Strawberry Wine

We went from this in June...

To this...

 To this...

Then to a 5 gallon carboy pictured here.

Finally yesterday we finished with this!

This 5 gallon batch made 26 bottles.

Isn't that a lovely color? Strawberry wine can have an unappealing brown color, but not this stuff. We used 10 quarts of strawberries to make this batch, and the redness stayed strong.

Of course we had to sample it. It's very tasty!  We have read that it's good to let strawberry wine go for 2 years. I'm sure that's a great idea, but holy cow! That would mean June of 2013. There's no hope, because we tasted it. We're like a mountain lion that got a taste for the rancher's cattle. The only way to keep us away now is to shoot us!

Racking, Racking, Racking Wine

We finished out the night racking wine.  We racked red grape, white grape and on the end is strawberry.

 

We hope this will be the last racking of our strawberry wine. I think this was the third time since June. The rule of thumb for us is too rack,rack, rack and keep racking until the lees have absolutely disappeared from the bottom of the carboy.

Lees at the bottom of the strawberry wine.

Here's that miraculous siphoning tool I mentioned to Jane in the comments on her last post about wine. It creates its own suction, never back spills, and is even forgiving when you raise the intake too high and lose suction. You can find it at High Gravity Brew and other wine brewing stores online for around $10. I highly recommend it.

Pickling Jalapenos & bottling Wine

Our central Pennsylvania version of Mexican pickled jalapenos and carrots

Bel and I really miss southern California for all the hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants. They were as ubiquitous as Italian restaurants are here or Teriyaki restaurants are in the Seattle area. And one thing we loved about them, was the pickled jalapeno and carrot bar. Don't misunderstand me when I say "bar". The jalapeno bar was less like a large salad bar and more like a condiment choice -right next to the ketchup and hot sauce. The jalapenos and carrots usually came in pre-measured sandwich baggies.

I share all that to say that Bel has brought SoCal in a jar to central PA. All I want to know is how long do we have to wait? As soon as they're ready, they'll be gone!

Our stash of 2010 apple and 2011 strawberry wine just before bottling the apple and racking the strawberry.

We bottled 10 gallons of 2010 apple wine and racked this summers crop of strawberry wine last week. We're very excited about the strawberry wine. It's our first ever batch. But we have to wait until Labor Day 2012. The apple wine will be ready around Christmas this year.

Finally, a special thanks to  HangKebon for becoming a follower! We hope you enjoy our blog.