieve. It is best to use a wide mouth fermenter.

5. Now the future wine can be filtered through a sieve or several layers of gauze, removing a maximum of large particles. This process is painstaking and time-consuming, but necessary. The resulting partially clarified wort must be poured back into the fermenter and placed under a water seal. Here begins the stage of the so-called “silent fermentation”, which can last from 1 to 3 months.

6. Every 7-10 days, the wine must be carefully removed from the sediment with a silicone hose. Most likely, after a week of “silent fermentation”, the yeast will process almost all the sugar that was contained in the strawberries, so they need to be fed a little – add sugar or fructose. To obtain table dry wine per liter of juice, it is enough to add 50-100 g of sugar. We remember that it is better to add sugar in portions, so it is better to divide it into 3 batches and add it after removing the wine from the sediment.

Recipe for strawberry wine using winemaking technology

The first recipe is not bad, just the result is very unpredictable, although it is believed that strawberries are indulgent to the mistakes of a novice winemaker. But why not use the benefits of civilization and reduce all risks to a minimum? Yeast for wine or champagne, tannins, pectin enzymes if possible, yeast nutrition and potassium metabisulphite (sulphur) or sodium bisulfite. All this can be easily found in any wine shop. I offer two proven recipes that yield a very original dry strawberry wine with a bright strawberry flavor.

At 18-19 liters of wine:

• 5,6-6 kg strawberries
• 1/8 tsp sodium bisulfate
• pectin enzyme (follow package directions)
• 5 tsp standard yeast nutrition
• 1 tsp grape tannin
• 3 tsp citric acid (you can replace part of the tartaric)
• 3,6 kg of sugar
• 1 pack of Lavlin EC-1118 or Lavlin D-47 wine yeast

or without tannins and acids…

• 11-11,5 kg strawberries
• 1/4 tsp sodium bisulfate
• pectin enzyme (follow package directions)
• 5 tsp standard yeast nutrition
• 5,4-5,5 kg sugar
• 1 pack of Lavlin EC-1118 or Lavlin D-47 wine yeast

For the picky: the optimal level of acidity of strawberry must is 0,60%, the more strawberries are used, the less tannin is needed, for every 3,5 kg of strawberries you need about 1/16 tsp. sodium bisulfite for wort disinfection.

1. Prepare strawberries in the same way as the first recipe. Cut it into large pieces with a knife and transfer to a suitable container (plastic or metal bucket), add enough water to completely cover the berries. Add sodium bisulfite, a mixture of acids and tannin there. Do not add yeast nutrition and yeast yet. Add pectin enzyme in the amount indicated on the package (you need to add it based on the total volume of the wort, that is, 18-20 liters) – it is necessary for the complete decomposition of pectins and obtaining liquid wort without grinding it. Cover the container with a clean cloth and leave it for 24 hours.

2. Add enough water to the wort so that its total volume is 18-19 liters. Add sugar (you can break it into portions and add a part during the main, “silent” fermentation) and stir it well until completely dissolved. You can also make syrup from sugar. Add yeast nutrition and yeast. Cover the container with a clean towel and wait a week until the first fermentation is over. In the process, it is desirable to periodically mix the wort and knock down the cap from the pulp.

3. It’s time to make a transfusion. We make it by analogy with the 5th point from the first recipe – our task is to get the most clarified wort. We put the wort under a water seal for the main fermentation, which usually lasts 4-6 weeks with wine yeast. In the process of fermentation, we repeat all the procedures from the first recipe: drain, add sugar, if you didn’t add it right away, ventilate. After another 1-2 weeks, you should get the most clarified, dry strawberry wine.

The resulting drink can be sweetened if desired, but do not forget that in this way we give food to the yeast, due to which fermentation and undesirable strengthening of the wine can continue. Experienced winemakers use potassium sorbate to prevent unwanted fermentation.

That’s the whole wisdom of obtaining strawberry wine, which will pleasantly surprise even the most picky snobs who consider wine to be a drink exclusively from grapes. I am sure that even the Pope himself, not like the Bishop of Calcutta, will appreciate him.

Be surprised and surprise others!