The wine has settled down nicely and is bulk aging.  I sampled a small glass and find that while the flavor has a nice solid raspberry taste, it is quite thin and still a bit tart.  I may make a small batch of Strawberry to add in to give it some body.  Not sure yet.  Pondering my options.

Interestingly enough, the wine is still fermenting, albeit slowly. I think that it has had enough, so today I added in some metabisulfite to kill off any remaining yeast. I will let it sit with the airlock now for another couple weeks and test the SG again.

I took a look tonite and noticed that all activity has been stopped for a couple weeks now, and there was a lot of sediment that had built up on the sides and bottom of the carboy. I decided that it was time to rack the wine.

I sterilized another carboy, etc etc. Racked the wine into it. Notice the sediment and film on the carboy.

After all of the wine is transferred, there is a purty pink sludge on the bottom. That is leftover yeast and fine fruit matter. I don’t want that in my wine anyways, so best to get it out now.

I can’t help myself…… MUST HAVE A GLASS…………….

Very nice color. Nice nose. tasting……………………… Hmm nice. a bit acidic at this point, but not a lot. I happened to be drinking a Malbec at the time, so as a comparison, this is what they look like.

As you can see, it is very pale in comparison, but a lovely red color.

I will leave it sit now for probably another month before I check it again. That being said, it will have an airlock on it that I will check more regularly.

The wine has settled down now and its time to top it up. The majority of the sediment has fallen to the bottom and the color has taken on a darker tone. I set a light behind to try and capture the color.

It looks kind of pink in the picture, but is really a lovely medium red. About the color of a perfectly ripe Raspberry.

I topped up the carboy with cool water, mixed it up to blend it all, and took the SG. It’s still the same. On goes the vapour lock. I may have to add more Camden in the coming weeks to sterilize and kill any remaining yeast, but it looks like the yeast is all eaten up. We’ll see.

SG was stable, so its time for the next step. First off, I sterilize a carboy. Now to drain the fruit bag. I do that the easiest way I know.

Once it is draining, I put a filter mesh over the end of the syphon. These are great to keep the chunks from being sucked into the fermentor.

So, I syphon all of the juice into the carboy, leaving as much of the lees behind as I can.

The carboy is not totally full, but thats ok right now. I will top it up in a while. Now I put the airlock back on and let it sit for 2-3 weeks to finish the last bit of fermenting. See the nice red color? It also smells heavenly!

This recipe is designed for 1 Gallon of wine. It can be changed by modifying the amounts according to your needs.

• 3 1/2 lbs Strawberries
• 7 pts water
• 2 lbs sugar
• 1 tsp Acid Blend
• 1/4 tsp Tannin
• 1/2 tsp Pectic Enzyme
• 1 tsp Nutrient
• 1 Camden crushed
• 1 pkg yeast ( Champagne style)

Starting SG 1.090-95

Remove stems and foreign matter. Wash and drain berries. Using a nylon or fine mesh bag, (or press) mash and strain out juice into primary fermentor. Keeping all pulp in the bag, tie off the top and place it in the fermentor. Stir in all the ingredients except yeast. Cover the primary and leave it for 24-48 hours. (The camden is a sterilizer and will kill the yeast if you add it too soon) Add yeast, and cover the primary. Stir daily, check SG and gently squeeze bag. When SG reaches about 1.030, (about 5 days), rack into sterilzed carboy, leaving all sediment behind. Attach airlock and leave for about 3 weeks. When SG reaches 1.00 or less, rack again into sterized carboy and re-attach air lock.

Thanks to Raymond Massaccesi for his book.

Looked in tonight after work. Hmm. Airlock is quiet. Sterilize my mixer yet again and open it up. Very little foam, but still some bubbles. I give it a good mix, check the SG. Its at 0.992. Reclose it. Airlock is bubbling again, but slowly. Fermentation is almost finished. If SG is the same tomorrow, I’ll rack it into a carboy for the next stage.

I come home from work and head down to look. Yay! The airlock is bubbling away nicely.

I open it up, and take a look.

The mix needs to be stirred up every day during fermentation. I mix it up, as well as gently squeezing the bag of fruit, and close it back up. I will do this every day until fermentation is about done.

I take out all of the raspberries from the freezer and set them in the sink to thaw. I then check my supplies, and make a trip to my favorite wine store, The Home Vintner, to collect other supplies that I will need. When I get back, I see that starting this will have to wait a day until the berries are fully thawed.

Next day: The berries are thawed. I have all my supplies. Lets get started!

I won’t mention it at every step, but it is critical that everything that touches your wine is sterilized. This can be accomplished by boiling water, but is best done with a sterilizing solution. I use something that we call “Pink Stuff” It is a granular substance that when mixed with water turns the water pink also, and sterilizes equipment safely.. I use it to clean everything. After its cleaned, I rinse throughly.
I start by doing a bit of math to make sure I will have all of the amounts accurate. Based on the amount of berries that I have, I will be able to make a full 21 liter batch. Here is what I started with:

• 10 lbs berries
• approx 19l water – room temperature. Topped up to 21l mark on primary
• 5 lbs regular sugar – melted to liquid form
• 1.5 tsp Ascorbic Acid
• 1.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme
• 3 tsp Yeast nutrient
• 3 Camden tablets

I put the fruit into a large mesh bag. ( I hate trying to rack with a mass of fruit sitting in the bottom. This way I can drain the bag, and pull out the vast majority of the fruit very easily) Splat! Drop it into the bottom. I then grab the old potatoe masher and mush it up to get a lot of juice out. Add water and the rest of the ingredients and stir the heck out of it. I need to make sure that everything is well mixed and dissolved. Once it is mixed enough, I put on the lid, attach an airlock top keep unwanteds out and leave it alone for at least 48 hours. The reason for that is camden will kill the yeast as it is a sterilzer. I need to let it neutralize before I can add the yeast.

2 days later (Oct 14):

I peak inside and cant help taking a sniff. HMMMMMMM. very raspberry. Also has a sweetness due to all the sugar. I stir it up again. Stick in the hydrometer: 1.062. This will not be a 12% effort, but that’s ok. Probably closer to 9-10%. Now I sprinkle the Champaign yeast on top. Close it up again with the lid and air lock. Now, the room that I have to make wine is a bit on the cool side. Thats not a bad thing, but for optimum fermentation, the juice should be at 22-25 degrees C. Left as it is, my juice will be at about 16 degrees. So. I put on a heat band. This will keep the juice at 24-25 deg. I set the primary up on the counter and leave it. I don’t have to do anything until it starts to ferment.

This all started when I looked in the freezer and saw all of the raspberries that we had frozen from that summer. Out of curiosity, I weighed them and found that I had just over 8 lbs! “We’ll never eat that much!” I said to myself. We don’t make jam. What are we going to do with all of these?

At that point a little light bulb popped up right above me, grew arms, took out a 2×4 and whacked me upside the head. Make wine idiot! it said. I rubbed my head and said, I have only made wine from kits! I don’t know how to make wine from fruit! However, unwilling to get whacked in the head again, I set out to figure out how to do this.

To make a long story short, employing alot of trial and error, as well as my knowledge of basic wine making, I made my first batch of Raspberry wine. After 4 years in the carboy working at lowering the acidity ( I missed a crucial step unknowingly), I bottled it and it was actually not bad. Not great. It has a nice raspberry nose and palate, and is just a little tart. Very drinkable.

Since then, I have done more research and talked to others who know more about fruit wines.

Last week, I was again looking in the freezer. Guess what I saw! I weighed it and found that this time we had just over 10 pounds of the little red berries. As I was older now, and wiser, I ducked before the 2×4 could get me and said “More wine!” So, employing my higher level of knowledge, I set about making a new batch.