Strawberry Wine... Part Deaux

Last Monday I racked the strawberry must from the primary fermentor into the carboy, or secondary fermentor.  Carboy is the name of the big glass jar where the wine will sit for the next 4-8 weeks.  During this time, it continues to ferment, but at a much slower rate, and begin to settle and clear.  My parents had a ton of these big carboys in the basement.  This one is a 5 gallon, but they had them up to 10.  As a kid, I couldn't even put my lil arms around them.  Childhood memories.  Anyway...

This is what the must looked like after popping off the top.  Did you watch the Bubbling Video that i still am unable to embed into this blog? <hint hint Short One>

This is the foam side, and this is the berry side... much more appealing.

Racking is just siphoning from one container into another... like this.

And this is what the finished product looks like... sitting on the shelf... looking just beautiful... kinda.  You can already see some of the settling at the bottom.  Once it's clear, it's gonna be purty!!!

So what does it taste like? ... you ask.

I didn't want a sickening sweet wine, but a dryer wine, so I used Pasteur Champagne yeast which is able to withstand higher alcohol levels and doesn't die off as it converts the sugar into the alcohol.  The faster the yeast dies off, the less sugar is converted, and the sweeter the wine. 

My starting gravity was 1.121 and ended up at .982 when i racked it 6/4/12, which equates to an ABV of about 16%. 

It was dry, crisp, and going to be very good.  I already have several people lines up to taste it when it gets racked into bottles... probably in August sometime.