Moon drop wine

[Seamonkey84]

My mother asked me to make a batch of wine using some very tasty moon drop grapes that she got at Sam’s club. She gave me 18lbs and wanted see what I could make with them. I destemed, rinsed, and froze them for a few days. I now have them in a brew bag thawing in a bucket. I plan to just mash them, and top with enough fluids to cover all the fruit and add the campden tablets. But the question is, should I use just enough water to cover the fruit, or use some Concord grape juice? I don’t want to make the product too light and watery, but I don’t want to concord to over power the moon drops.

 

[bernardsmith]

Just thinking out loud here but table grapes tend not to be as flavor rich as wine grapes. So I would think that your mother may have given you a real challenge. What i might do is is think outside the box and consider making a pyment (a mead made with the juice of grapes rather than water) You get the added sugar from the honey (unlikely that your grapes have a brix close to 23) and you can look to the honey to add more flavor. If you begin and end with the amount of juice you can express from those grapes then the only water you need is for cleaning and sanitizing but if you really must dilute the flavors with water then you might look for a flavor-rich honey...

 

[Seamonkey84]

I was thinking about pyment, as all my brews have been following the bomm protocol, just using sugar. But I just used up all my wildflower honey in a melomel, and I have plans for my orange blossom honey. I was thinking maybe using white grape juice to top up with, and add campden to that. Ferment on the fruit for 7-10 days. I can always blend in other berries or some black currant at secondary to round out the flavors if it’s not what I want.

 

[Blacksmith1]

See how much juice you get. If it is noticeably more than your carboy holds, say 5 gallons for a 3 gallon carboy for example, you can freeze concentrate the juice to bring up the flavor and sugar content.I have done this with some store juices to good effect.

 

[Seamonkey84]

After mashing the grapes, I realized I didn’t need to add water to submerge the fruit. I got 2gal of juice plus pulp. I’m expecting just under two gallons after the enzyme and yeast have a chance to work on the fruit at the end. I know there will be a lot of volume lost to lees, so prob just over a gallon of clear product. I think I’m going to omit mixing in any other grape juice for now.
I added the campden tablets last night, and I will mix in some peptic enzyme before I leave for work. The hydrometer won’t float in the bucket since there’s not enough juice, and I need a new graduated cylinder. I’ll try to make due and get a reading in a pitcher or smaller carboy before mixing in sugars.

 

[bernardsmith]

this is where a refractometer comes into its own. Hydrometers need a great deal of juice (relatively speaking) but a refractometer can work with a couple of drops (literally). That's enough to be able to measure how much light is refracted as it passes through the liquid and that bending (refraction) can be mapped onto the sugar content of the juice (or salt content of water etc). This also means that you can use a refractometer to assay how ripe a fruit is (in light of its sugar content)

 

[Seamonkey84]

Yea I know refractometers are good for this purpose, but not accurate when the alcohol gets involved. I have one for my saltwater fishtank, but the numbers only go up to 1.050

 

[bernardsmith]

I thought you wanted to measure the gravity of the must - no alcohol in must because no yeast.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Yea it would help for the must or if I’m using it to pick my own fruit. I haven’t bought one since hydrometer are more useful through the process and are cheaper.

 

[Seamonkey84]

I measured the gravity of the grape juice tonight, it was 1.095 without me adding any sugar. But since I want it to finish sweet, I brought it up to 1.140 and pitched some yeast from my continuous culture. It should finish at ~1.020, since I’m following the BOMM nutrient protocol with wyeast 1388.
The juice was already soaking in the fruit pulp for two days, so how long should I leave the fruit in the brew? With my berry wines I’ve left them in for 10 days, and I was going to do the same here but I’ve read most wines only sit on the grapes for 3-5 days.

 

[Seamonkey84]

I removed fruit bag this morning, and racked it all into 3 smaller carboys. After I squeezed out the pulp in the bag, I ended up with just under 2.5gal. I topped off the .5gal growler with a bit of Welch concord juice. The gravity was 1.008, so the juice that was still in the grapes diluted the sugar I added. I’ll let them start to clear separately then combine to make full carboys at racking.