Muscadine Juice looking to be wine.

[coleandrobin]

I have about 1.5 gallons of muscadine juice and enough muscadines to make that up to two gallons. I need a little help turning that into wine. I know the basics of making wine, however I've never done a small batch from fresh juice like this before. Do I need a smaller primary fermentor? I have a few 1 gallon glass jugs, but I cannot get the grapes in them with the wine.

 

[tokerlund]

Google: Jack Keller Muscadine Wine Recipe and you will find a great start.



I use a standard Fermentor = 5 gallon bucket (#1 or #2 plastic). I would just use a full-sized fermentor and then once things have settled down in a week or so, rack into your glass jugs. One thing that will make it easier is to put all of your fruit in a straining bag. This will allow you to rack without the fruit stopping things up. I have done a 1 gallon batch of Beta (similar to Muscadine) and then a 6 gallon batch this year. My advice would be to save as much of the left over fruit pressings as you can in the straining bag. I have used them in other wines to add a new flavor. They tend to be very potent and you could even make a 2nd, weaker batch out of them. Then you could blend the 1st batch with the 2nd batch to get just the right flavor.

Enjoy!