no yeast?

[movement]

a friend of mine's father decided to enlighten me on the way you're supposed to make wine and that i'm a fool for everything i've been told and am doing.

what he told me was that you crush the grapes into a bucket and let them settle, then you pour it through a screen and into your glass carboy or as he called it a "teardrop"

then you cap it and it will ferment and you don't add yeast to it... it will just ferment on its own.


now to me that sounds like a load of crap, wouldn't the fermentation of the grapes be because there was a foreign yeast on them and that's how they're fermenting? or am I missing something?

 

[shafferpilot]

your assumption is correct. The wine yeast you buy in the store is yeast from a specific wine grape growing area that has been isolated. Wine was made through natural fermentation for centuries..... but that doesn't mean you have to take those risks too. More often than not, you'll end up with something really nasty if you let "nature" take its course. Tell the old man you did it his way, but do the smart thing and use a proper yeast

 

[movement]

lol, that's what i figured, i just had to be sure.

I'm going to research for a nice and standard wine recipe and make it sometime this september and when im done I'll give him a bottle and tell him I did it his way and confuse him as to how mine came out so different.

 

[Revvy]

Yeast lives on the skins of grapes. So when they are crushed the yeast gets mixed with the juice...as does all the other wild microorganisms that grow on them.

IIRC the original strains of brewer's yeast were just derivitives of the yeast on grape skins.

 

[david_42]

Wild yeast is everywhere. Some fruits will ferment on the tree because yeast will enter through breaks in the skin. I'm certain searching on "drunk elephant" will turn up a few good stories.

We add cultured yeast to produce specific characteristics.

 

[shafferpilot]

so true, so true. In all fairness, naturally fermented wines often come out surprisingly good.... But the risk simply isn't worth it when camden and sorbate and carefully cultured yeasts are readily available. The 'science' of wine making is at least as beautiful as the 'nature' that started it all. I choose to make wine and beer that always tastes good. Now doing an experiment every now and then with natural fermentation sounds pretty cool too. Just not with every batch.

 

[KiRbY29869]

Yea the only wine that I let go naturally is my dandelion wine that gets made once a year. The guy I got the recipe off of said his dad did it that way and he's done it that way forever. I had some of his and decided I was going to do it that way too, cause it was damn good. My strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries all get campden and cultured yeast. I figured that dandelion is a pretty wild wine anyway so why not ya know.

 

[Freezeblade]

I use cultured yeasts for everything except for apple cider, which I think benifits greatly from the depth of wild yeasts, I've got a little saved yeast bank going on wild yeast on apples and peaches from different areas around here.

 

[KENfromMI]

A guy thats ownes a wine making store in Detroit since 1965 always uses the natural yeast from the skins. He also recommends his customers do the same, his wine is always great. He will sell the ingredients or make it for you. Two older Italian guys I work with one who makes 300 gallons a year never adds yeast and their wine is awesome as well. Seems like it's an older Italian guy way, I currently have 12 gallons going on the natural yeast to give it a try and I'll report back but fermentation has been slow, Ken

 

[movement]

so if you were to do it this way, you would have to leave some of the grape skins in the primary fermentation.

 

[toularat]

Hey Movement, why don't you challenge the guy to a "wine-off" ?? challenge that you each make it your own way and 1 year from now sample it and do a taste test ? That will probably decide things.

When people hear I am making wine, they think gross! because all homemade wine they have had was made by some old method and reeked.

 

[EvilTOJ]

I've made white wine the natural way, by accident. I'd smashed and juiced some grapes, and didn't add campden to the jug, and a few days later when I finally got around to doing something with it was white and cloudy with yeast. I just let it go just to see what happened. A year later, it's bottled and pretty damn tasty. Saved me a dollar of wine yeast, that's for sure.

I wouldn't recommend doing it that way every time though.

 

[KENfromMI]

Movement, I talked to one of the guys from Lodi Valley who is a grower and ships the juice and grapes to the store I deal with. He said even when you buy the juice already pressed with 1% or less of solids intact it still will naturally ferment which I'm doing now. The draw back to not fermenting on the skins in the original must is less tannins in the wine. If you want to purchase the grapes and have them crushed and de-stemmed by him there is a 30 gallon minimum of one variety. I like variety so I do the juice and make four or five different varietes 6 gallons each and do some blending as well. I'm going to experiment with adding some powder tannins this year because i like the heavy tannins in the cabernets, syrahs etc, maybe one day I will find a used crusher-de-stemmer so I can do it from scratch. Ken