Grape question
 

Oh no, another grape question:
I have this grape vine - concord with the seeds. It was supposed to be
seedless, but the grapes didn't know it.

Anyway, this has been a very good year with all the rain and other
conditions. I want to juice the grapes and either ferment the small batch
as is or use it to make a pyment later.

I have a small hand press, do I just wash the grapes to remove any critters
that may be on them, then remove the stems ( which looks like a lot of time
and effort) before crushing the grapes? And should I crush them from
after washing, or should I freeze then do the deed? For some reason I
haven't a clue and the answer has to be obvious.

Unless the grapes are growing beside a very dusty road I would skip the washing. Commercial vinyards never wasy their grapes. Bugs, wasp nests, dust, bird droppings, everything goes in contributes!

Desteming is necessary. You can use a machine that does this or you can do it by hand. If you are doing a large batch, enough for 20 gallons or more, you will probably only do it by hand once. Then you will buy or rent a machine. But enough for 10 gallons or less is definately doable by hand.

They can certainly be frozen, either before or after they are destemmed. Freezing will increase the yield when you press.

Now you have to define the style of wine you are making. Do you want to ferment on the skin or just juice. In other words do you want to make a red full bodied wine or a lighter wine. With concords you might want to make it more of a red wine which means fermenting on the skins. In that case you should crush the grapes, not press them. Your press in no good for this. You must just break up all the gapes. Put them in your primary acording to what ever recipe you use and ferment them on the skins for 5 to 10 days. Every day a cap of skins will form as they are pushed up by the CO2. This should be punched down or stirred down twice a day. After 5 or 10 days, the cap will fall, i.e. it will stop rising. This is the signal that you should press the wine, remove the pulp, and move the juice to secondary to finish the fermentation.

If you want to make a wine without the skins which will yield a different type of wine, then you should crush the whole grapes and then press them. Do not try to press uncrushed grapes. Your press will not handle them. Then just ferment the juice.

Visit Jack Keller's site http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/ I you will find good advise and good recipes.

Ray

"Joseph Toubes" > wrote in message news:oIbZc.12172$_g7.289@attbi_s52...
Oh no, another grape question:
I have this grape vine - concord with the seeds. It was supposed to be seedless, but the grapes didn't know it.

Anyway, this has been a very good year with all the rain and other conditions. I want to juice the grapes and either ferment the small batch as is or use it to make a pyment later.

I have a small hand press, do I just wash the grapes to remove any critters that may be on them, then remove the stems ( which looks like a lot of time and effort) before crushing the grapes? And should I crush them from after washing, or should I freeze then do the deed? For some reason I haven't a clue and the answer has to be obvious.

Unless the grapes are growing beside a very dusty road I would skip the washing. Commercial vinyards never wasy their grapes. Bugs, wasp nests, dust, bird droppings, everything goes in contributes!

Desteming is necessary. You can use a machine that does this or you can do it by hand. If you are doing a large batch, enough for 20 gallons or more, you will probably only do it by hand once. Then you will buy or rent a machine. But enough for 10 gallons or less is definately doable by hand.

They can certainly be frozen, either before or after they are destemmed. Freezing will increase the yield when you press.

Now you have to define the style of wine you are making. Do you want to ferment on the skin or just juice. In other words do you want to make a red full bodied wine or a lighter wine. With concords you might want to make it more of a red wine which means fermenting on the skins. In that case you should crush the grapes, not press them. Your press in no good for this. You must just break up all the gapes. Put them in your primary acording to what ever recipe you use and ferment them on the skins for 5 to 10 days. Every day a cap of skins will form as they are pushed up by the CO2. This should be punched down or stirred down twice a day. After 5 or 10 days, the cap will fall, i.e. it will stop rising. This is the signal that you should press the wine, remove the pulp, and move the juice to secondary to finish the fermentation.

If you want to make a wine without the skins which will yield a different type of wine, then you should crush the whole grapes and then press them. Do not try to press uncrushed grapes. Your press will not handle them. Then just ferment the juice.

Visit Jack Keller's site http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/ I you will find good advise and good recipes.

Ray

"Joseph Toubes" > wrote in message news:oIbZc.12172$_g7.289@attbi_s52...
Oh no, another grape question:
I have this grape vine - concord with the seeds. It was supposed to be seedless, but the grapes didn't know it.

Anyway, this has been a very good year with all the rain and other conditions. I want to juice the grapes and either ferment the small batch as is or use it to make a pyment later.

I have a small hand press, do I just wash the grapes to remove any critters that may be on them, then remove the stems ( which looks like a lot of time and effort) before crushing the grapes? And should I crush them from after washing, or should I freeze then do the deed? For some reason I haven't a clue and the answer has to be obvious.