Strawberry 1090

[CrealCritter]

Sniff of the air lock smells like alcohol and strawberries. This will take a long time to fully ferment and the yeast to die off due to alcohol they produce. So last post for a while.

 

[Marianne]

Yum.
I just started humming 'Strawberry Fields Forever'... or something like that!

 

[Marianne]

Lol, thanks @Marianne! Now I'll have that stuck in my head all afternoon!

Good. It's nice to have company when you're in the loop.

 

[Marianne]

DH made me buy 8 strawberry plants - but, I don't have the strawberry bed ready. Actually, I want to plant them in the raised beds that he said he is making for me this fall. "but you can plant them in the garden area and move them later" he says. He also insists that I roto-till the entire garden area each fall and spring to keep the weeds down - if I don't, he does it for me. He roto-tilled the last batch of strawberries that I planted ...

I completely understand. It took me some time for my husband to accept that the garden was MY department MY domain.

 

[CrealCritter]

Video of secondary fermentation. Not knowing any better when I made up this wine. I was supposed to add pectin enzyme, Potassium Metabisulfite (campden tablets) and yeast energizer. Thankfully I have a buddy who knows about this stuff and he set me straight. I added all that when I racked into the secondary and the yeast took off chowing down again. Yeasts are such interesting creatures.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BynXZeQHU7x/?igshid=knhxu53ol08a

 

[CrealCritter]

I did an experiment cold crashing the quart jar by sticking in the refrigerator. The quart was from the bottom of the primary so it was the worst as far as cloudy goes. But after several days it cleared out pretty nicely.

The two gallon jugs are still fermenting nicely. I can see lots of bubbles rising and blowing bubbles through the air lock. Its hard to tell how long it will take for fermentation to complete. Once they stop, i'll pull a hydrometer reading to ensure the gravity is 1.000 or below and then I'll need to rack it again, top off and let it sit to clear more.

Instead of using finings, I may just just add potassium sorbate to sterilize the yeast and cold crash, then bottle. I don't know exactly how, I'll approach this next step before bottling. I have more reading to do. Thankfully I have a friend who can help guide me along. I do know the more its racked, the clearer it becomes naturally. But this is hootenanny hooch (not so fine wine)