I think you will be OK doing it that way. Almost boiling water is better than boiling water. The worse thing that can happen is the wine being a little more difficult to clear. It will clear in time or you can add more pectic enzyme later. Or you can use other clearing agents. I only use pectic enzyme or bentonite.

I just transferred it over from primary frementors to secondary glass carboys. I had expected to get about 5 gallons after removing all the fruit, but I got 6 gallons so I've got it in my 5 gal carboy and a smaller 1 gal glass jug. I tasted some, and it tastes pretty good already. It was very smooth, had nice color, had a lot of body, and some great strawberry taste. I'm going to leave it in the glass carboys for another month or two so that it can settle and age a bit more. I didn't add anything during the transfer, but I may rack it again soon and add some metabisulfite to stabilize. I should probably think about looking into some better bottling equipment as well.

Sounds great. I never get in a great hurry to add metabisulphate. Just watch it closely and when all fermentation is finished you can add it. I take a very strong flash light and shine it through the glass and if I see any bubbles I just wait. You have to look closely. Sometimes the fermentation is so slow it doesn't make very many bubbles in the air lock.

usually recipes change as the sugar or acid change in the fruit so every recipe may slightly different. For lots of generic recipes which are basically starting points Jack Keller has them. Check out the below site.

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request.asp

Strawberry Wine Recipe

Ingredients
1. 4 lb Strawberries
2. 1 Gallon Water
3. 2 lb Sugar
4. 1 tablespoon Acid Blend
5. 1/2 teaspoon Grape Tannin
6. 1/2 tablespoon Peptic Enzyme
7. 1 tablespoon Yeast Nutrient
8. 1 pack Wine Yeast or Champagne yeast
9. 1 Campden Tablet

Method

Wash and remove the stems and leaves. Use a straining bag and fill with the strawberries. Tie the top, commence crushing and mashing.

Leave straining bag in a sterilized bucket. Add ingredients except yeast. Stir well. Before you add the yeast, you will need to sterilize the must.

To prevent oxidation I have used 1 campden tablet every other racking or 1/2 campden tablet every racking. One other thing I noticed about strawberry wine is the color becomes less than bright red. There is a solution to that problem but first there is a story that goes along with the solution.

In 2009 I harvested our Frontenac grapes and had 10 gallons of grape wine. The wine was in two 5 gallon carboys. During the aging process I was doing some experimenting. A wine making friend said to deepen the color add a non-sugar powdered cool-ade product. I had disasterous results. The wine turned from a light grape color to a yukky brown color. At first I thought it had oxidized. After sampling the taste was great. The color was sickening. As a last result before tossing the wine I added 2 bottles of food coloring per 5 gallons of wine. Not only did the terible brown color go away the wine turned to a deep red color with no change in flavor. I recently bottled that wine and my guests keep telling me what great flavor and color. I never revealed the red food coloring. However, I had 5 gallons of strawberry wine that was a faded out lack luster red color. In the 5 gallong carboy I added just one bottle of the food coloring. Presto!!!! A beautiful red strawberry color with no change in flavor. Something to keep in mind.

I will re-check my strawberry wine recipe but if I recall it is the same one that is posted on this site.