A friend gave us her grapes. She mostly uses them for jam/jelly but gave the rest of them to us for wine. They are a beta-cross, similar to a concord grape but very tart.
We stuck them (once destemmed) in the freezer and finally got around to them this weekend.
When we weighed them, we had 78.5 pounds! I knew there were a lot, but not THAT many. So I got ready to make 13 gallons of wine.
Since they are hard to crush and press without a chrusher or a press, we put them in nylon mesh bags and allowed them to thaw in the fermenters. Bob found a big stake (baseball bat sized) that I bleached and rinsed and he got to work.
I'm using approximately 6 pounds of grapes per gallon, one liter of grape concentrate for the whole batch, and I think it was 22 pounds of sugar total for an OG of 1.085. Pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient was added as well, but no tannin or any other additives at this point (besides the campden when thawing the grapes in the fermenters).
I did not do any acid adjustments at this point, as the grapes are known to be acidic but the must tasted so good I didn't even bother to check the acidity. We'll see if that was a mistake or not!
We stuck them (once destemmed) in the freezer and finally got around to them this weekend.
When we weighed them, we had 78.5 pounds! I knew there were a lot, but not THAT many. So I got ready to make 13 gallons of wine.
Since they are hard to crush and press without a chrusher or a press, we put them in nylon mesh bags and allowed them to thaw in the fermenters. Bob found a big stake (baseball bat sized) that I bleached and rinsed and he got to work.
I'm using approximately 6 pounds of grapes per gallon, one liter of grape concentrate for the whole batch, and I think it was 22 pounds of sugar total for an OG of 1.085. Pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient was added as well, but no tannin or any other additives at this point (besides the campden when thawing the grapes in the fermenters).
I did not do any acid adjustments at this point, as the grapes are known to be acidic but the must tasted so good I didn't even bother to check the acidity. We'll see if that was a mistake or not!