"A True Wine" newbee

[kace069]

"A True Wine" newbee

I'm not much of a wine guy. Of course for the unintitaited "no one here" I have to explain to people that MEAD is not wine it is MEAD. aka honeywine
Guess I don't have the refined palate for wine, 12 step program hophead here. I like my mead sweet, and I am getting pretty good at picking out a few varieties of hops in the beer I drink, next I want to be able to pinpoint grains.
But at heart, and how I got started fermenting, I am a mazer.

So my next door neighbor who has chilled and watched me brew some beer, sees my hops and my colony has been pretty interested in what I am doing in my mad scientist labratory, wants to do something with his grapes. He is the 2nd owner of the property since I have lived here. So there is no clue as to what variety they are. As far as I know they have seeds.
I have been telling him that I can make them into wine, that is the easy part. Although I have never made a "true wine" I have made a few coutnry wines, and maybe a gallon or two of mead ;D

I am thinking that these grapes will prolly be ready to harvest in the not to distant future. Of course when I started making mead I had to go by what winemaking books said. My first book was First steps in winemaking by C.J.J Berry, a good book, although rather outdated. Then was Progressive Wine making, by "can't recall the names". So I realize that there is a few different techniques out there. I would perfer to make a wine out of nothing but grapes, no water or sugar additions. That just seems proper to me.

So here is the question to this long winded post.
What would be the easiest and no equipment investment way to extract the must from these seeded grapes?
Of course child labor grape stomping pops up in my mind. but these are seeded grapes.
Not knowing much about wine making I am assuming that most wine variatal grapes are seedless. Is this a correct assumption?
So without buying a press/crusher what would you guys/gals advise?
This is the only factor keeping this from being my first wine. With that said, I am not really to sure about what kind of volume we would get out of these grapes. Optomistcialy I am thinking 3 gallons, pesimistcally I am thinking 1 gallon, hardly worth the effort. But I could be surprised.

I know he will be more than happy with any kind of potable alcohol from his backyard. I don't think he will be sorry either way, as long as he is a part of the process. He thinks it is great.
About the only equipment I have for this is my antique cherry pitter that may be of some help in this effort, but I am afraid that we will lose a lot of juice.

I'd like to give this a shot, but not sure if I am biting off more than I can chew.

Your thoughts?

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

I'm sure Oskaar and a few others will offer all sorts of advice, but you can also try the Winepress forum It's where I usually head to put my finger on the pulse of winemakers.

There are some really obsessed, and helpful, winemakers on the forum.

Cheers,
Wrathwilde

 

[Oskaar]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

Hey Kace,

Good to see you're branching out into wine. Mead is definitely it's own entity, however, I make my mead almost exactly like I make my wine. Most concepts, methodologies and techniques I use are winemaking techniques that I apply to meadmaking. Basically with a mead I'm making a white wine with residual sugar, so I treat it that way when I make it. I don't have to press any grapes to get the free run juice so that part is eliminated and honey is used to mix up the must to the brix level that I want to start with, and I don't bother with total acidity checks or VA checks either.

Need a little more information on the grapes. That is to say:

What color are they?
What color are the skins and what is the shape of the berry itself?
What do they taste like?
Is the pulp of the berry colorless, or is it colored?
If it is colored what color is the pulp? (Winegrapes Vitis vinifera have colorless pulp while native wild grapes Vitis labrusca (concord grapes) and Vitis rotundifolia (muscadine) have colored pulp)

If you have wine grapes, then it depends on the color of the grape (red or white) and what type of wine you want.

For red wine:
You'll want to crush and destem your grapes. The seeds play an important part in the flavoring and tannin structure of the red wines. Once the grapes are crushed and destemmed you'll want to pitch your yeast and get them going ASAP. Punch down the cap on the must at least three to four times a day in an open fermenter with a cover that fits on but is not airtight.

In red wines color extraction is complete in four days or so, however, for tannin structure and balance you'll generally want to leave the wine on the skins and seeds throughout the fermentation. This is the way our family has been making Zinfandel for several generations. If you want less tannin, you generally pump off the skins and seeds sometime after day four depending on how much tannin you want.

Once you've separated the juice from the skins and seeds you'll take the skins and seeds and put them into a basket press to get the last of the juice out of them.

For blush wines from red grapes:
Same as above except you'll want to minimize contact time with the skins until you have the desired blush/pink/rose color you want. Then pump off of the skins and let fermentation complete.


For white wine from red grapes:
You'll want to press the grapes without going through the crushing and destemming process. What you'll have is referred to as free run juice. From there you put your juice in a fermenter and inoculate it with whatever yeast you're going to use. At that point let the fermentation run checking your pH and Total Acidity to ensure you keep them in the yeast happy zone. With white wines you may consider malolactic fermentation to knock down some of the malic acid to lactic acid giving your wine a smoother, creamier slightly buttery flavor. This is especially used when making expensive barrel fermented Chardonnays.

For white wine from white grapes:
Same as making white wine from red grapes. Press the grapes, inoculate the free run juice, and then let it ferment to dryness or wherever you want it to finish. Consider malolactic fermentation, oaking works will in Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

For wild grapes/concord grapes: Use the search tool with Oskaar as the author and Foxy as the search term. I have a recent post that addresses concord grapes and contact time with the skin.

Hope that helps,

Oskaar

 

[kace069]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

So no Campden treatment?
I think these grapes are a probably a few weeks away from bieng ripe so I have not tasted them yet. I am also a tad colorblind so I will probablly need some help getting a good I.D. on them. I will prolly take some pics of them so you can see what I am dealing with. I would say thry are some kind of white or Rose perhaps I haven't seen them in a week or two.
I know it is a little ways off so I just wanted to get some prelimnary questions out of the way. Mostly I am just looking for the best way to press or crush these grapes. If I can't extract the juices cheaply than I really have no interest in doing this. I don't want to buy a press for a one time shot at this.

 

[Oskaar]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

OK, I don't know why everyone is so hung up on Campden tablets but I don't use them. I use powdered K metabisulfite available from any good LHBS.

Vineyards (even organic vineyards) treat their vineyards and grapevines with elemental sulfur to prevent powdery mildew from devastating their grape production. They also generally treat the grapes at the time of the crush with sulfites. It sounds like your neighbor has not so you will need to figure out the volume of what you're going to be dealing with and hit the grapes with a dosage of sulfites that will give you a level of 50 ppm. Let that sit for 24 hours and inoculate your must.

That's it!

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[Mu]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

You may wish to invest in a book called “From vines to wines by Jeff Cox” that will run you through the process. That book has all the equations for adjusting the acids, sugar and what not, along with how much potassium metabisulfite to add. A good press is important if your using red grapes, I was thinking about how you could make a press for pretty much $0 the only thing I could conclude is if you’re a beer maker you probably have a plastic primary laying about with a tap at the bottom for bottling.

You could siphon out as much must as you can, then add the leftover skins to this, leaving the tap out and having a pot (or another container) sitting under the tap hole. Then get a bit of something hard (Wood that you can sterilize) and press the skins, allowing the must to run out the hole. Not ideal, but I was having trouble thinking of a cheaper way to make a basic press…

To make good wine you really do need to know what the acids are doing and what the sugar is doing while the grapes are still on the vine, along with what the weather is going to do (rain before picking is bad).

That book will give you a basic understanding in 200 pages. Alternatively if there are any local vineyards go and have a chat with the winemaker there. He/she (if there is one ) should be able to tell you what vines you have, and if your lucky they might test your PH and sugar for you.

Mu.

 

[kace069]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

Yeah I was kind of thinking about a bucket and a potatoe masher. But I really don't want to chance scratching up any of my plastic fermenters. I'm really not sure what I am going to do. If I make bad wine I won't know it. I really don't have much experince with wine. So I don't know how it should taste when it is finsihed. If I can drink it with out my mouth puckering I would call it a success.

 

[Leonora]

Re: "A True Wine" newbee

Re: grape press

Our local brewshop rents out a couple of sizes of fruit presses for very little cash. You might check around also, we have several winerys around who have small presses they used in their early days or for small runs.

Other ideas - put the grapes in a bag and crush them. A rolling pin on a cutting board proped in a big pan? Sew the bag shut and twist it until it emits juice? Ask your mom or grandmother, she may have a couple of different food processors such as a ricer or a food mill. I have a gizmo that processes tomatoes into pulp that would also most likely work.

Sounds like a fun project, good luck!

Leonora