Meat grinder to crush grapes?

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COLObrewer

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We made/are making some grape wine, the white is bottled, the red is in different stages of racking. We used the powered meat grinder to crush the grapes using the plate with the largest holes, appx, 3/8".

My questions are: Will this likely create too much tannin in the wine? Some of the stems seem to wrap up at the end of the auger but I have to think that some are getting chopped up and sent to the must. Does any one use their grinder for this? Do I need to get a destemmer of some sort? How did they do it in the old days?

Info on the grapes, etc:
All grapes were picked late, some were at the stage of turning to raisins, my refractometer went off scale at one point, above 40 brix I think, maybe I had some pulp in it or something. The whites are a blend of about 4 varietals, the reds about 6. There were not enough left (after the jelly/juice pickers) to make separate batches per varietal.

The white seems fine so far, it is tremendously sweet and I can't detect any tannin, which is how I want it for dessert wine, in fact it has a smooth buttery texture with some creamy honey flavors. It's only 5 months old from picking to date. Used ale yeast, pot meta and sorbate.

The red is in the racking stage and seems to be clearing well since pressing, visually as well as flavor. One batch I used champagne yeast, the other I used ale yeast.
 
Tannins a more a function of how long the wine is left on the must. With a white, as you've noticed, no tannins at all.
 
Nice, Always something else to learn, now I'm hoping I didn't rack it off the must too soon, balance being a consideration and all.
 
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