|
On June 20, 2006, Vesper and I set out for Baggenstos Farms
to pick strawberries for this year's wine. My initial goal was
thirty-five pounds, but the berries we picked weighed in at over 59 pounds.
Here they are filling the whole rear cargo compartment of my Suburban.
|
Michael emptied four of the boxes of berries into these two buckets, but
it quickly became apparent that we would need another bucket. He zipped
off to a local sub sandwich shop (Monkey's Subs - incredible subs!) where the owners generously gave him a five gallon pickle bucket (pictured in photos below).
|
This is the
reference book that Michael and I use to make all of our wine. I figured
that I should start giving these two guys some credit for the wine that we
make loosely following their guidelines. I did a Google search and
found the book here (Click on that word).
|
This is the active dry wine yeast that we used both last year and this year.
|
|
I had to set aside a few of those berries for some homemade strawberry shortcake. Who could resist?
|
Michael usually has me pick up pure (not from concentrate) orange juice that
we then boil and let cool to room temperature. However, this year he
bought some generic juice from concentrate, and just set it on the counter
for a while to obtain room temperature. When I asked him why he wasn't
going to the usual effort, he said, "I like to live on the wild side." Uh,
okay...
|
This strawberry wine recipe calls for citric acid, so I'll be using my juicer to squeeze out the juice.
|
The two biggest buckets with their strawberries (before crushing).
|
|
|
Michael began smashing the strawberries with an empty sake bottle.
|
Smooshing, and mooshing, smushing and mushing. Do people really like to do this with their feet?
When we were done smashing the berries, each of the large buckets registered at the two and three-quarters gallons mark.
|
|
These pots are full of sugar water. The sugar has to be completely
dissolved before being added to the buckets of berries. We had a total
of thirty-five pounds of sugar that we dissolved over the course of the evening.
|
I managed to get this much lemon juice to use as our citric acid. We
poured 2/3 of a cup into each of the large buckets, and 1/3 of a cup into
the smaller (green) bucket.
|
Here Michael is pouring some of the boiling sugar water into one of the buckets of berries.
|
Each of the large buckets took about 13 pounds of sugar dissolved in water.
We brought the overall levels up to seven and a half gallons (from
the original 2 and 3/4 gallons of mashed berries).
The smaller bucket took about nine pounds of sugar-water.
|
|
Here we are pouring
in the citric acid (fresh-squeezed lemon juice). As I mentioned above,
2/3 of a cup went into each of the big buckets and 1/3 of a cup went into
the small bucket.
|
The strawberries were so pulpy that it was difficult to get an accurate potential
alcohol reading on the hydrometer. We finally decided that we had 10.5
on Bucket #1 (big), and 11 on both Bucket #2 (big) and Bucket #3 (small).
|
Bucket #1, Bucket #2 and Bucket #3, respectively.
|
Because I'd forgotten to mention to Michael that I planned to go strawberry
picking, we didn't have all of our wine-making supplies on hand. We
only had enough Campden Tablets left to put four in each bucket. Campden
tablets will help to kill any bacteria or native yeasts on the strawberries.
I'll pick up more at Main Street Homebrew tomorrow.
|
|
Diammonium Phosphate is a yeast nutrient.
|
|
To each of the larger buckets, we added 2 1/2 teaspoons
of Diammonium Phosphate. We added just 2 teaspoons to the smaller bucket.
|
Once the orange
juice had warmed up (it had been refrigerated) on the counter for a while,
we went ahead and sprinkled the yeast onto the top.
|
|
No stirring. The yeast is just supposed to sit on top of the juice.
We leave it undisturbed on the countertop for about eighteen to twenty-four
hours.
|
All of the buckets have received their numbers and pads (onto which we record the dates we add or do anything to the wine).
|
Lots of wine potential here!
|
On June 21st, I made a trip into Hillsboro to Main Street Homebrew
for the list of supplies that Michael left for me. Here are some of
the things I picked up: additional airlock stoppers, acid blend, pectic
enzyme, campden tablets, potassium meta-bisulfate and diammonium phosphate.
|
