I'm not sure how many of you make your own. But I'm sure that most of us at least appreciate wine. I know I sure do.
With good wine being so expensive I like to make my own. Which will be even cheaper once my strawberries and raspberries start producing.
I mashed up a batch of strawberry kiwi wine. I like a sweet wine as opposed to dry and strawberry wine seems to naturally come out sweet without using a lot of sugar.
For a 5 gallon must I use six pounds of strawberry three kiwis and four pounds of sugar. That's two thirds less sugar than my sweet grape wine.
Make sure you boil your fruits after mashing them to kill the natural yeast as these yeasts tend to produce off flavors and like to use alcohol as fuel once the sugar is gone. Which in turn produces water. To make things simpler I mash them in a blender and add them to normal filtered water then boil. After its boiled for 10 minutes I pour it in a 5 gallon bucket and add the sugar. Too it off with filtered water and wait until it cools.
Once it's below 80 degrees F I add normal redstar yeast and put a lid on it with an airtrap. Then let it sit until it's only burping every few seconds. That takes about two weeks. I'll then rack it into a 5 gallon carboy. I siphon it to reduce the amount of sediment and put an airtrap on the opening and let it sit in the basement for about a month. Then rack it again back into my bucket then back into the carboy and let it sit for another month.
After this I'll bottle it and let it sit for six months. It mellows the flavor a lot in just a little bit of time.
Then enjoy.
With good wine being so expensive I like to make my own. Which will be even cheaper once my strawberries and raspberries start producing.
I mashed up a batch of strawberry kiwi wine. I like a sweet wine as opposed to dry and strawberry wine seems to naturally come out sweet without using a lot of sugar.
For a 5 gallon must I use six pounds of strawberry three kiwis and four pounds of sugar. That's two thirds less sugar than my sweet grape wine.
Make sure you boil your fruits after mashing them to kill the natural yeast as these yeasts tend to produce off flavors and like to use alcohol as fuel once the sugar is gone. Which in turn produces water. To make things simpler I mash them in a blender and add them to normal filtered water then boil. After its boiled for 10 minutes I pour it in a 5 gallon bucket and add the sugar. Too it off with filtered water and wait until it cools.
Once it's below 80 degrees F I add normal redstar yeast and put a lid on it with an airtrap. Then let it sit until it's only burping every few seconds. That takes about two weeks. I'll then rack it into a 5 gallon carboy. I siphon it to reduce the amount of sediment and put an airtrap on the opening and let it sit in the basement for about a month. Then rack it again back into my bucket then back into the carboy and let it sit for another month.
After this I'll bottle it and let it sit for six months. It mellows the flavor a lot in just a little bit of time.
Then enjoy.
First batch was so-so (used regular yeast for that one), second was great after aging for 6 months, third one is still working, but after tasting I think it's going to be a little sweeter than what I normally like. But - still drinkable! We need a "cheers" emoji!
