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All My Junk — In One Place

6 months later…here we are. This has been the toughest batch yet.  To start, strawberry seeds aren’t exactly easy to filter out of mash.  And second, sometime last week, my carboy decided to crack and leak about 1/2 a gallon of wine.  Lucky for me, I keep my carboy in the the primary barrel.

So here’s what I’ve learned this time around.

• Clarifying agents are awesome.
• Adding an extra tsp of wine tannin to this batch really brought out it’s color.
• I’m using white wine bottles to bottle this batch.  I recycle used wine bottles, and it seems that for some reason unknown to me, it’s much easier to peel wine labels from white wine bottles than red wine bottles.
• BUY AN AUTO-SYPHONER.
• While the auto-syphoner works well when racking, I still have to manually syphon to bottle.  This means contamination from the mouth.  I’ve found the best way to battle bacteria and such is to drink and gargle vodka before you make the syphon.
• Putting corks in hot water makes it easier to cork the bottles.
• Grow your thumbnails long. This helps to scrape labels off of recycled bottles.  Also, buy lots of steel wool.
• Did I mention drink vodka?  Wait, what was I talking about?

So here it is in all it’s glory.  Count them. 29. 29 BOTTLES OF WINE MWA HA HA HA!   Did I mention vodka? Oh wait…I mean wine.  Strawberry at that.

The only thing I’ve been slacking on is a label.  I’m up for suggestions.  Submit them if you want.  I’ll give you credit.  My photoshop Paintbrush skills are lacking.  If you send me the winning label, I’ll credit you on it and send you a bottle, if the ATTB don’t catch me.

To submit your label ideas, send them to benwoody@gmail.com

Also, I think i’m going to be a big shot and submit this to Diggnation and Wine Library TV….just ’cause I can.

Here’s to you.

Cheers….

~Ben

…So it definitely has alcohol in it…

Makes 6 Gallons

24 lbs. fresh wild strawberries

15 lbs granulated sugar

6 gallons 180 F water

6 tsp. acid blend

6 tsp. pectic enzyme

1.5 tsp. grape tannin

6 crushed campden tablets

1 packet champagne yeast

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Crush strawberries in fruit strain bag with hands. Add everything except campden, pectic enzyme and yeast in bucket and cover with hot water. Stir well to disolve sugar. Cover and add campden after 2-4 hours. After 12 hours, add pectic enzyme and after another 12, add yeast. Cover and stir daily for 7 days. On 7th day, remove bag and strain strawberry juice. Siphon into primary and tap off. Rack every 30 days until wine clears and then bottle. Best after 6 months, awesome after a year.

Drink and enjoy

~Ben