More Strawberry, Peach and Pinot!

On Saturday, before a long bike ride, my friend Tim and I along with my wife went to the local farmers market on the lookout for some fresh fruit - we found some nice Georgia peaches at one of the stands and purchased 3 pounds of them, enough for a gallon. We didn't have time Saturday, and I wanted to get some more ingredients and items before we started, so Id have enough for the coming wines I wanted to make.

So this past Monday I picked him up on our lunch break and we went to the local wine store, L and M and made some purchases. I bought some Pastuer Red yeast, a new 23 liter primary fermenter, and a 6 gallon carboy, along with some new air locks, stoppers, and some course-nylon mesh bags.

Monday night he came over and we made some awesome chicken spedies on the grill, popped open a magnum of Fisheye Pinot Grigio, and got to work cutting the peaches up. we gave them a good mashing and added the sugar water, tannin, yeast nutirent, acid blend and pectic enzyme and acid blend, and yesterday after the must cooled down I added the yeast, so thats starting!

After we cleaned up and finished with the wine, we started on the juice kit of pinot noir I got a while back. I cleaned the primary fermenter and sterilzed everything, added bentonite (Im not sure what that is, have to read about it) and water to the juice and added the oak chips and the yeast, and by yesterday, it was already bubbling and fermenting. Cant wait to sample that. I have to say, it was a lot of fun making wine with a friend!

After really loving the smell of the strawberry wine I made a gallon of and wrote about previously, I decided to make a whole lot more, about 5 gallons worth. I must have looked a little nutty driving home from work yesterday carrying 20 lbs of fresh strawberries in plastic bags on my scooter.

Man, cutting the tops off 20lbs of strawberries takes a while! The most fun part was after I put them in the nylon bag I beat the crap of them with my fists, making a nice frothy strawberry juice. I added 5 lbs of sugar I boiled in water and put the lid on it. The must was still really warm this morning, so I will add the yeast nutirent, acid blend and pectic enzyme tonight when I get home, then add the yeast tomorrow. I should have a lot of Strawberry wine to drink in a few months.


I will be racking a lot of this wine in the next two weeks, and I will upload pics at that time to finally show what my setup looks like.