How to make strawberry wine

Strawberries are tasty, but you could enjoy it just not only in jam. If you start today, late Autumn you will get ruby alcoholic drink with unmatched bouquet.

What you will need:

• Strawberries, 3 lbs
• Sugar, 2 lbs
• Water, 1.5 l
• Dried currants, 2 oz (optional)

Instructions:

1. Wash strawberries. Other berries does not need washing, to save yeasts on its surface. Unlike it, dirty strawberry will give you a dirty taste of wine. So, we need to remove spurs and wash strawberries. Than, smash berries with your hands or wooden masher to homogeneous puree.
2. Heat water up to 86 degrees. Add 1 lbs of sugar and mix it up.
3. Combine strawberry puree with sugar syrup and dried currants in wide mouth container. Do not wash dried currants to induce fermentation. Container should be large enough to let 1/4 of free room for fermented mash.
4. Cover the container with clean fabric to protect it from flies. Keep it in dark place at room temperature for a week. Signs of fermentation such as foam production and hissing sound will appear in a few hours. It is OK. Mix it with clean wooden spoon or stick two or three times a day.
   
5. Filter juice using gauze fabric. You could throw cake away or use it as organic feeding for your next distilling project.
6. Combine filtered juice with 1/4 lbs of sugar in filtering tank. Fill tank for not more than 3/4 of volume. Make a water-gate.
7. Keep tank in dark place at room temperature. Five days after, add 1/4 lbs of sugar and mix the tank. Yet another five days after, add remaining 1/4 lbs of sugar.
8. After 30 to 60 days, fermentation will over. Mash will become clear, with settled sediments. Decant and bottle the wine. Season wine in cold place for not less than two or three months.

Strawberry wine could be stored in cold place for up to two years.