Making my Pyments

[MightyMosin]

Today I started my newest Pinot Noir pyment. This will be my first using a grape must instead of a wine kit that I hydrate from a concentrate. Prior to today I've done a lot of crash course reading on Pinot Noir which I hope helps.

The grapes arrives "semi-frozen", which I believe means that they come out of frozen storage and then are shipped. These came from Wine Grapes Direct and were harvested in 2022 in Willamette Valley, OR. They went straight to my garage refrigerator when they arrived and the next day I checked pH, SG and SO2 levels. The crushed and se-stemmed must came with 20 PPM of SO2 which I increased to 40 PPM as there is sure to be wild yeast and other things from the Vineyard in there.

The Grape must came in at a pH of 3.6 and a SG 1.096; so about 12.5% ABV on its own. The grape must is 4.25 gallons. Pectic enzyme was added after raising up the free SO2 levels and then it went back into the refrigerator for a 3 day cold soak to increase the color and tannic extraction.

My fermenter will handle a total volume of 7.76 gallons, so I decided a 6.5 gallon total must would be good for leaving enough headroom for the grape cap; I'll find out soon enough if that is enough headroom.
With my total volume decided i knew that I had to come up with 2.25 gallon honey must that would exceed the grape sugars, as my mind says that I need more sugars from honey to make it a pyment. So I needed to have a blended SG that exceeded the 1.096 SG.
My honey must is 2.25 gallons @ 1.128 SG which blended with the grape must would give me the 6.5 gallons at a blended SG of 1.107 and have a potential of 14% ABV. The actual OG ended up at 1.112 giving a potential 14.7%... a bit higher than I was intending, but there it is as I didn't want to increase the volume by adding water to reduce the gravity.

As the grapes were refrigerator temperature for the "cold soak", you want to try and rapidly increase the grape must temperature to a fermentable temperature to not provide time for the growth of Kloeckera yeast that can be typical on grapes brought in from the field. That yeast strain can provide vinegar-ish flavors if left to grow. That was the main reason I increased SO2 levels in the must when I added pectic enzyme. As I am not ready for my temperature control, I started with my honey must and heated 2 gallons of spring water to about 140F and added to the fermenter with my honey. The colder grape must was added to that warmer honey must and my combined must was about 65F.

While I was messing with the different musts, I had 15g of Lalvin RC-212 on a heated stir plate going with Go-Ferm Sterol Flash that I slowly inoculated with honey must and later on with grape must and eventually the blended must to get the yeast starter within 10F of the must temp.

The final blended must received some different yeast adjunct, a little red tannin, and 2 minutes of pure O2 through a .5 micron stone and then the large yeast starter was pitched. A short while later I added 1g of DAP and tomorrow will start on a TOSNA protocol. Fermentation is under way nicely and tomorrow will start grape cap punch down and nutrient adds.

I hope this goes well. Sanitation has been extreme and attention to details has been top of my game along with a variety of equipment purchases to hopefully take this up a notch. My biggest doubt is related to this being the first time using a raw grape must, but it will be easier the next time. The most notable equipment add lets me check actual SO2 levels instead of approximating.

Edit: Adding some pictures of the must which is so different than what I am used to with my prior meads.

 

[MightyMosin]

It's 2 days later and I'm about 4 points shy of the 1/3 sugar break. The rest of the nutrients went in.

I'm getting some good color extraction with the punch downs and the pectic enzyme that was added to the cold soak. It smells so good right now.

 

[MightyMosin]

My fermenter will handle a total volume of 7.76 gallons, so I decided a 6.5 gallon total must would be good for leaving enough headroom for the grape cap; I'll find out soon enough if that is enough headroom.

The headspace for the grapes coming up and forming a cap has been fine and I could probably get away with another 1/4 to 1/2 gallon must in there and be OK.

 

[fatjay]

Don't you want to store hte bottles vertically to preserve clarity? I'd assume if you store it on the side whatever is left will settle on the side.

 

[Srimmey]

So I might have bit off more than I was expecting on this one...

I purchased 4.25 gallons of semi-frozen Pinot Noir grape must that was sourced from Willamette Valley, OR.
My brother-in-law was excited about this, as its his favorite spot for Pinot Noir.

I just did some checks on it.
It's a 3.6 pH... that seems to be right in line where it should be.
1.096 on a hydrometer, temperature corrected to 1.095. I just have to say that most corrections are pretty worthless outside of extremes.
1.089 on the refractometer... granted that is off the top where water is likely to be. I'll go with the hydrometer.
Free SO2 measured out at 20PPM... I'll say that I am happy that winegrapesdirect.com has added SO2 to this ahead of time and based on the pop from the lid separating that they have probably flooded the headspace with an inert gas. Top scores all around.

I want the initial SO2 to be at 30-50 to PPM for the raw must. I added ~8mL of a 10% SO2 mix to the 4.25 gallon and that brought it up to 40PPM. Damn great middle of the road. Such a tiny amount is needed per gallon when your SO2 is fresh. I flooded it with CO2 before sending it back to the fridge.

I added two tsp of pectic enzyme to the must, flooded the headspace with CO2, and will let it set for ~3 days. It's after this that I enter uncharted territories for myself. The must has SO MUCH grape skins and mini grape branches and a few bits of leaves.

I'll let this ferment through ~ the 1/3 sugar break.. maybe the 2/3 break and then pull off all of the skins and brambles to press through my mini press... That's going to be slow going. That slow portion is what has me thinking the 1/3 break while there is a lots of CO2 going on is the better choice.
Is there a preferred spot for this? Any recommendations on how to pull all the solids for pressing without introducing extra O2.
Maybe I should pour all of this through a muslin bag and try to catch all the solids in one place?

The above is my weak spot... I'm not really worried about the rest of the fermentation process.

Suggestions are welcomed.

Yeah for willamette valley Pinot grapes!

I would hate to hear what you paid for them but such is life. I live in the area and last year the u-pick vineyard i go to sold me my grapes for around 0.95$ per pound. I think I bought around 150 pounds. Can’t remember the final numbers, it was enough to make about 15 gallons of finished wine. I have had some experience with these wine grapes now and am happy to share what I learned.

Some of my information might be slightly skewed. I prefer to make rose wines so I am picking about how I manage the juice.

1. I press after right cold soaking, before fermentation. All the crushed fruit matter goes directly into large brew bags. That way I can easily separate into batches down the road. This just allows me much more control of how and when I ferment. What I don’t ferment right away, goes in the freezer until I have more time down the road.

2. Separate juice types right away. I kept the free run, light press and fully press all separate. They are very different, each good in their own way. Blend them back together as desired.

3. I’ve found the juice I get from the free run to be slightly lower PH than the pressed juice. PH on the free run was 3.5, pressed juice was around 3.9-4.0.

4. Don’t be afraid to skip MLF and oak. The grapes are really great on their own. This year my classic (not rose) Pinot seems very sweet and figgy even though the FG is 0.990. I’ve never had anything like it before and want to keep it as is. A pure and unique expression of the grapes.

Next year I might make a rose pyment. Fireweed honey and free run juice for a crowning glory of floral bliss.

 

[MightyMosin]

I live in the area and last year the u-pick vineyard i go to sold me my grapes for around 0.95$ per pound. I think I bought around 150 pounds. Can’t remember the final numbers, it was enough to make about 15 gallons of finished wine.

For the price of that, I could potentially make it a mini vacation and head up and purchase direct... work doesn't always align with what I work though. I'd do some straight wines, as well.
Thanks for the info on how you do things, as I'm always trying to learn different ways of doing things. In my case, I was looking for as much color and tannin extraction, so I left everything in until I racked. The clarity in your carboys is great!

I was planning on racking this yesterday while the cap was really high, but other things took my day away and I finally got to racking this today. The next time I do this I will either wrap some stainless mesh around my auto siphon or I will use a sanitized PVC pipe with a lot of small holes drilled into it to put the auto siphon into to make racking easier so that the bits aren't plugging things up..

So I slowly racked (grapes were reducing the flow) the pyment out and scooped out all the grape skins and pressed them. I probably got about another two gallons out of the pressings. All of this was added to the free run as my batch sizing doesn't allow me the freedom to keep it separate. I have about 5.3 gallons in a carboy and about another liter that I transferred into another bottle. That will be used to top up the carboy after I rack it off.

The pressed skins were bagged and thrown into the freezer. They will be added soon to a new batch of a Zinfandel (wine kit based) to add some tannins to the overall batch.

I took a picture of the bottle in the fridge and I think I got a nice color extraction.

 

[MightyMosin]

So tonight I opened my last 2023 Pyment (bottled in 2024).

15.5%abv
Delicious, but I wish it wasn't my last bottle.

I won a double gold with this one in 2024.

Sadly, I was too busy to enter contests this year.