Strawberry Wine

 We have a friend who has given us homemade wine since I've lived here. It's the only wine that I can drink without having any side effects whatsoever. When I drink it, I savor the fruits (or flower petals) that it was made from. I know the extent that my friend has gone through to make his wines because now I've been working on my own (with great assistance and guidance from him -- thank you, Ron!)

This morning when we stopped by to pick up some racking equipment from him, he walked out the front door with two plates of egg sandwiches and a bean and squash mixture that made me think I'd died and gone to heaven. We sat out on his front porch and ate to our hearts' content.

Here he is on his front porch on Father's Day. I was not handy with a camera this morning because I was too busy eating.

But first, before we had breakfast on his front porch, we picked strawberries. In Central New York there are strawberry fields all over the place to pick and pick and pick. So, we do.

And then after the picking, is the stemming and the washing, as I'm doing in the background of this picture. Dan's the photog extraordinaire and I'm the stemmer at the helm. In our household we can't just do something without documenting it, so here are some more pictures of the strawberries freshly washed and ready to be smashed and loaded into the ale pail.

But, before we go to the mixing in the ale pail you must view the strawberries as they were all lined up waiting for their transformation...

Sixteen and a half pounds of strawberry goodness ready for the next phase.

See all those little bubbles in there? It's the yeast going crazy. It popped the lid off the pail twice! So, now it's time to put it in a carboy and let it sit for six weeks. My babysitting days are over then. Well, at least until the blackberries come in...