Todd's Muscadine Wine

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toddrod

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Location
Louisiana
This recipe is for a country style wine that is very popular down here in South Louisiana. A friend of mine gave me this recipe and since almost 300 gallons a year between he and I fly out of or homes, I would consider this a good recipe.

1. Pick only very ripe Muscadines, usually a 5 gal bucket will do. Varieties that I grow are Ison, Darlene, Sweet Jenny and Pam from Isons vineyards in Georgia.
2. Crush grapes and place in intial fermenter. I use a large Rubbermaid container with a snap on lid.
3. Add yeast to grapes. I use Montrachet or E118. My friend use Bread yeast (Like I said, this is a country recipe)
4. After 4-5 days, strain off the juice from the grapes.
5. In a 5 gallon fermenter add 1.5 gallons of juice and 12lbs of sugar If you use the Montrachet, if using the E118 add 15 lbs sugar, then add water to make 5 gallons.
6. Ferment as normal. I normally bottle at the 6 month mark.

Using the Montrachet yeast I am getting 11-12% ABV and some residual sweetness but not to sweet, just as I like it.

I make 2 types with this recipe. I make a straight red or rose with the Isons (they are a black grape) and a white with the other listed varities as they are bronze grapes. I prefer the white as these grapes do not have as much acid as the Ison and it just comes out smoother to me.

You may have noticed that I did not mention sulfite or sorbate. You may use it but we have never had any problems and the wine does not last that long once we have it bottled.
 
I just bottled 6 casesof this wine and I believe it came out really well. Everyone who I have given some to likes it. It is on the sweet side, but that is how we like it here in S. Louisiana.
 
I'm from Georgia and have helped make wine but can't remember how. It is a sweet wine from Muscadine Grapes and sweet. We made it in a 55 gallon plastic drum with cheesecloth on top for a while . Cant remember how long....... no I was not drunk on previous wine, I'm just getting old..........Can someone help me with this? I think I put five gallons of mashed up grapes to about 15 gallons of water and then maybe 60 pounds of sugar and a pack of yeast.........am I even close? Any help will be much appreciated....I'm not from around here. I guess you can tell, huh.....
 
You can make a decent wine from that amount of grapes in 15 gallons of water but your sugar is way too much. I used to use 12lb of sugar in 5 gallons with bread yeast and it came out very sweet, like final SG around 1040. 60 lbs in 15 gallons would be ungodly sweet.
 
I found this old thread, and I'm using this recipe to make some muscadine wine. Since this is my first wine I'm checking to make sure I understand. Why am I pulling off the yeast cake before I'm adding sugar water? Why not add that before the first fermentation? Seems like it would be impossible to get a starting gravity.
 
We have 12 muscadine vines from Ison's. We froze a lot of whole grapes that we harvested this year and would like to know if we can use a steamer/juicer to extract the juice to make our wine instead of crushing and fermenting with the skins as usual. If so, how much juice would we need for a 6 gal primary fermenter?
 
I was wondering if there is a way to make wine from muscadine juice that has already been extracted from the muscadines. I picked and juiced muscadines for jelly-making, but decided I had way too much juice for the amount of jelly I think I might get tired of making... SO can I make my simmered-and-mashed extracted juice into wine? I have 7.5 gallons of straight, strong juice...
 
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