My Recipe Muscadines

[jterr]

This was given to me from another brewer to try.

1-After freezing Grapes crush/press into bucket.
2-Add Pectic Enzyme wait 5 hours and then squeeze juice put fruit into another bucket.
3-Add extra Juice/water to gals wanted. Take Hydro reading if too low add
sugar to correct and add Nutrient & Energizer.
4-Return fruit to liquid, crushed capdem tabs (1 per Gal). Cover bucket with cloth, wait 24 hours add yeast. Add yeast return cover for 3 days.
5-Remove fruit squeeze out put lid with airlock put aside for month then rack to aging vessel.

Any suggestions or changes....

 

[jonereb]

1. How many pounds of muscadine are you using per gallon of wine? I started using 8 pounds. Last year I used 10 pounds. This year I'll use 12 pounds. At 8 pounds I thought the wine was a little thin. 10 pounds may prove to be about right. But I'll try 12 pounds to see what happens. (I reduced water each year to compensate for more muscadine juice).

2. I don't remove fruit until I'm ready to go into secondary fermentation in an airlock.

5. I rack several times to allow all of the lees to fall over time. Typically I start in September and rack a few times as needed during the winter. When I'm certain that lees have quit falling, I add chemicals to stop any further fermentation, then add sugar to back sweeten, then wait to see if lees start falling. If they don't, I bottle in May or June.

Another step that someone suggested is to "cold crash". I did this by setting my gallon jug of wine in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 weeks and let the acidic ice crystals fall like lees. Then rack...then bottle. I've only done this once, and it's too early to know how much it helped, but taking a sample of wine at bottling tasted pretty good. I think another year of aging will make this wine my best yet.

 

[jterr]

I've got 20 lbs from last year.

Do you just cover with cloth from day one or use the lids that come with buckets?

I want a sweet wine - have Lalvin 71B-1122 & EC-1118..should one of them make it sweet?

 

[jonereb]

I cover with a towel for the first few days. I lift the towel, push the must down and lightly stir twice a day. Then cover with towel. When the hydrometer reading nears 1.000 (actually before that) I siphon from the fermenter into one gallon carboy(s) depending on how much wine I'm making....and immediately add the airlock. It's important to avoid letting the wine and air co-mingle to avoid the spoiling the wine's rich color. While the wine is fermenting in the pot, gases keep oxygen away from the wine.

When I siphon for the first time into the carboy, I don't worry too much about getting a few seeds or pulp in the glass jug. After a month, I'll rack off the lees, seeds, and pulp. If there is head-space in the jug after racking, I'll add a little commercial wine (Sweet Noble for me) to fill the carboy to within a inch or so of touching the airlock.

To get a sweet wine you can back-sweeten prior to bottling. The yeast will not sweeten the wine. After several months of racking the wine, and when you're convinced fermentation is 100% finished (lees stops falling completely), then siphon into a carboy containing a crushed campden tablet and Potassium Sorbate (according to pkg directions). This doesn't kill the yeast, but does prevent the yeast from fermenting the sugar you'll add. After a day or two, add the desired sugar. Wait a few more days to ensure that fermentation is indeed stopped. If so, you're ready to bottle....unless you choose to cold crash the wine to reduce acid.

This is how I've done it for the past two years with some success. I'm still very new to wine making, but I've learned a lot from some of the good people on this forum. They can explain everything far better than me.

 

[bamajo]

Sorry for getting a little off topic but since you guys have some experience I was wondering about what 1 gallon of picked muscadines weighs? I would really like to make enough wine to fill a 5 gallon carboy. I need to know about how many gallons in volume of muscadines I will need if I'm shooting for 10lbs per gallon of wine. Thanks!

 

[jonereb]

I have a gallon zip lock bag filled right now. It weighs a little less than 5 lbs, but I don't have it crammed all the way full.

 

[Lefou]

I've got 20 lbs from last year.

Do you just cover with cloth from day one or use the lids that come with buckets?

I want a sweet wine - have Lalvin 71B-1122 & EC-1118..should one of them make it sweet?

I'd recommend using the Lalvin yeast over the EC-1118 because the Lalvin strain is a less attenuative yeast. The result may not be sweet but the EC-1118 is a much more vigorous yeast than the Lalvin. A hydrometer is your best friend in this case.
Most table wines will yield 8-10% ABV. In my case, a perception of "sweetness" starts somewhere near specific gravity 1.012-1.010. You may want more or less sweetness, but there's a balancing act to be done. You will need to stem yeast activity, check, and then modify to your tastes.

 

[jterr]

This was given to me from another brewer to try.

1-After freezing Grapes crush/press into bucket.
2-Add Pectic Enzyme wait 5 hours and then squeeze juice put fruit into another bucket.
3-Add extra Juice/water to gals wanted. Take Hydro reading if too low add
sugar to correct and add Nutrient & Energizer.
4-Return fruit to liquid, crushed capdem tabs (1 per Gal). Cover bucket with cloth, wait 24 hours add yeast. Return cover for 3 days.
5-Remove fruit squeeze out put lid with airlock put aside for month then rack to aging vessel.

Any suggestions or changes....

Should I let sit for 3 days then remove fruit?? Got confused here...

 

[jonereb]

After you add yeast, you'll let it set for a "few days". It really depends on how fast the yeast is working. The key is to siphon the wine into a carboy and apply an airlock before the fermentation process is completed because when the sugar is depleted and no longer giving off gases, this will allow oxygen to reach the wine and cause oxidation. 3 days may be about right.

I put my mashed muscadines in a mesh bag so it's easy to remove the fruit afterwards. But I'll siphon around the fruit in the mesh bag before I actually remove the fruit entirely so I can squeeze the bag and release additional juices while I'm siphoning.

 

[jterr]

Is it necessary to stir are just push the skins down?

 

[jonereb]

Some would say not to stir for risk of oxidation. I'll let someone more experienced answer that.

 

[Yooper]

Is it necessary to stir are just push the skins down?

Stir it, and punch the skins down. That will release a lot of c02 (which is a product of fermentation, but poisonous to yeast). Once fermentation slows is when you don't want to stir, and you'll move it to a carboy to avoid oxidation.

 

[jterr]

reason I'm concerned as I have only a gal. of liquid and skins in a big 6 gal bucket(with skins it wouldn't fit my gal bucket).
So after 3 days I will syphon to a 1 gal carboy or can I just leave in 1 gal plastic bucket with airlok??

 

[jonereb]

I use a 1-gal glass carboy, but as long as it's air-tight I guess it doesn't really matter. If the liquid doesn't fill to within 1-inch of the bung, top it off with a similar commercial wine. Do this each time you rack.