Recipe (2 gallons)
7.8 Kg Muscat Grapes (white)
2 Campden Tablets
1 Kg sugar
1 Teaspoon Citric Acid
1 Teaspoon Tartaric Acid
1 Teaspoon Nutrivin (Nutrient)
2 Teaspoons Pectolase
Yeast, GV5
OG 1075
Method
1. See previous post for piccies. Pick the grapes from your friendly neighbour's vine, with their permission of course, and pledge some wine in return. Take them off their stems, wash them, and drop into the fermenting bin. Dissolve 2 crushed campden tablets in water, add to fermenting bin, add water to cover the grapes (took 1 gallon). Snap on the lid and leave for 48 hours.
2. Two days have now passed. Remove about 1 litres worth of grapes, place in a nylon bag and squeeze the juice out, measure the gravity of the juice. Was 1047. This is low, ideally you want something significantly higher, but you can expect to have to add sugar to grapes grown in the UK. This is especially true of a vine that has been left to its own devices. There's way too many grapes on it really. The juice tasted delicious by the way, very fruity, quite sharp, even pineapple like flavours. A shop bought grape juice is usually around 1070 with no added sugar.
3. Continue pressing all the grapes in this way. Keep the pressed skins. Meanwhile dissolve 1kg of sugar in some of the water that the grapes have been soaking in.
4. When you're done with that put the grape skins into a couple of muslin bags, dissolve the nutrient, acids and enzyme in some grape juice, throw all the ingredients (except the yeast) into the fermenting bin. Give it a good sloshy stir, add the bagged skins, pitch the yeast, cover and leave it. Stir daily, sloshily, for the next week. Then treat it as any other wine, probably removing the skins after about a week (easy job cos they're in bags!).
Other Thoughts
I've used GV5 yeast because it ferments down to 8'C, and is very happy at cool temperatures which is what you want for a good bouquet in white wines. My brewing area is unheated and is currently at 17'C. It's also low foaming.
I've heard it said that the flavour of the wine mainly comes from the skins. Of course also tannins. With those thoughts in mind I'm leaving the skins in for a week, they do taste good! I want this wine to be quite astringent and flavourful.
It's quite amazing how fast those bright green grapes turn brown while you press them. Likewise the juice. Don't be alarmed tho, there is little you can do about it, perhaps try adding an anti-oxidant like vitamin C if you want.
Never made wine before but have the first grapes on my Leeds grape vine this year. Wasn't sure where to start so thanks :)
ReplyDeletegreat to hear that urbaninsomniac, thanks for telling me. If you've poked about on my blog a bit then you'll see that wine made from whole grapes was an unusual venture for me. While i'm confident that i've given you a good platform you may want to try some homebrew forums if this is going to be one of your main wines each year. You'll be bound to find some folks in such places who have specialised and can take your craft way beyond where i can take you.
Deletei wish i could recommend one but i find them "clique like". However they may work just fine for you so do google some likely search terms.
Enjoy embarking on this wonderful interest, probably the best tip i can you just now is to get a production line going. When your vessels empty at each stage of the process get the next project on the go. It was only when i started doing this that i got the maximum out this craft, science and art.
Thanks very much for your reply. I've found a utube video. I'm following your idea with the skins in the muslim bags though as this looks the easiest option. :)
ReplyDeletenice one, i often forget about youtube, which is weird cos i have a number of my own vids there. none on making wine from grapes tho.
Deleteand muslin bags ... one of the brewers most under-rated tools. they make it soooo much easier. by the way i don't throw mine away, i wash them and re-use them many tens of times.
All the best with your brew, and do come back. give one the "quickie wines" a go. you won't regret it, they sound like prison hooch but are staggeringly good! We're also in the season of oranges and parsnips. both these wines are very labour intensive and fiddly to make, but there's nothing difficult about them, just need a lot more attention to detail in the early stages.
Keep up the goodness here. I started making wine almost 2 years ago. I am hooked and built a 900 bottle rack for everything I am making. Still filling it up
DeleteKeep up the goodness here! Great work! I started making wine almost 2 years ago. Got hooked/obsessed and built a 900 ottle rack. Still filling it up.
DeleteThanks for the encouraging message Larry. I'm keeping it up, tho time is a squeeze. We're in the middle of a big upheaval (a good one!) so i've recently completed "just incase" brewathon of 3 batches of 3 wines. 2 x 3 gallons and a 5 gallon batch. Gotta keep the stocks up :-)
DeleteYour bottle rack sounds great. I'd like one of them myself! I tend to bottle only when i want to drink my wine, or when i need empty demi-john (DJ) capacity. With 30 DJ's the pressure is off. I do like the look of a big rack tho, especially when laid down bottles start to gather dust.
warm wishes