Not the song. Good golly, not the song. And crap, it’s already stuck in my head.
Our winemaking exploits continue… Obviously, the dandelions had a good year (when don’t they?), but the strawberries did as well, and after freezing and jamming wore us out, I had a few pounds left. What to do other than use my new-found skills and turn them into wine?
Strawberry Wine
3-4 pounds of strawberries
1 gallon of water
Juice from a lemon or two
4-5 cups sugar
Little bit of yeast
Mash the strawberries in a large non-reactive bowl. Boil the water and pour over the berries. Add sugar and lemon juice and mix. Add the yeast (after the water’s cooled, of course, or you’ll kill it). Cover and set aside for a week or so, stirring daily, if you can remember.
Strain the mixture through cheesecloth to filter out the solids. Pour the liquid into a gallon jug or carboy. Let it sit for another month or so. When clear, bottle it up. Put it in the basement and forget about it for the rest of the year. It does have a nice strawberry fragrance, and is a beautiful bright red color.
Again, our alcohol consumption consists of maybe a glass of wine every month (maybe two, if the kids are misbehaving…), so I don’t really have any great reason for doing this, other than saying I can. Maybe not a super valuable life skill, but a fun one nonetheless.
When you first cover the mixture to let the yeast work, how tight should the covering be?
Just tight enough to keep the bugs out. Really, you could just drape a dish towel over the top.