Making my first wine from my harvest, need help

I’ve been a homebrewer for a while and have about 5 wines under my belt…..2 wine kits and 3 from local fruit (peaches).

Now for my questions:

I recently pulled enough grapes from my lonely planted merlot plant to make around 1gallon of wine. This is more of an experimental batch…next year I plan on purchasing around 500lbs of grapes and aging in a 30g barrel.

Can anyone give me some advice on any of my steps below: (I put some of the main questions I have in bold)

Vol 1gallon
Place de-stemmed and washed grapes in a mesh bag, crush and place in primary bucket. Add 1crushed Campden tablet. Cover and let sit for 10 hours.

Add 1/2tsp pectic enzyme seal with airlock and refrigerate at 35degrees for 48 hours.

Take a specific gravity reading, acidity level reading, ph reading. Adjust acidity (most likely need to add) to 0.65% by adding an acid blend (tartaric, malic, and citric). Is there a certain PH level I want to be at for fermentation? Not sure how to check for tannins but I see it’s recommended to add a “small amount” of grape tannin. Add yeast nutrient. If my SG of the juice is not around 1.095-1.100 then should I supplement with corn sugar to get it there? Also do you ever have to add water to your juice?

Bring up to 62degrees and add dry yeast (any recommendation on yeast to use) and toasted oak cubes. Set in fermentation chamber at 62degrees without an airlock for the first 48 hours then apply airlock and set for another 10 days or until gravity has dropped to around 1.010.

Rack wine to carboy and install airlock. Let sit for 1-2 months.

Rack to new carboy for another 15 days, if no lees is on the bottom then move to next step.

I think I either need to degas the wine here by stirring or just let sit for a few couple more months and let it degass on its own. Any recommendations? Do I need to add any more Campden tablets if I do this?

Once ready to bottle do I need to add any potassium sorbet for preservation?

I think I’m all set on the bottling part, I have a floor corker, use all natural corks and purge with CO2 prior to racking and bottling. I use StarSan for all my sanitation.

Basically any advice for this novice winemaker is appreciated.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.

 

Thank you. I appreciate the advice.

 

Do not wash the grapes! you will lose much of the natural sugars that rest on them.

 

No grape washing. Got it

 

FWIW, I did a 5 day cold maceration on my first batch of wine from whole grapes after reading about it. It's said to improve color and also provide some soft tannin structure to the finished wine. Not only that, but it gave me 5 days to figure out what the hell I was doing . It's not needed but can buy you a little time if you need it and/or provide the benefits I read about. The wine I did this to (syrah) came out wonderfully, BTW. Though, I'm sure it would have been great without the cold maceration.

When moving your wine from open fermenter to carboy, don't forget to press your grapes and get all that goodness out of them. You didn't list the step so I thought I'd mention it.

Also, after reaching FG, you typically want to get your wine off the gross lees within a day or two. I honestly don't know how important this is on a homebrewers micro scale, but it's generally the recommended procedure.

 

I'm torn on the washing of grapes. On the one hand, like Yooper said, it's the resting place for yeast and bacteria. I might come in the form of dust or bird poop (yuck!). On the other hand, most wineries don't wash their grapes prior to crush and fermentation. Some even rely on the yeast to be carried over to initiate the wild fermentation.

I've only done two batches of wine from fresh picked grapes that I harvested myself, and neither time did I wash the grapes. Both times I've manually stemmed the grapes and left out any "raisins", squishy, and poopy grapes. Granted, many raisin and squishy grapes have made it into the must; along with spider webs, spiders, a few earwigs, and other things I didn't see fall in there.

In fact, half of my first hand-picked batch started to spontaneously ferment prior to pitching yeast which would indicate some wild yeast taking hold and initiating fermentation. The result of both batches have been fantastic (a syrah and a dry muscat).

The beer-maker in me says "wash the grapes; keep everything sanitary with starsan; be absolutely sanitary in every step of the process", while the novice wine-maker in me says "do it like you've witnessed at wineries; no need to sanitize spoons if they're clean; punch your cap with your hand". It's a dilemma for sure

Safe is erring on the side of caution (wash grapes, use starsan at every step, keep sulphite level up).

 

So, after reading the step I missed about pressing the grapes I now have a dilemma. I don't have a wine press. If buying one is my only reliable option then I will but I was hopping to not have to get another big piece of equipment the wife is going to complain about. I have 5 pails or 25 gallons of grape must I am fermenting (not the original 50 gallons I planned on). Should I just bit the bullet and get a wine press http://www.midwestsupplies.com/25-italian-made-ratchet-press.html or is there another reasonable option for me?

 

Many wine/beer homebrew shops will rent them for a very reasonable price. That's where I would start.

I've pressed both batches by hand with a paint strainer bag and it's a really work out to get a proper pressing.

 

I don't know how you do it Yopper. I bought a bucket size mesh bag and I'm very glad I have a press!

 

so with a 2nd baby on the way and limited time I just went ahead and purchased a press. Closest rental to me was 1 hour drive....at this point in my life time is money so 4 hours of driving total and the hassle wasn't worth it. Now, how to break it to the wife why I needed another piece of equipment:/

On another note I got the stats on my frozen grape must I purchased. Of coarse I will take my own reading once I get them in. Brix 26.5, TA .78%, Ph 3.45

I did some calcs and plan to dilute the must with 4.65liters of RO water to get the brix down to 24.5. I think I want a TA of closer to .65% so I figure I could take a acid reading after the dilution. Is there a way to calculate what I would need for tartaric acid adjustments now with a calculation?

Also it was recommended to me by Brehm (place I bought my grapes from) to blend in a Merlot since the Cab Sauv is going to have a lot of tannins. I am thinking about also making a 3 gallon batch of Merlot to eventually blend into my cab. Would I do my blending after I barrel age the cab or prior?

Last they recommend I pitch multiple yeast to get more of a flavor profile. Separate must in 2-3 batches (looking at using BDX, MT Vitivelure, and RP15.
Since I have temp control I plan to start off fermentation 70f then toward the last 1/3 ramp up to 75-77f.

Any more advice is appreciated.

 

For the press, I think I've recommended this about a Brazilian times the past month, but using a bucket slipped inside a second similar bucket supposedly works great. Just drill some holes into the side of the outer bucket, towards the bottom. Put it into some type of tray to catch the wine as it oozes out of holes. Fill that bucket with the must. Then slip the second bucket into the first one with the holes. Finally use your body weight to press the second bucket down on the must. You can even fill the second one with water, rocks, metal pieces, to get more pressure.

Here's a link to a similar idea using a bucket and a car jack.

http://fivegallonideas.com/wine-or-cider-press/

You should make quick work of 25 gallons using a set up like this.

I know you've already bought the press, but if you find that it causes too much marital strife you can always return it and go the bucket route!

 

Texas....thanks for the idea, I will consider that.

Yet another question. I am trying to determine how careful I need to be with S02 so I think getting a SO2 test kit makes sense? Also I am learning about the maloactic fermentation and am considering doing this. Any recommendations here, I have temperature control, and any malolactic culture recommendations for my cabernet?

 

I agree with not washing the grapes. He is correct that the sugars are inside the grapes but washing them would add water when you start crushing and the water gets mixed in, therefore lowering the natural sugars. Although you can correct the sugar level if this happens with just adding sugar but natural is always best.
We learned this the hard way when we harvested our vinyard last year. Drying them is a option but not on a large scale operation, you need to harvest/press and then a soon as possible drop the tempature on them before they go bad.

 

After the initial dose of SO2 at crush you don't add any more until AFTER MLF. For MLF I highly recommend Enoferm Alpha, the stuff is awesome.

SO2 testing is must once you have completed MLF. MLF can take some time (one to several months), paper chromotography is the best way to test for completion.

For SO2 testing you can use an Aeration-Oxidation setup, each test will take about 15 minutes. I finally bought and electronic SO2 tester since I generally have 30-60 gallons going invarious fermenters.

You'll want to test about every 4-6 weeks during the cellaring period. I find using a 10% SO2 solution is the easiest way to make the additions during cellaring.

 

I've done fresh and frozen juice from Brehm, it's top notch stuff...I get fresh from him now since I'm in Sonoma County.

Since you will be fermenting the Merlot after the Cab, I would wait and blend prior to bottling. You can setup various blending bench trials and may find that you want to make several different blends and keep some single varietal wine also.

Splitting your fermentation to do more than one yeast is fun if you have the room and vessels for it. Through the fermentation you should consider at least one and possibly two more additions of FermAid K. I would also let the temp go as high as it wants during fermentation. I let my Malbec go into the mid 80's which really helps with extraction from the skins.

I think your dilution/acidifcation plan is good...just take it in incremental steps so you don't overshoot terribly.

Nice go on the press. I have a basket press and my brother has a bladder press....can't imagine pressing 20+ gallons without one.