Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food shopping.
Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)

The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of strawberries.
No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds of
clear honey.

I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
suggest a good use?

"R-D-C" > wrote in message >...
> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food shopping.
> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>
> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of strawberries.
> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds of
> clear honey.
>
> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
> suggest a good use?

I'd use all of it to make some strawberry wine. I'm not terribly mad
about mead myself, takes too long to age

Check the SG of the grape juice the berries are packed in, and then
gently mash up the berries, add those in with the grape juice and
let'er rip. I've had good results in my strawberry wine with 71B-1122
Beaujolais yeast. Watch the time the wine spends with the fruit and
seeds, sometimes bitter tannins can come out after too many days... I
left mine on for four days, and it's slightly too bitter at dryness,
but a bit of residual sweetness brought it back into balance. For more
strawberry aroma, I sweetened with strawberry syrup. It turned out to
be my best country wine to date. HTH


cheers,
charles

"R-D-C" > wrote in message >...
> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food shopping.
> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>
> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of strawberries.
> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds of
> clear honey.
>
> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
> suggest a good use?

I'd use all of it to make some strawberry wine. I'm not terribly mad
about mead myself, takes too long to age

Check the SG of the grape juice the berries are packed in, and then
gently mash up the berries, add those in with the grape juice and
let'er rip. I've had good results in my strawberry wine with 71B-1122
Beaujolais yeast. Watch the time the wine spends with the fruit and
seeds, sometimes bitter tannins can come out after too many days... I
left mine on for four days, and it's slightly too bitter at dryness,
but a bit of residual sweetness brought it back into balance. For more
strawberry aroma, I sweetened with strawberry syrup. It turned out to
be my best country wine to date. HTH


cheers,
charles

Would you suggest just using all the tins and adding sugar/acid to get the
right numbers? Or would you dilute with water?

I was thinking I might go for a gallon of each - wine and mead - with a bit
of diluting. I cleaned Tesco out of tins so can't up my volume!

"Charles H" > wrote in message
om...
> "R-D-C" > wrote in message
> >...
>> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food
>> shopping.
>> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
>> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>>
>> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
>> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of
>> strawberries.
>> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds
>> of
>> clear honey.
>>
>> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
>> suggest a good use?
>
> I'd use all of it to make some strawberry wine. I'm not terribly mad
> about mead myself, takes too long to age
>
> Check the SG of the grape juice the berries are packed in, and then
> gently mash up the berries, add those in with the grape juice and
> let'er rip. I've had good results in my strawberry wine with 71B-1122
> Beaujolais yeast. Watch the time the wine spends with the fruit and
> seeds, sometimes bitter tannins can come out after too many days... I
> left mine on for four days, and it's slightly too bitter at dryness,
> but a bit of residual sweetness brought it back into balance. For more
> strawberry aroma, I sweetened with strawberry syrup. It turned out to
> be my best country wine to date. HTH
>
>
> cheers,
> charles

Would you suggest just using all the tins and adding sugar/acid to get the
right numbers? Or would you dilute with water?

I was thinking I might go for a gallon of each - wine and mead - with a bit
of diluting. I cleaned Tesco out of tins so can't up my volume!

"Charles H" > wrote in message
om...
> "R-D-C" > wrote in message
> >...
>> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food
>> shopping.
>> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
>> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>>
>> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
>> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of
>> strawberries.
>> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds
>> of
>> clear honey.
>>
>> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
>> suggest a good use?
>
> I'd use all of it to make some strawberry wine. I'm not terribly mad
> about mead myself, takes too long to age
>
> Check the SG of the grape juice the berries are packed in, and then
> gently mash up the berries, add those in with the grape juice and
> let'er rip. I've had good results in my strawberry wine with 71B-1122
> Beaujolais yeast. Watch the time the wine spends with the fruit and
> seeds, sometimes bitter tannins can come out after too many days... I
> left mine on for four days, and it's slightly too bitter at dryness,
> but a bit of residual sweetness brought it back into balance. For more
> strawberry aroma, I sweetened with strawberry syrup. It turned out to
> be my best country wine to date. HTH
>
>
> cheers,
> charles

Would you suggest just using all the tins and adding sugar/acid to get the
right numbers? Or would you dilute with water?

I was thinking I might go for a gallon of each - wine and mead - with a bit
of diluting. I cleaned Tesco out of tins so can't up my volume!

"Charles H" > wrote in message
om...
> "R-D-C" > wrote in message
> >...
>> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food
>> shopping.
>> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
>> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>>
>> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
>> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of
>> strawberries.
>> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds
>> of
>> clear honey.
>>
>> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
>> suggest a good use?
>
> I'd use all of it to make some strawberry wine. I'm not terribly mad
> about mead myself, takes too long to age
>
> Check the SG of the grape juice the berries are packed in, and then
> gently mash up the berries, add those in with the grape juice and
> let'er rip. I've had good results in my strawberry wine with 71B-1122
> Beaujolais yeast. Watch the time the wine spends with the fruit and
> seeds, sometimes bitter tannins can come out after too many days... I
> left mine on for four days, and it's slightly too bitter at dryness,
> but a bit of residual sweetness brought it back into balance. For more
> strawberry aroma, I sweetened with strawberry syrup. It turned out to
> be my best country wine to date. HTH
>
>
> cheers,
> charles

"R-D-C" > wrote in message >...
> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food shopping.
> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>
> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of strawberries.
> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds of
> clear honey.
>
> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
> suggest a good use?


personally, i prefer meads. i like the residual sweetness honey imparts.
most every wine i've made has incorporated honey in some aspect. if you
use nutrient with the strawberries you should be just fine. some of the
most vigorous fermentation i've ever seen was from me being lazy... i
took 5 lbs of peaches, threw them in the blender and pureed them, then
added them directly to the must after boiling the honey. fresh fruit
(and to a point even whole fruit) seems to inspire _fierce_ fermentation.
literally spitting out of the airlock! ... heh, it was cool. =)

i usually make melomels (fruit wines) with approximately 5 lbs of fruit,
5 lbs of honey, and 3 lbs of sugar, and usually get 13-15% strength wines.
(ie, using EC-1118 i'll get 15% with no sugar left, but if i use 71B i'll
get a 12% or 13% with some left over for extra sweetness)

ummmm. i guess time would be a problem. i usually figure a month to ferment,
rack, then at least two months to start to get rid of those young wine
flavors. rack again, and give it another two months before i'll consider
it good, and everything after that is just gold.

the woman suggested jam. mmmm.... yeah. jam. your call. =)


Saul

"R-D-C" > wrote in message >...
> Would you suggest just using all the tins and adding sugar/acid to get the
> right numbers? Or would you dilute with water?
>
> I was thinking I might go for a gallon of each - wine and mead - with a bit
> of diluting. I cleaned Tesco out of tins so can't up my volume!

I made a nearly pure strawberry wine from fresh fruit, and it was
balanced... I am not sure that strawberry benefits from a lot of
dilution. I'd just add sugar and acid to get a PA of 10-11(max) and a
TA of 0.7 or so. You'll get some astringency out of the seeds if you
leave 'em on for too long, so keep that in mind too. Search the
archives for strawberry wine, a thread from last year by me should
come up and it contains heaps of good information.


cheers,
charles

I decided to start with a gallon of mead. Three pounds of honey, four tins
of the strawberries and a bit of water plus acid, nitrient, B1 and tannin.
It is going like the clappers after only six hours. Got a starting SG of
1.076 so will add some more honey later to aim for 11/12%. (Anyone give me
an idea of amount of honey in a gallon I should be looking at?)

Also leaves me with six tins to make a wine with once one of my demijohns is
free :-) Might get some more tins before that to increase the flvaour.

Jam? Why would I want to make jam? Silly ;-)

"Saul_Sabia" > wrote in message
om...
> "R-D-C" > wrote in message
> >...
>> Tonight the missus forced me to go to the local Tesco to do food
>> shopping.
>> Whilst there I spied some tins of strawberries in grape juice. Being a
>> compulsive person I bought ten tins :-)
>>
>> The tins hold 106g of fruit with grape juice to make each tin up to 406g.
>> This means I have about 4 kilos of stuff containing a kilo of
>> strawberries.
>> No artificial flavourings or preservative. I also picked up three pounds
>> of
>> clear honey.
>>
>> I was thinking maybe a strawberry wine and a strawberry mead. Anybody
>> suggest a good use?
>
>
> personally, i prefer meads. i like the residual sweetness honey imparts.
> most every wine i've made has incorporated honey in some aspect. if you
> use nutrient with the strawberries you should be just fine. some of the
> most vigorous fermentation i've ever seen was from me being lazy... i
> took 5 lbs of peaches, threw them in the blender and pureed them, then
> added them directly to the must after boiling the honey. fresh fruit
> (and to a point even whole fruit) seems to inspire _fierce_ fermentation.
> literally spitting out of the airlock! ... heh, it was cool. =)
>
> i usually make melomels (fruit wines) with approximately 5 lbs of fruit,
> 5 lbs of honey, and 3 lbs of sugar, and usually get 13-15% strength wines.
> (ie, using EC-1118 i'll get 15% with no sugar left, but if i use 71B i'll
> get a 12% or 13% with some left over for extra sweetness)
>
> ummmm. i guess time would be a problem. i usually figure a month to
> ferment,
> rack, then at least two months to start to get rid of those young wine
> flavors. rack again, and give it another two months before i'll consider
> it good, and everything after that is just gold.
>
> the woman suggested jam. mmmm.... yeah. jam. your call. =)
>
>
> Saul

"R-D-C" > wrote in message

> Also leaves me with six tins to make a wine with once one of my demijohns is
> free :-) Might get some more tins before that to increase the flvaour.

Mead takes a lot longer to mature than wine, might want to start your
wine in another DJ now, so you can enjoy that while the mead ages.

At the minute I have thirteen on the go ;-)

"Charles H" > wrote in message
om...
> "R-D-C" > wrote in message
>
>> Also leaves me with six tins to make a wine with once one of my demijohns
>> is
>> free :-) Might get some more tins before that to increase the flvaour.
>
> Mead takes a lot longer to mature than wine, might want to start your
> wine in another DJ now, so you can enjoy that while the mead ages.