I've been growing traminette grapes. It's year 3 now and I plan on making wine. Got a few questions. First, I don't have a press. My plan was harvest and sort then use a juicer. Since the juicer separates pulp from juice I planned on taking pulp and using a mesh bag let it sit in juice for a few days. Will this method work? Do I need to buy a press and go through the crushing, wait a day then press juice off skins and seeds? I plan on that just don't have the money right now for a press. My next question is about testing acid. Can I buy the ph strips? Do they work well enough? What do you typically add to raise or lower ph. I have acid blend but am not sure what to do there. Thanks
Making wine from grapes
- Thread starter PTS_35
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
jgmillr1
Well-Known Member
Traminette makes a very nice wine especially if you don't harvest it early enough before it picks up honey flavors, unless you like honey I guess. I'm harvesting our Tram next week.
I've never used juicer so can't comment on its effectiveness. It doesn't sound like you have loads of grapes to process (or you wouldn't be able to use a juicer), so maybe that would work but an alternate process is to crush the grapes and remove the stems by hand. Be cautious so you don't crush the seeds and get bitter flavors into your wine. Applying some pectic enzyme will help release the juice from the pulp.
You can then press the must within 1 day of the crush. (If you are in Indiana, I've got a press you could use.) An easy way to press is to press the must through a colander/strainer or use a grain bag.
The pH strips are worthless since they are not accurate enough to do the job. You can get a TA titration kit from your LHBS for $20 or so. A pH meter runs like $80 for a handheld unit.
Keep in mind the difference between pH and TA. You will taste the TA as how much acid is in the wine. But you won't taste or care about the pH. Only the yeast, microbes and chemical processes care about the pH. Monitoring pH is good for sulfite management and ensuring the yeast are living in a happy environment. Aside from that, the TA is what you will notice every time you taste your wine.
Thank you for the response. Perhaps the juicer would release bitterness as it would likely crush the seeds somewhat. I'll get a TA kit. So how do you go about pressing the grapes using a colinder. Could a potato masher work? Wonder if I can make a jerry rigged one out of a handle, round cutting board and 5 gal bucket with skits cut into it.
jgmillr1
Well-Known Member
See if you can find a bowl that fits nicely in the colander. Use the bowl to scoop the must into the colander and then press the bottom of the bowl into the colander. Apply pressure for as long as you have patience.
Depends on the style you are wanting. A dry wine wants to run 6.5-7g/L while a wine you'll back sweeten some can run up to 8g/L or so. Taste and see what you like as you are making it. If it's the first time with these grapes then maybe don't adjust the acid and see how you like it. Traminette isn't overly acidic like some grapes.
Ok. I've read that. That traminette has a good balance or can have a good balance. About this time of year they really come together. Darken, pinkish green, taste is sweet, seeds are woody not bitter. I just went ahead and bought a stainless press. Hey, do you add yeast before pressing or do you sort, de-stem, crush and add pectic enzyme. That's what I was going to do. De stem, hand crush, mix in pectic enzyme. 12 to 24 hrs later, press. Add camden, 12 to 24 later add yeast. That's the plan anyway
jgmillr1
Well-Known Member
That's a good plan. For the Cayuga I harvested last Tuesday i pitched the yeast into the must and pressed 18hrs later. At pressing it already had fermentation going and it about done now. The yeast are very tolerant of sulfites and you can pitch it early.
looking ftoward to it. I don't have many clusters. Two reasons, small area so only planted three vines but this being year three it's just starting out. Assume I'll get more as years progress. I bought some gewurztraminer juice to supplement but now I am thinking I'd like to taste the whole grapes of my lot so I'm hoping to at the very least get a gallon. We'll see.
Daniele96
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2018
- Messages
- 178
- Reaction score
- 160
To make wine is not necessary a juicer: you should use a grape presser like the one in the first photo. Then you put the must in a closed barrel like the one used for beer. On the peel of the grapes there are natural yeast which will start fermentation process but it is essential you don't destroy completely the peels and it is essential they remain with liquid part. After some week when you see the peels come to the surface it is the time to separate the liquid part (which is in the part below the peels in the barrel) and the peels remains. You can press a second time the peels but if you want a good final product don't press too much the peel remains. You can distill the remains to make grappa. After this step wine need some month to mature in a barrel.
madscientist451
Well-Known Member
Check out this video, a pretty cheap method with buckets and a brewing bag.
Also, adding chemicals to change your PH can also affect the taste. For a small amount of wine, just let it be what it is, there's no need to mess with it like industrial wine producers do. The main thing is to harvest the grapes at the right time, then keep the skin contact time short (after crush)for white wines. Making your wine "as is" will help you get experience with what happens when you change harvest time and shorten or extend skin contact time.
Here's the bucket press, there are many other videos on you tube showing cheap presses:
Hi all,
I'm about to make wine for the first time, and doing it with grapes. I have a lot of experience brewing all grain beer, and frankly I'm shocked at how unsanitary wine making is and it's freaking me out a little.
I know metabisulphite is not a sanitizer (it's never used in brewing), and a lot of info out there on wine making goes into sanitizing the equipment but it seems a complete waste of time considering how dirty the grapes are. dirt, yeasts, and molds are visibly present on the grapes. It seems to me that adding bacterial inhibitors like metabisulphite are really only adding more chemicals to the mix. My eyes are telling me that the ingredients are probably 10 to 100 times dirtier than my equipment. If I was brewing beer I would be dumping the malt if it was in this condition.
How do I best clean these grapes so that my yeast has a fighting chance?
I'm about to make wine for the first time, and doing it with grapes. I have a lot of experience brewing all grain beer, and frankly I'm shocked at how unsanitary wine making is and it's freaking me out a little.
I know metabisulphite is not a sanitizer (it's never used in brewing), and a lot of info out there on wine making goes into sanitizing the equipment but it seems a complete waste of time considering how dirty the grapes are. dirt, yeasts, and molds are visibly present on the grapes. It seems to me that adding bacterial inhibitors like metabisulphite are really only adding more chemicals to the mix. My eyes are telling me that the ingredients are probably 10 to 100 times dirtier than my equipment. If I was brewing beer I would be dumping the malt if it was in this condition.
How do I best clean these grapes so that my yeast has a fighting chance?
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Molecular SO2 in must does in fact kill or inhibit most wild microbes quite effectively without adding any off-flavor.
Same as beer brewing you still need to start with clean and sanitized equipment to reduce risk of carrying over yeast/microbes from the previous batch.
Sulfite certainly can be (and is) used as a surface sanitizer for brewing and wine making, as a solution with acid (frequently citric acid) to drop the pH.
It's not as convenient and requires longer contact time, but is effective.
Wine, unlike beer, is not prone to contamination for several reasons:
1. Sulfite (molecular SO2) is antimicrobial.
2. Most wine yeasts produce competitive factor.
3. Wine is generally higher ABV.
4. Wine generally doesn't have residual sugar. Sweet wine is often stabilized with sorbic acid or sterile filtered, or is very high ABV. (On the other hand, "clean" beer always has residual sugar.)
5. Low pH.
Cheers
madscientist451
Well-Known Member
Moldy grapes should be discarded. Issues with mold have to be dealt with in the vineyard, not the winery. That's why vineyards use large amounts of fungicides and other chemicals.
If you are purchasing grapes, and some are moldy, pick through them and get rid of any that look bad. Grapes should not be dirty and should not have contacted the ground. Adding metabisulphite after crush will take care of most of the existing yeast, your commercial yeast will out compete any that remain and the wine will sanitize itself when the alcohol is above 12% or so.
I some times spray off the grapes, but then you have to have to let them drip dry a while so the water clinging to the fruit doesn't water down your wine.
I usually do sanitize all my wine/cider equipment before using, in an attempt to minimize introducing Brett or some other bugs from my ongoing sour beer experiments, but I agree it seems like a waste of time if you consider all the bacteria/bugs that are present on fruit.
So I did some things that are almost certainly heretical...
These grapes were on sale 70% off. They had travelled 2,000 miles and sat on the shelf for weeks so their quality wasn't exactly top of the line. They were sticky, bruised, and some bunches had advanced mold growth on them.
The first thing I did was place them into 5 gallon pails, and soaked them for 24 hours in a dilute bleach solution (1 tablespoon per gallon of water). I then rinsed them with fresh water until I could not detect any residual chlorine odor, and then de-stemmed roughly 85% of the grapes (the bunches I found that had fully ripened stems I set aside to be fermented whole). I then crushed the grapes, separating out about 15% of the juice which I reduced down on the stove and added back to the must since the O.G. came in a little on the low side.
I then pitched the yeast at a much higher rate than I otherwise would have in the hope that it will suppress any unwanteds lingering in the must.
These grapes were on sale 70% off. They had travelled 2,000 miles and sat on the shelf for weeks so their quality wasn't exactly top of the line. They were sticky, bruised, and some bunches had advanced mold growth on them.
The first thing I did was place them into 5 gallon pails, and soaked them for 24 hours in a dilute bleach solution (1 tablespoon per gallon of water). I then rinsed them with fresh water until I could not detect any residual chlorine odor, and then de-stemmed roughly 85% of the grapes (the bunches I found that had fully ripened stems I set aside to be fermented whole). I then crushed the grapes, separating out about 15% of the juice which I reduced down on the stove and added back to the must since the O.G. came in a little on the low side.
I then pitched the yeast at a much higher rate than I otherwise would have in the hope that it will suppress any unwanteds lingering in the must.
