# Using Fresh Grapes



## stdkls28 (Oct 20, 2010)

Does anyone have a very detailed resource to point me to for the process and all the steps of making wine with fresh grapes? Never attempted it before.

Thanks,
Keaton


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## Sirs (Oct 20, 2010)

I can tell you but it'd not be by what most consider modern nowadays, LOL as I only use sugar no other chemicals added.


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## jet (Oct 20, 2010)

Check your local library, they're bound to have good books on winemaking.


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## Sirs (Oct 20, 2010)

sent you a pm


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## Sirs (Oct 20, 2010)

only difference in doing juice and fresh grapes is you have to crush the grapes if white leave skins in must 8 hours or so then strain off juice if reds I leave skins in till almost dry. You deal with sugar same way, unless the grapes are really strong ones I don't add water if so very little normally just enough to make simple syrup for sugar needed


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## BobF (Oct 20, 2010)

stdkls28 said:


> Does anyone have a very detailed resource to point me to for the process and all the steps of making wine with fresh grapes? Never attempted it before.
> 
> Thanks,
> Keaton


 
Check this one out:
http://mtngrv.missouristate.edu/assets/publications/MS28MWFHUweb.pdf


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## JohnT (Oct 22, 2010)

stdkls, 

How much do you plan on making? Do you have a crusher/destemmer? Do you have a wine press? 

For a lot of people, having all of the additional equipment is not practical, so they go to the juice buckets. Some will also argue that the quality of juice is better than the quality of available grapes.

Myself, I am glad that I have the addtitional equipment. I get a lot of pleasure in knowing, when I open a bottle, that I had taken it from grape to glass. For red wine, I can also control the amount of exposure that the grapes get from the skins, thus having a hand at just how much color or body a wine has.

Like what is said above, the only step you will be adding is to convert the grapes to juice. Crush your grapes and add about 1/2 teaspoon of k-meta per 6 gallons of crushed gapes. Stir. 

If making white, you can go straight to the press and give them a squeeze. Cover and add yeast after 24 hours. 

If making red, you should simply cover the crushed grapes and wait 24 hours. Add yeast to the red grapes and ferment for the remainder of the week. Each day during this primary fermentation, you will notcie that the grapes skins have formed a "raft" or "Cap". You should "punch" this cap down into the wine. This "punch down" process is normally done 2 or 3 times a day. After a week, you can then put you red into the press and give her a squeeze. 

good luck! Let us know how you make out.


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## stdkls28 (Oct 22, 2010)

Thank you so much John T! This is alot of what I was looking for. To answer your questions: 1: I plan to start off with just a gallon of red. Do not know what varital yet or where to get the juice. 2: No i do not have a destemmer/crusher. and 3: No I do not have a press; although I know i can rent one from our local wine supply for $10 a day. I plan to make one when i have the time and some sort of blue prints on it.

I am asking this question because I will be planting four grape vines in the backyard and would love to make wine out of them. There are 2 Black Spanish grapes (Lenior) and 2 'Favorite' which is supposed to be close to the Black Spanish but better quality fruit. I am just wanting to practice with some fresh grapes before these are ready to produce fruit so that I know what I am doing when it comes to making wine out of fresh grapes!

Again thank you for the valuable information,

Keaton


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## JohnT (Oct 22, 2010)

stdkls28 said:


> Thank you so much John T! This is alot of what I was looking for. To answer your questions: 1: I plan to start off with just a gallon of red. Do not know what varital yet or where to get the juice. 2: No i do not have a destemmer/crusher. and 3: No I do not have a press; although I know i can rent one from our local wine supply for $10 a day. I plan to make one when i have the time and some sort of blue prints on it.
> 
> I am asking this question because I will be planting four grape vines in the backyard and would love to make wine out of them. There are 2 Black Spanish grapes (Lenior) and 2 'Favorite' which is supposed to be close to the Black Spanish but better quality fruit. I am just wanting to practice with some fresh grapes before these are ready to produce fruit so that I know what I am doing when it comes to making wine out of fresh grapes!
> 
> ...




For a crusher/destemmer, you could always use your feet. For a press, you could always use cheesecloth.


FYI: You will (most likely) have to wait a minimum of 3 years before the vines produce and significant amount of grapes.


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## stdkls28 (Oct 22, 2010)

Feet would be very "authentic" haha As for the press with Cheesecloth...would the cheesecloth be used as a filter? Also in the above section mentioning the "punch down" could you elaborate that a little more for me please?

Yessir I have read that about the grape vines and their production. I do not know how old the vines are that I have are but I am guessing 1-2 years old.

Again thank you for all of this assistance!

Keaton


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## JohnT (Oct 22, 2010)

Punching down: 

As you may know, red wine gets its color and some of its flavor from the red grape skins. 

Red wine is almost always crushed and then fermented with the grape skin. As fermentation progresses, and CO2 gas is produced, the skins tend to "deflate" and will float on top of the wine (forming a raft or "Cap"). Since the goal is to have the fermenting juice in contact with the skins, most winemakers "punch down" the cap (or mix the skins back into the wine). This is normally done 2 or 3 times during the first week (more or less. it is a matter of opinion) of fermentation.

The idea of the cheese cloth is to use it to strain out the skins. You can also wrap the strained skins in the cheese cloth and "twist" is into a tight packet (allowing a minimum pressure to extract as much of the juice as possible).


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## stdkls28 (Oct 22, 2010)

Ok so "punching down" is like the daily stirring of my fruit musts then and cheesecloth used kind of like a coffee filter. correct? I know i sound dumb but i'm making sure i have this down in my notes correctly lol

Thanks
Keaton


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## JohnT (Oct 22, 2010)

stdkls28 said:


> Ok so "punching down" is like the daily stirring of my fruit musts then and cheesecloth used kind of like a coffee filter. correct? I know i sound dumb but i'm making sure i have this down in my notes correctly lol
> 
> Thanks
> Keaton



Tha's about it.


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## ffemt128 (Oct 22, 2010)

JohnT said:


> Punching down:
> 
> As you may know, red wine gets its color and some of its flavor from the red grape skins.
> 
> ...




Pretty much what we did with our Muscadines. Since we were splitting the grapes / juice 3 ways we crushed then pressed and split the skins 3 ways. We all femented on skins. I place skins in bag after a week and sqeezed the juice out. Worked well, tossing into a press would have likely worked better, but I didn't have one.


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## stdkls28 (Oct 22, 2010)

ffemt128 said:


> Pretty much what we did with our Muscadines. Since we were splitting the grapes / juice 3 ways we crushed then pressed and split the skins 3 ways. We all femented on skins. I place skins in bag after a week and sqeezed the juice out. Worked well, tossing into a press would have likely worked better, but I didn't have one.



so i could load up the grapes in a mesh bag like i would my fruit wines and press them in side of of my primary bucket then wouldn't have to worry about punching down because it would already be in the must inside the bag? or crush grapes in another bucket and use the mesh bag kind of like a strainer to hold the skins inside and the juice to run freely into the bottom of the primary as i pour the juice/skins into the bag that's sitting over my primary fermenter then tie it up and let it soak in the primary with juice like fruit wine is done? Just a couple of ideas to run past y'all...


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## ffemt128 (Oct 22, 2010)

stdkls28 said:


> so i could load up the grapes in a mesh bag like i would my fruit wines and press them in side of of my primary bucket then wouldn't have to worry about punching down because it would already be in the must inside the bag? or crush grapes in another bucket and use the mesh bag kind of like a strainer to hold the skins inside and the juice to run freely into the bottom of the primary as i pour the juice/skins into the bag that's sitting over my primary fermenter then tie it up and let it soak in the primary with juice like fruit wine is done? Just a couple of ideas to run past y'all...



I dumped my skins in loose. On or about day 7, I took a strainer (collendar) and strained the juice from the skins. Placed skins into bag, squeezed as much as I could to extract juice, then placed "dry" skins into junk bucket. This continued until all skins and juice were transferred to another bucket. From there it went into a carboy less the skins. 

You could place the skins in a bag like with a fruit wine providing your bag was large enough to hold all skins without compacting too much and providing your primary was large enough. Result would be the same.

My concern would be the skins in the middle not getting the same treatment as the skins on the outer part of the bag. You would still want to punch down to mix the skins and keep them moist.

Someone with more experience with grapes, please chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Giuseppe (Oct 22, 2010)

If your not considered modern I guess I'll be considered ancient. I don't add a single thing. I crush my grapes creating the must, which I leave for about a week. Then I press the grapes collecting all the juice and free run and put that into one barrel then transfer the juice from the barrel into carboys a few weeks later is gets transferred into demijohns for bulk aging. I squeeze the juice and taste it every so often sting it once the taste isn't to My desire (usually gets bitter once your getting towered the last bit of juice). The thing about doing wine the old country way as I call it is that tere are no preservatives, sulfites ect. Soo you must drink it within 1-1.5 yrs BUT my 80-100 gals. Never make it past a year hahaha if you have any other questions PM me


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## Wade E (Oct 22, 2010)

I would say that the quality of grapes is better then juice myself!


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## grapeman (Oct 22, 2010)

First off Keaton as soon as you plant the vines, their previous age goes out the window. The only thing that matters is their relative size and thriftiness or vigor. The first year they are considered first leaf, next-second leaf and so on. What John is saying is that you won't get much crop before a minimum third leaf.

The cheesecloth is a way to deal with the grapes without a press. Cheesecloth is a type of loose knit cloth. Even easier is to just buy a brew bag made special for beer and wines. After you crush the grapes, loosely strain the must through a collander and the cheesecloth. Let the juice flow out and let the skins and seeds stay in the bag. Ferment all of it in a primary bucket for small batches. Place the bag with skins in it and a couple times a day, submerge the bag into the juice (becoming wine). After the week to 10 days when he says to press, take the bag out and let it drain through the collander again-keeping it in the bag. Squeeze the bag gently to remove as much wine from the skins as you can- that is what the press does. For small batches this works OK. You can also squeeze the bag gently once or twice a day while it is fermenting the first week.

Good luck with it.


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## stdkls28 (Oct 24, 2010)

grapeman said:


> First off Keaton as soon as you plant the vines, their previous age goes out the window. The only thing that matters is their relative size and thriftiness or vigor. The first year they are considered first leaf, next-second leaf and so on. What John is saying is that you won't get much crop before a minimum third leaf.
> 
> The cheesecloth is a way to deal with the grapes without a press. Cheesecloth is a type of loose knit cloth. Even easier is to just buy a brew bag made special for beer and wines. After you crush the grapes, loosely strain the must through a collander and the cheesecloth. Let the juice flow out and let the skins and seeds stay in the bag. Ferment all of it in a primary bucket for small batches. Place the bag with skins in it and a couple times a day, submerge the bag into the juice (becoming wine). After the week to 10 days when he says to press, take the bag out and let it drain through the collander again-keeping it in the bag. Squeeze the bag gently to remove as much wine from the skins as you can- that is what the press does. For small batches this works OK. You can also squeeze the bag gently once or twice a day while it is fermenting the first week.
> 
> Good luck with it.



Grapeman, thank you very much for all the great information! Y'alls help gives me great insight into how to approach this new adventure in winemakin...experience yet to come will no doubtly help bring everything together for me!

thanky you again!
Keaton


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