Strawberry Wine

You will need

• Strawberries, ripe1.5 kg
• Sugar1.1 kg
• Pectic enzymeper dose
• Finings (bentonite or isinglass), if neededper maker's dose
• Waterto 4.5 L
• Wine yeast + nutrient1 sachet

Picking it at the right moment

• Strawberry

  Ripe when red all over including around the shoulders, and fragrant — a white or green tip means underripe, and they barely ripen after picking.

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise. Hull and crush the strawberries under 2 L cooled boiled water; add pectic enzyme when cool.

2. 2

   Add sugar dissolved warm, top to 4.5 L (reading ~1.085), pitch yeast and nutrient. Ferment on the pulp two days, then strain and finish under airlock.

3. 3

   The lesson: strawberry is one of the classic wines that ferments fine but simply will not go bright — a soft, stubborn haze that pectic enzyme alone does not fully fix. This is what finings are for.

4. 4

   Once fermentation has finished and the wine has had a few weeks to drop what it will, if it is still hazy add a fining agent — bentonite (a clay that pulls particles down) or isinglass — following the dose on the packet, and leave it a week undisturbed.

5. 5

   Rack carefully off the compacted sediment the finings leave. Finings work by dragging the haze to the bottom, so the gain is lost if you stir it back up.

6. 6

   Bottle bright. Strawberry fades fast — drink it inside the year while the fruit is still there.