Strawberry impulse madness! What to do now?

[Random Badger]

Spotted some strawberries this evening being reduced to 5p due to reaching their end date. They look fine, so I blew 40p and bought what seems to be 1.8kg with the notion of fermenting them, but no firm plan as to what to do. So here I am looking for advice please.

1) Is there an acknowledged best/simple way to prepare the strawberries (e.g. just squash them and boil). Will there be a lot of filtering involved?

2) Is it best to wait until they are all really ripe?

3) I'm assuming this isn't enough to fill a demijohn so I will need to combine them with something (apple juice, grape juice or whatever) so any favourite recipes for using them in cider or wine? based on skimming the wine from juice thread I was thinking maybe the strawberries (with sugar and water) plus a litre of apple juice and a litre of red grape? Or just add them to apple juice for a cider?

Cheers!

 

[An Ankoù]

I would suggest you wash them, mash them to a purée and freeze until one of our winemaker buffs comes up with a recipe or until you find one online. Not sure that boiling them is a good idea. 1.8 kg sounds more than enough for a gallon. If it were me, I'd be looking for a way of making Fruli.

 

[Tommo 2]

Best way with strawberry’s or any other fresh fruit is to use 4 lb per gallon freshly picked ; strawberry farm or other fruit farms , I have an allotment so get all my fruit for wine making off there , and freeze it fresh as poss, then when you want to make a recipe just put the required amount into your fermenter straight from the freezer and let thaw, best possible way for maximum juice extraction known to man, when totally thawed add one crushed Camden tablet per gallon and leave covered for 24 hours then proceed with recipe . I don’t know we’re the strawberries are coming from in supermarkets at the moment but my wife tells me there bloody tasteless at this time of year , so if I were you I would taste one and if not very tasty wait for the summer and find a pick your own farm then get some fresh and freeze them ASAP .I Usually make around four gallons a year of strawberry wine, last year mixed in some gooseberrys turned out gorgeous

 

[DocAnna]

Hi. PM'd you some recipes. As for extracting the juice, I completely second (third) the recommendation for freezing, and definitely don't boil the juice. Freezing bursts the cells and makes extracting the juice easier. Don't use a blender as it will blend the bitter/pithy parts as well, less of a problem with strawberries than raspberries to be fair though. The recipes all use sugar, but for more body and rounded flavour it's better to use grape juice or even better wine grape juice concentrate. The conversions for recipes which I use based on bringing together information a couple of years ago:

250ml grape concentrate = 1 litre of grape juice = 250g approx raisins/sultanas = 1kg frozen grapes = 160g sugar (glucose(dextrose)/sucrose)

Anna

 

[johncrobinson]

Whatever you do
Dont boil them.

 

[Scottyburto]

I'm sure there's a fatal attraction gif somewhere crying out to be used!

 

[Random Badger]

Whatever you do
Dont boil them.

That's interesting that there is strong feeling about this point, as when I first did a quick search I found recipes/methods where boiling before fermenting (including to kill wild yeast) is recommended.

 

[Nicks90]

I'd agree with what tommo said, this time of year strawberries are forced and taste of not a lot.
Personally I'd probably still use them. Freeze the lot and then dump them in 4l of apple juice with a Campden tablet for day.
Add some cider yeast and give it 2 weeks and rack to a clean demijohn.

Should make a pleasant cider, but I'd avoid using them for wine. That quintessential strawberry taste struggles with fermentation as it is, using low grade out of season fruit will just get lost in a wine.

 

[johncrobinson]

They can be scalded with boiling water or a bit campden added to kill off any wild yeast,But you definitely don't want to cook them

 

[Tommo 2]

You never wash strawberries even if your just eating them freshly picked from your own garden ( same as mushrooms) so why on earth would you scold them , just freeze them , then when you want to use them put required amount in to fermenter and let them thaw slowly, you will be amazed how much juice is extracted when the ice crystals break down, then when thawed add crushed Camden tablet dissolved in a little warm water to the fermenter with your strawberry juice mix gently and leave for twenty four hours, this will get rid of any unwanted wild yeasts or anything else nasty, then just proceed with your said recipe

 

[Gerryjo]

Hi. PM'd you some recipes. As for extracting the juice, I completely second (third) the recommendation for freezing, and definitely don't boil the juice. Freezing bursts the cells and makes extracting the juice easier. Don't use a blender as it will blend the bitter/pithy parts as well, less of a problem with strawberries than raspberries to be fair though. The recipes all use sugar, but for more body and rounded flavour it's better to use grape juice or even better wine grape juice concentrate. The conversions for recipes which I use based on bringing together information a couple of years ago:

250ml grape concentrate = 1 litre of grape juice = 250g approx raisins/sultanas = 1kg frozen grapes = 160g sugar (glucose(dextrose)/sucrose)

Anna

Nice piece of advice there so good to know. Would be interested in your recipes if possible @DocAnna

 

[johncrobinson]

Freezing works extremely well for other soft fruits not just strawberry's.

I have to say though that compared to fruits such as blackberry's it is more than a little difficult to "capture" that strawberry essence.
It is such a delicate flavour,Very easily overpowered or lost as indeed is the colour.It is far more likely to end up a very pale rose rather than a red.

 

[Tommo 2]

I would agree will if you were making jam my wife always has to make the jam from fresh strawberries, apparently there’s a few problems from freezing them but mostly getting the jam to set, but for wine making you couldn’t be more wrong and as for taste just pick fresh on a sunny warm day and the wine bursts with favour, is a good wine to mix with other fresh fruit, have done a strawberry and rhubarb , as mentioned a strawberry and gooseberry last year is gorgeous , and of course it won’t make a full red , strawberries are not dark fruits but it will make you a beautiful rose wine all day long

 

[DocAnna]

While I'm remembering - freezing is really important with any fruit since it also kills any wee beasties that are present in the fruit. Most of these would be harmless if eaten/fermented but...it just makes me a bit less euww about finding bugs beetles and beasties in my fruit!

Anna

 

[Tommo 2]

Yea but remember it’s all extra protein mate