Hey guys.
I'm still groggy with jet/vacation lag so I've been slow posting anything here but as you have read, the grapes are at my house, destemmed and crushed. The guys (BTW, we had BullsBeers, JustMrWill, BeerGears and myself as the official crushing party) did a great job and picked up on the essential skills quickly. I had arranged to borrow a friends electric destemmer/crusher but he left on his own vacation over the weekend and was going to leave it in his garage for me, but left withou putting it there. A crusher/destemmer is a machine with a big hopper that you dump the whole bunches of grapes into. it has a worm auger at the bottom that moves the grapes into a cylender about one foot in diameter. The clyender is perforated with a gazillion holes about teh size of grapes and there is a steel rod running thru the center of it. the rod has soft plastic paddles that reach to the sides of the cylender and as the rod rotates the paddlespush the grapes thru the holes. The grapes drop down into the vat and the stems come out the end into a trash bucket. Very nice machine, costs about $1500. I have more sense than money so I don't own one. My friend however has more money than God so he does. Unfortunately, I don't have a key to his house so we were reduced to my old tried and true method, scrubbing the grapes thu a wire basket. It went surprisingly quickly! We go back to my house just after 3pm and were done by 5:30, including cleaning up and drinking. I've done that myself and it is SO much better, faster and easier with more hands.
So I left the grapes overnight to settle and cold soak, if for no other reason than we was supposed to get a frost last night so the yeast wouldn't have done anything anyways. I'll hydrate the yeast and add it later on this afternoon when things have warmed up more. I'll also add my thoughts and reasons for every step as I proceed.
I have all the reciepts and will post a general accounting but we are in to it for just under $900 bucks, not including the $20 I need to give Will for gas money for driving down to CT and back.
Speaking of which, there are a couple of you who have yet to send in your shares. It's all paid for, I covered the amount due. I'm not going to call anyone out, I figure if I don't get the money it's just more wine for me and I'm certainly ok with that. But if you haven't sent you shares in would you please PM me and just let me know where you stand. I am fully aware that the economy is totally different now than it was when we started this co-op and peoples circumstances may be quite different now than they were 6 months ago. I'm in pretty ok shape on that front (maybe only on that front) so I can afford to carry it if it's a problem. Just let me know.
Also, as far as yesterday being a Monday and it being hard for guys to get the day off... Not a problem. It would have been nice for more guys to be there so you could have seen the process and participated but your responsibilities to yourself, you families and your job come WAY before messing around with grapes. The grapes ripened when they ripened, they came when they did, and we got them as soon as possible. Unfortunately that was a Monday and most folks don't have the luxury of just taking a day off during the week. No big deal, the grapes got processed and all is well.
Our next get together will be next Sunday, May 31, if the must cooperates and is done fermenting by then. I plan on pressing that day and bottling the wine that is in the two barrels that our wine will be going into, so if you can, plan on being here that day.
PTN
