Easy Strawberry Wine Recipe - Perfect for Beginners (2024)

FAQs

How many pounds of strawberries to make 5 gallons of wine? ›

For each gallon of wine, you'll need between 2.5 and 5 lbs. (1.13 and 2.27 kg) of strawberries. Most recipes call for 3 or 4 lbs. (1.36 or 1.81 kg), but it's your choice.

I make mostly sweet fruit wines such as strawberry, watermelon, peach, etc. and was wondering what the best yeast might be for these types of wine. You want to know what my standard, go-to, never-fail, keeps-most-wines-happy yeast is? It's called Prise de Mousse, EC1118, Davis 796 or Premier Cuvee.

Thoroughly mash fruit, add four crushed Campden tablets, cover with cheesecloth and allow container to stand four hours at room temperature. Add 10 cups sugar syrup, lemon juice, tea and yeast and allow seven days to ferment at a temperature between 60-70º F, stirring thoroughly twice daily.

On average, there are about 12-15 medium-sized strawberries in a pound. However, this number can fluctuate depending on factors such as the variety of strawberry and how tightly they are packed.

1.5 lbs = 1 quart or 2 pints or 4 cups whole strawberries.

You can of course still use bread yeast as all yeast performs the same function – converting sugar to alcohol – but your wine will likely have a much lower alcohol content than normal. The yeast best suited for baking has a lower alcohol tolerance, so it will stop fermenting after alcohol levels reach about 8%.

So in the fall and winter you need to verify that your wine is at a temperature of 65˚ to 80˚ during fermentation. Temperatures of over 85˚ can actually kill the yeast pretty quickly as the heat can spike due to the fact that the yeast creates heat during fermentation and continue to rise until it kills off the yeast.

Buy a 64 oz bottle jug of grape juice or white grape juice, open the jug and remove 16 oz., leaving 48 oz. Pour 1 1/2 cups of sugar in the jug and 1/2 teaspoon of yeast. Tighten the cap and shake well for 2–3 minutes. Loosten the cap so air can circulate and store in a warm dark place for 3 weeks.

What is the best sugar for wine making? ›

Most commonly, granulated sugar is used when wines need added sugar since it doesn't need to be broken down first like complex sugars. Virtually any type of sugar can be used by winemakers who want to experiment with different textures and sweetness levels. This includes brown sugar, molasses, honey, syrups, and more!

In many ways, grapes are the easiest fruit from which to make wine, but we also have a lot of expectations for wine made from grapes, a lot of ideas of how it should taste. Plus, wine made from grapes is widely available, so unless you've planted vines specifically to make wine, it's worth exploring other options.

Combine strawberry liquid with sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar. Pour liquid into a clean crock and let stand another week, stirring daily. After the second week, pour strawberry liquid into 1-gallon glass wine bottles and cork loosely. If you have fermentation locks, you can use those instead of a loose cork.

The most common yeast associated with winemaking is Saccharomyces cerevisiae which has been favored due to its predictable and vigorous fermentation capabilities, tolerance of relatively high levels of alcohol and sulfur dioxide as well as its ability to thrive in normal wine pH between 2.8 and 4.

Any other added ingredients can inhibit fermentation. There is no exact amount for how many pounds of fruit is needed to make 5 gallons of fruit wine (5 gallons is the common yield from most home winemaking recipes). The general guide is a range of 10-25 pounds of fruit per 5 gallons of wine.

Most fruit wines should contain anywhere from 3 to 6 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine. A smaller amount of fruit will produce a lighter, more delicate wine, while a larger amount will make a heavier, more intense wine. It's nice to have both types of wine in your cellar.

Jon Hamilton at White Winter Winery puts the fruit in primary for all of his meads. A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit. Fruit blends can produce some great-tasting meads.

You'll need about 85 to 90 pounds (39 to 41 kg) of fresh grapes (still on their stems) to make five gallons of wine. It will start off at about 2.5 lug boxes of grapes and will end up as about 25 bottles, or two cases, of wine.