What is this in my strawberry wine?

[Alice Abbott]

Last summer we brewed a lot of strawberry wine. It's never got beyond the brewing bottles but has been racked and is as clear as a bell. It also tastes lovely. BUT each and every bottle (we don't have many demijohns so use 5 litre flagon type bottles which just happen to take a cork and then we airlock lots of them through a bottle of water) has a huge mass of clear jelly like stuff in the middle, floating around. If we strain the wine it just goes straight through and reforms later.

Any ideas on

a) what it is and
b) how we can get rid of it

please?

[MKG]

It's 99% certain that it's a big glob of pectin, Alice - which is a surprise given the normally low pectin content in strawberries. You can get rid of it using two heaped teaspoons of pectic enzyme per gallon but, to be frank, it's not worth bothering. Just syphon off the wine from below the pectin. Filtering or straining will never do it - the pectin just sneaks back into solution and then, as you can see, coalesces again later.

It's completely harmless. In fact, if you bottle the dregs of pectin and unobtainable wine, it'll be really good for jam making.

Mike

[Alice Abbott]

Thanks for that reassurance. I will try siphoning and hope for the best! As you say, the pectin will be useful for when we have the next glut of strawberries and I make jam. The wine dregs should make it tasty too...