Winemaking and Racking Day!

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Yooper

Yooper

Ale's What Cures You!
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Today, I started 3 gallons of plum wine, 5 gallons of crabapple wine, and 5 gallons of grape wine (from the grapes in our yard). I also started another 4 gallons of apple cider, from apples we pressed last week and then froze until I could work with it!


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I also decided to rack many of the wines that needed it. The plum wine has a TON of sediment- I ended up with 6.25 gallons out of the 9 gallons there!

The rest of the wines were: 6 gallons rhubarb, 3 gallons dandelion, 1 gallon blueberry, 3 gallons blackberry, the already mentioned plum with the miles of sediment, and some cider. The SG sample is cider that is 17 days old.
 
Rhumbline said:
That's pretty ambitious. Is there a rule of thumb for how much fruit makes a gallon of wine?
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No, not really. Some fruits, like apples, have a lot of juice while others don't. Also, some fruits are really acidic and require diluting with water to reduce the acid. Some are sweeter than others, and have lots of natural sugar, while some fruits (like native grapes) have little natural sugar and lots of acidity.

I use 3 pounds of chokecherries or so for a gallon of wine, but 6 pounds of crabapples.

I still have 100 pounds of crabapples in the freezer, and an unknown quantity of chokecherries and apples. But today was a good start!
 
I see you have some different types of bubblers and a plastic carboy. Which of the bubblers do you like the best? Do you have preferences that you use the plastic carboy for?
 
kc_in_wv said:
I see you have some different types of bubblers and a plastic carboy. Which of the bubblers do you like the best? Do you have preferences that you use the plastic carboy for?
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I have all sorts of airlocks- I don't have any preference at all.

I just started using the plastic carboys more in the last few years. I still prefer glass, but I'm pretty small and getting weaker in my old age, and find that the 6 gallon glass carboys are just too heavy and fragile for me to use comfortably.
 
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I see your posts all over and love your insight. I figured this would be a good place to ask the question. I just picked grapes for the first time today and got about 3 gallons from the vine. I added potassium to kill any of the wild yeasts and am pitching yeast on Thursday. I have a feeling that I am going to need to sweeten this batch of wine considering the grapes are from Illinois. I want to backsweeten with its own juice. So the plan is to pull some juice from the must on Thursday after the metabisulfite does its work and stick it in the fridge until bottling. Here is the million dollar question. How do I clear up the unfermented juice, so when it is added to the wine at bottling, it doesn't cloud up my wine?
 
vacuumcleanerbob said:
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I see your posts all over and love your insight. I figured this would be a good place to ask the question. I just picked grapes for the first time today and got about 3 gallons from the vine. I added potassium to kill any of the wild yeasts and am pitching yeast on Thursday. I have a feeling that I am going to need to sweeten this batch of wine considering the grapes are from Illinois. I want to backsweeten with its own juice. So the plan is to pull some juice from the must on Thursday after the metabisulfite does its work and stick it in the fridge until bottling. Here is the million dollar question. How do I clear up the unfermented juice, so when it is added to the wine at bottling, it doesn't cloud up my wine?
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I am sorry that I don't have a good answer for this. I really have no idea as I've never backsweetened. I think that the pectic enzyme added to the must would help alot, and I think it should be frozen and not in the fridge since it's going to be a while until it's used. It could drop clear with some time sitting. Make sure you stabilize the wine with sorbate and sulfite before adding back the reserved must to ensure fermentation won't restart.
 
Yooper, what will you use to top the plum wine once you rack off the lees?
 
jonereb said:
Yooper, what will you use to top the plum wine once you rack off the lees?
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More plum wine- I have tons of wine so I just use last year's, or the year before that. Otherwise, a commercial sauvignon blanc or something. Of course, I'd rack to a smaller fermenter first (like a 3 gallon one) so there wouldn't be much to top off.
 
For backsweetening with it's own juice, here is what I do. Save the juice, as you already are. If it's going to be months - FREEZE IT.
When adding back in, don't forget, it will lower your ABV...so account for that.

After you are done with your final racking, add your sorbate, and the juice to sweeten, and then let that age in the carboy (no headspace of course) for another month. All the sediment you added will fall out. Then, just bottle as usual!
 
Awesome! Thank you! This is just a preliminary step, incase the grapes don't produce a good dry wine. Have you done this before with success? I shouldn't need to stabilize it anymore or add any clarifier?
 
Several times, yes. Always works fine! No additional sediment. If you are worried, add your juice, and then add a clearing agent, like SuperKleer. You must stabilize, as you are adding sugar, as you would any time you added sugar to a finished wine!
 

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