Now that the strawberry season is here, bottle up some wine to remind you of spring. Follow our homemade easy and cheap strawberry wine recipe for a sparkling and refreshing result. This flavored springy beverage will taste better than any expensive wines you might have in mind. Let’s get started!

Best Strawberry Wine Recipe

Are you ready to taste the most delicious strawberry wine? Here’s the magic formula:

• 4 pounds of strawberries
• 1 gallon of water
• 2 pounds of sugar or a jar of honey
• the juice of a lemon
• 1 Campden tablet
• 1 teaspoon of wine yeast

Making Strawberry Wine in 7 Steps

Step 1: Select Your Ingredients

 

What You’ll Need

• Gardening Tools (optional)
• Strawberries
• A large stock pot

Wine is such a versatile drink! White, rosé or red, sweet or dry, sangria or moscato, wines can be made of a variety of fruit and according to diverse recipes.  Strawberries are not only a great choice this time of the year, but they are also more flavorful and tasty. If you have the chance to go to the country side and pick them up yourself is even better! If not in the mood for wandering the fields and hills, buy the fruit from a farmer. Always choose organic products.

Step 2: To Wash or Not to Wash the Fruit?

What You’ll Need

• Fruit
• Water

Cleaning the fruit before making the wine is not something that all winemakers do. However, we recommend washing the strawberries as there might be particles of dirt and you don’t want to ruin your miraculous beverage.

By cleaning the fruit you are in control of what you drink. Remove the stems and leaves, wash and gently rinse the strawberries.

Step 3: Chop. Crush. Press. Squeeze.

What You’ll Need

• A potato masher
• Same large stock pot
• Filtered water
• Lemon (optional)

Now it’s time for the fun part, when you chop, crush and squeeze the fruit. The strawberries will release their juices and heavenly smell. If you don’t have or don’t want to use a potato masher, you can go wild and use your hands. Avoid using a blender or a mixer as it can ruin the taste.

The juice should fill the stock pot. If you think there’s not enough juice squeezed from the fruit, add 1 -2 cups of filtered water. Using tap water is not a great idea, as it may affect the taste of your wine because of the additives it contains. If you don’t have a filter, you can boil the water and add it as soon as it cooled down.

You can also add the juice of one lemon to increase the acid level.

Step 4: Sweeten Your Wine if Necessary and Add the Campden Tablet

What You’ll Need

• Honey or Sugar
• Boiling Water
• A Pot
• A spoon
• Campden Tablet

Strawberry wine may not be as sweet as you like your wine to taste. Berries are lower on sugar than grapes. That’s why you can control the sweetness of your drink by adding honey or sugar.

Here’s what you have to do. Boil some water in a pot and add the sweet ingredient, stir and let it cool. Then combine it with the smashed fruit. Don’t worry if the final result is not as sweet as you wished. You can always add some honey in it. I recommend honey, as sugar is not very healthy.

Now is the moment to smash the Campden tablet and add it to the mixture. Campden tablets are sulfur-based products that help stabilizing the composition. It also kills bacteria and does not allow the wine to turn into vinegar.

Step 5: Cover the Pot and Store it Overnight

What You’ll Need

• A clean kitchen towel/ cloth/ T-shirt or special lid

Now it is important to keep insects away from your miraculous juice. That is why you need to cover it with a kitchen towel or clean T-shirt so that the air can flow. Find a dark and dry area in your kitchen with a temperature between 70 and 75 degrees F and let the strawberries sit overnight. They will do their work.

Step 6: Sprinkle the Yeast

What You’ll Need

• Yeast
• Spoon

Winemakers use either wild yeast or commercial yeast for their fruit wine. If you are not making wild yeast wine, which means not washing the fruits before the starting the whole process, sprinkle some commercial yeast over the mixture. You can add 1 gram of wine yeast and half gram of yeast nutrient into the composition and stir until dissolved. All these ingredients can be found in a homebrew shop.

What you have achieved until now is called a must. Leave the must to ferment for 5 to 7 days. During this time, you’ll observe some bubbling, which is the fermentation process.

Step 5: Strain the Strawberry Juice

What You’ll Need

• Strainer
• Carboy
• Carboy Airlock

After a week it is time to remove the pulp and get that gorgeous juice. Strain the strawberries, funnel the must into a carboy and attach an airlock. Make sure you don’t stir it up as to avoid sediments. Add water if necessary. You will know the fermentation process is finished when there are no more bubbles rising to the top. In about four weeks the wine should be ready.

Step 7: Siphon the Strawberry Wine

What You’ll Need

• Wine hydrometer (optional)
• Secondary carboy

After all bubbling has ceased, you have to siphon the wine again into a clean carboy. To check if the fermentation is really finished, you can use a wine hydrometer. This should indicate a value between 0,990 and 0,998 on the specific gravity scale (SG).

Cap the carboy and store it in the fridge.  You’re almost done.

Step 8: Bottle Your Strawberry Wine

What You’ll Need

• Wine Bottles
• Funny, creative labels

Now that your wine is clear and the fermentation process has stopped, you can place it into bottles. Leave all the sediments behind and bottle up your delicious beverage. If you feel creative enough, make some personalized labels. Your strawberry wine can be a great gift idea.

Step 9: Enjoy a Glass of Springy Strawberry Wine

What You’ll Need

• A Glass of Strawberry Wine
• A Dessert/ Savory Dish
• Great Company

You can finally take pleasure from working so hard. For a spectacular taste, try your wine with a tablet of white chocolate or a slice of mango. If you prefer savory to sweet, serve it beside a yummy spoonbread. Call your friends and enjoy this refreshing strawberry wine together!

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