Massachusetts group grape buy

[CrankyOldLibrarian]

Hey guys,
we've sort of let this thread wimper out. Lets get it going again and start our planning. I've got an itch. I made 3 gallons of Habenero/Lime wine yesterday cause I'm getting figgitly.

PTN

Let me know what you need from me, because I'm definitely up for this, and am excited to learn more about wine making.

By the way, can you post the recipe for your Habanero/Lime wine?

 

[beergears]

Who is Carlos...?

Do I have to bring my own version of Carlos?

 

[paulthenurse]

Just waiting on you Paul. I just bought 275 lbs of grain in the club grain buy. So what the hell man lets get some grapes too. BTW I got a barley crusher for 60 bucks.. I just want to throw that out there and let the haters hate lol.

It worked, I hate you, too.

 

[paulthenurse]

This sure sounds tasty to me!

Paul if you need help picking up said grapes that can be arranged also!

Your truck might get drafted. Ask Chris about me pulling into his driveway the last time I picked up grapes. He swore my front wheels weren't touching the ground.

PTN

 

[paulthenurse]

By the way, can you post the recipe for your Habanero/Lime wine?

I kind of winged it by the seat of my pants but here goes.

I took about 50 limes and juiced them, got about one and one half quarts. (Bought 60 the week before but didn't get to it before going away, lost 10 or so to spoilage.) Put it into a three gallon carboy and topped up to about 2 1/2 gallons. Added a few drops of pectic enzyme. I forgot to measure the pH. (I'd already finished a half bottle of my Cab when Alice told me to get off my ass and do something with the limes before they ALL turned fuzzy.) I'm not worried about it being flabby, there will be plenty-o-acid. I'll try to remember to check it in the morning. Added 5 lbs of sugar which gave me a Brix of 22 exactly when I checked this morning. (I left it to sit overnight after adding the pectic enzyme.) Added 1 tablespoon of dried bitter orange peel and 2 dried habaneros. I added one packet of D47 this afternoon. I'll top up to the three gallon mark after a few days. D47 isn't a particularly vigourous fermentor but I don't want to have an overflow.

That's it. Should be done with the primary in a week or two, if I need to take out the peppers before then I'll fish them out. I'm guessing that I probably will need to, I'm not looking to have a particularly hot wine, I just wanted the pepper as an adjunct to the lime.

PTN

 

[paulthenurse]

Who is Carlos...?

Do I have to bring my own version of Carlos?

If you have a Carlos of your own bring him along, we can use the muscle.

PTN

 

[CrankyOldLibrarian]

I kind of winged it by the seat of my pants but here goes.

I took about 50 limes and juiced them, got about one and one half quarts. (Bought 60 the week before but didn't get to it before going away, lost 10 or so to spoilage.) Put it into a three gallon carboy and topped up to about 2 1/2 gallons. Added a few drops of pectic enzyme. I forgot to measure the pH. (I'd already finished a half bottle of my Cab when Alice told me to get off my ass and do something with the limes before they ALL turned fuzzy.) I'm not worried about it being flabby, there will be plenty-o-acid. I'll try to remember to check it in the morning. Added 5 lbs of sugar which gave me a Brix of 22 exactly when I checked this morning. (I left it to sit overnight after adding the pectic enzyme.) Added 1 tablespoon of dried bitter orange peel and 2 dried habaneros. I added one packet of D47 this afternoon. I'll top up to the three gallon mark after a few days. D47 isn't a particularly vigourous fermentor but I don't want to have an overflow.

That's it. Should be done with the primary in a week or two, if I need to take out the peppers before then I'll fish them out. I'm guessing that I probably will need to, I'm not looking to have a particularly hot wine, I just wanted the pepper as an adjunct to the lime.

PTN

Thanks for the recipe... I'm either going to make this, a ginger wine, banana wine, or coffee wine next week. Too many choices!

 

[paulthenurse]

Having done all of the above... Bannanas make a great addition to other wines to lend body and mouth feel. As a prominant player... Meh. By themselves... Good Lord save me.

Ginger. I LOVE ginger. (But I wouldn't turn my back on MaryAnn.) If you want a ginger wine I'll gladly give you a bottle then you can decide if you want to make 5 gallons of it.

Coffee. My biggest dissapointment.

I suspect you are where I was not that long ago. You are all qwrapped up in the idea of making wine. And you understand that GOOD wine takes two things: grapes and time. You don[t have either, so you want to ferment ANYTHING that tastes good and has sugar in it. Been there and done that. Let me ask you, if you go down to your local packy and wander the wine aisles do you see any ginger or coffee or bannana wines? No? Why d you think that is?

Cause they SUCK!

I'm not caving on fruit wines, I make a strawberry wine every year that makes me want to cry out with joy in February. I make a peach wine form peaches grown in a tree in our yard which is wonderful. My plum wine has won medals.

Childs play.

The lime wine was an experiment. (I bet it is going to taste fine and will be a nice summer sippin on the back porch watching the sun go down on a 90 degree day in July wine) It won't ever sell for $2.99/ bottle. Don't expect ANY of your non-grape wines to ever get your non home winemaker friends to appreciate the subtleties of what you made. They won't. But you may. Make all of the wines you want to experiment with. Learn from them. (Take a bit of advisce and only make a 3 gallon carboy, tha way yo uonly have to get rid of 12 bottles, unlike someonw who will be unnamed who made 10 gallons of tomato wine and cant stomach it.


Anyone making tomato sauce?

 

[CrankyOldLibrarian]

Having done all of the above... Bannanas make a great addition to other wines to lend body and mouth feel. As a prominant player... Meh. By themselves... Good Lord save me.

Ginger. I LOVE ginger. (But I wouldn't turn my back on MaryAnn.) If you want a ginger wine I'll gladly give you a bottle then you can decide if you want to make 5 gallons of it.

Coffee. My biggest dissapointment.

I suspect you are where I was not that long ago. You are all qwrapped up in the idea of making wine. And you understand that GOOD wine takes two things: grapes and time. You don[t have either, so you want to ferment ANYTHING that tastes good and has sugar in it. Been there and done that. Let me ask you, if you go down to your local packy and wander the wine aisles do you see any ginger or coffee or bannana wines? No? Why d you think that is?

Cause they SUCK!

I'm not caving on fruit wines, I make a strawberry wine every year that makes me want to cry out with joy in February. I make a peach wine form peaches grown in a tree in our yard which is wonderful. My plum wine has won medals.

Childs play.

The lime wine was an experiment. (I bet it is going to taste fine and will be a nice summer sippin on the back porch watching the sun go down on a 90 degree day in July wine) It won't ever sell for $2.99/ bottle. Don't expect ANY of your non-grape wines to ever get your non home winemaker friends to appreciate the subtleties of what you made. They won't. But you may. Make all of the wines you want to experiment with. Learn from them. (Take a bit of advisce and only make a 3 gallon carboy, tha way yo uonly have to get rid of 12 bottles, unlike someonw who will be unnamed who made 10 gallons of tomato wine and cant stomach it.


Anyone making tomato sauce?

Thanks for the tips, I really do appreciate it. And, yes, you pegged it, I'm about to bottle a mixed berry wine, fermenting a cherry wine, and am now curious to do one that I know won't turn out so good, but has my curiosity (and will be dirt cheap to make). I don't expect too much from these so I have been keeping them to about 2 gallons. It's been fun, a great learning experience, and a bit of a shift from making beer. I'm planning on getting 6 gallons of Chilean grape juice in the Spring so I can learn a bit about grape wine on my own, and I am hoping that your ideas for the group wine making works out too so I can learn more about the entire from grape to wine process.

Next week...I think that I'm going for the limes or bananas unless something that might make a tastier wine is on sale.

 

[Melana]

Your truck might get drafted. Ask Chris about me pulling into his driveway the last time I picked up grapes. He swore my front wheels weren't touching the ground.

PTN

No worries... i'm all for helping just keep in mind that i WILL NOT overload my truck.

 

[JustMrWill]

No worries... i'm all for helping just keep in mind that i WILL NOT overload my truck.

I have a Dodge Ram 1500 as well...soo...if you need it.. let me know.

-Will

 

[beergears]

Adding a few motorcycles to the grape truck convoy would give it a Mad Max flair to it...!

 

[JustMrWill]

From intro to Mad Max 2
Narrator: "...The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice."

Sounds about right. Of course will will have to weld spikes and stuff the them..

-Will

 

[paulthenurse]

I'm loving the idea! We pull up to M & M at 5am all tricked out in our best Mad Max gear. Good for a few laughs anyways.

 

[paulthenurse]

So I guess that a good way to start to organize this is the good old fashioned list.

I'll keep the list up to date as people sign up and give a financial commitment.

Paulthenurse I'm in for $100
BigJohn/Melana $50
CrankyOldLibrarian $50
JustMrWill $50
BearGears $50
Vermiscious $100
Sumo $100
Tony Lopez $100
Bulls Beers $100
RAlovecraft $100

 

[Melana]

We're in for atleast $50.

 

[CrankyOldLibrarian]

I'm in for $50, but I'm going to be away from May 16-24 so if the grapes arrive then, I won't be of much use.

(I can't help with the Mad Max idea since my ratty 1960s Vespa is just not tough enough.)

 

[JustMrWill]

I'm in for $50.

So...I guess BigJohn will have to be "Blaster"? Melana can ride on his shoulders as "Master"?

-Will

 

[bigjohnmilford]

I'm in for $50.

So...I guess BigJohn will have to be "Blaster"? Melana can ride on his shoulders as "Master"?

-Will

Does that mean Paul is the Humongus?

 

[beergears]

As stated before, I am in for $50.

Well worth it... think of the fun factor!


Hoping to get a heads-up on potential dates.

 

[paulthenurse]

I'm in for $50, but I'm going to be away from May 16-24 so if the grapes arrive then, I won't be of much use.

Geez, I forgot about that, I'll be away the 8th thru the 16th. But the guy at M & M expects them in the end of April given the summer they are having in Chili/Argentina. I'll check in with them.

 

[Vermicous]

I am up for 2 shares, $100.

 

[Sumo]

I am in for a $100. Maybe more. I have to check. My family has been asking me to make wine for a while. I will see if I can get them to antie up =)

BTW how is this working Paul?

Are we making one giant press? Are we going to each get our own carboy and take it home?

Or is it a communal brew where we each get so many bottles depending on how much we put in and it ferments in your basement?

Either way works for me.

 

[paulthenurse]

I have to move the wine I have in my 30 gallon barrel out soon, it's been in there for a little over a year, so I'm willing to use that barrel to hold the group's wine for a year or so. Of course, if people don't want to do that they they are certainly welcome to take their own carboy home. Why anyone would opt to age wine in glass when there is an oportunity to age it in wood is a question for another day. Actually, lets talk about it now. There are certain very real benefits to bulk aging in a barrel.

1. Flavor. The oak barrel adds an oak and vanilla component to the wine that you may or may not be able to achieve by using chips, staves or beans.
2. Micro-oxidization. Doesn't happen in glass
3. Concentration. Same thing. As time goes by a barrel will evaporate some of the wine away. That doesn't happen thru glass. It concentrates the flavor. Can you taste it? I think so. If it was a new barrel you would loose a lot more wine because the barrel soaks up alot itself. So far I think I've had to add about 3 gallons back into the barrel to keep it topped up, most of that in the beginning when the barrel was new.

Here's how I see the group process going.
We get teh grapes on a Saturday, stem and crush them and start the fermentation process. (All hands on deck) The grapes need to be punched down 6 times a day or so for a week or more. (one man job) As the grapes ferment they produce CO2 which physically raises the cap of pommace up out of the liquid. You need to punch the grapes back down, I have a gigantic restaurant sized potato masher that I use. (Ever notice that purple grapes doen't have purple flesh? The juice from purple grapes is the color of chardonney until it ferments on the skins. For example, some of the worlds best champagnes are made with pinot noir, a purple grape. The grapes are crushed and pressed the same day, they don't ferment on the skins and so the must is white.) Five or ten minutes of punching down, and churning the must gets the grape skins back under the surface, where they can extract color and flavor. (The other way to do it is by a pump over, where you pump juice from the bottom of the tank back up and over the cap. Same effect.) It needs to be done every few hours and you can't skip a punch down. It also helps to control the temps, ferments can get pretty warm, not necessarily a bad thing in a full bodied red wine.

The wine will go until it is dry and the cap falls. SOmetime after we are about 2/3 of the way thru we'll add a malo-lactc culture and the yeast fermentation and the malolactic fermentation will run together to the finish. Once the cap falls it's time to press. (3-4 man job) We'll siphon out as much of the free run juice as we can then scoop the cap into the press and squeeze it dry. All of the juice (It's actually very raw wine at this point) will go into a vessel to settle out the gross lees overnight (basicly a sheetload of yeast and pulp the needs to stay out of the barrel so it doesnt produce H2S, a strong sulfer stink that you REALLY want to avoid), then it will get pumped off the gross lees into the oak barrel where it will spend the next year or so.

The real work is grape day, press day and of course bottling day. Bodies are always in short supply on grape day and on crush day. Miraculously, no-one has other plans when it's bottling day. It's like a law of nature or something.

Obviously all of these jobs can be done with one or 2 people. But it's a WHOLE lot easier with more hands Not to mention more fun.

PTN

 

[Sumo]

Now that sounds like a fun proccess. I vote for letting it age in the oak barrel! I would also like to say, I think its great that you are willing to do this for us Paul.

Lets get some grapes !!

 

[paulthenurse]

Right on, Al! Right on. I say the more the merrier. If we get a sheetload of folks interested in joining in and we have too much wine we can always get another barrel. And I'm not really doing anything that I wouldn't be doing anyway, other than teaching folks how to make wine. This way I get a few sets of extra hands to help. Hmmm, maybe I'll call Duncan and borrow his chainsaw again...

PTN

 

[Melana]

I'm in for any help i can render!

 

[paulthenurse]

Like Applecake and Boston Creme Pie type help? Ya Baby

PTN

 

[Anthony_Lopez]

I'm definitely still interested Paul. If there are still shares available, put me down for 2!!

 

[Melana]

Like Applecake and Boston Creme Pie type help? Ya Baby

PTN

That could be arranged.