2018 Grape Season Underway

[Ajmassa]

That was my bad for not inspecting before I left the supplier. But never had any this bad before from them. Curious to hear how @Ajmassa5983 turned out with his grapes, he was getting all malbec.

Couldn’t be any happier. 100% Head and shoulders better than fall grapes...again.
One pad per lug. Very few raisins. Occasional bad cluster is expected tho. All in all I’m super stoked about these. You think it’s a possibility the pricy pinotage is just too fresh in your head??

VIVA LA CHILÈ

 

[Johnd]

That was my bad for not inspecting before I left the supplier. But never had any this bad before from them. Curious to hear how @Ajmassa5983 turned out with his grapes, he was getting all malbec.

Ouch!! You don’t have that much, consider bucking up and separating the good from bad before crushing. Your end product will thank you. Definitely think about co-inoculating mlb, you could have lots of bound sulfite, the critters will get a better foothold before you produce alcohol.

 

[pgentile]

Couldn’t be any happier. 100% Head and shoulders better than fall grapes...again.
One pad per lug. Very few raisins. Occasional bad cluster is expected tho. All in all I’m super stoked about these. You think it’s a possibility the pricy pinotage is just too fresh in your head??

VIVA LA CHILÈView attachment 48454

Looks good, I must have gotten the 4 runt lugs of malbec. But the carmenere grapes are very nice. Maybe it was the contrast.

Yeah the quality of the pinotage has jaded me.

All is good. pH was 3.33

 

[pgentile]

Ouch!! You don’t have that much, consider bucking up and separating the good from bad before crushing. Your end product will thank you. Definitely think about co-inoculating mlb, you could have lots of bound sulfite, the critters will get a better foothold before you produce alcohol.

Right!! I was picky during crush. Pulled out more, raisin-ed and under-ripe and leaves and twigs and etc, than any other lugs to date, but in reality it didn't add up much weight wise.

I have co-inoculated every batch this year and will do the same with this.

 

[mainshipfred]

Even though I only got 2 lugs of Malbec to add to my juice bucket they were almost perfect. Stems and seeds were a little greener then I would have liked but in general the grapes were in great shape. The SA CS on the other hand had some mold and raisons but out of 7 lugs it only filled about 3 inches on the bottom of a bucket. 80+ % of the stems and seeds were a nice mature brown.

 

[TemperanceOwl]

I have 6 lugs of Chilean Carmenere and one pail of Cab/Merlot blend coming in a couple of weeks. My plan is to start the Carmenere first, and at SG ~1.002 rack and maybe do a light press, then put the Cab/Merlot juice on the skins and start that ferment.

I'm going to put them both through MLF (first time). I keep seeing that it's best to inoculate with MLF about 48 hours after the yeast starts working, but if I start MLF on the Carmenere during primary the bacteria will already be on the grapes when I put the Cab juice on the grapes, before its yeast ferment gets going.

Do you all have any advice? Would you go ahead with MLF on the Carmenere grapes, or wait until primary is finished and inoculate both the Carmenere and Cab at the same time a week or so later? Thanks, y'all!

 

[pgentile]

Do you all have any advice? Would you go ahead with MLF on the Carmenere grapes, or wait until primary is finished and inoculate both the Carmenere and Cab at the same time a week or so later? Thanks, y'all!

This past year I started adding MLB the day after yeast with good results. I crushed 7 lugs of carmenere yesterday, will add yeast tonight and MLB tomorrow. Good luck

 

[pgentile]

18 hours since crush of Carmenere/Malbec field blend. temp is 50f, pH 3.44, brix 23, TA 6.5

 

[Ajmassa]

I have 6 lugs of Chilean Carmenere and one pail of Cab/Merlot blend coming in a couple of weeks. My plan is to start the Carmenere first, and at SG ~1.002 rack and maybe do a light press, then put the Cab/Merlot juice on the skins and start that ferment.

I'm going to put them both through MLF (first time). I keep seeing that it's best to inoculate with MLF about 48 hours after the yeast starts working, but if I start MLF on the Carmenere during primary the bacteria will already be on the grapes when I put the Cab juice on the grapes, before its yeast ferment gets going.

Do you all have any advice? Would you go ahead with MLF on the Carmenere grapes, or wait until primary is finished and inoculate both the Carmenere and Cab at the same time a week or so later? Thanks, y'all!

Inoculate ml in the grapes. Even 24 HRs later is cool. And after when added to the juice those yeasts and ml bacteria are already so active that they will both kick off together no problem. Will take off fast and finish fast. Doing the same thing myself.

 

[Johnd]

I agree with both @Ajmassa5983 and @pgentile , you should be just fine. Make certain the both your yeast and mlb are properly fed during AF using good quality nutrients.

 

[TemperanceOwl]

I agree with both @Ajmassa5983 and @pgentile , you should be just fine. Make certain the both your yeast and mlb are properly fed during AF using good quality nutrients.

Thanks, John, Ajmassa, and Pgentile! I'll go with the MLF on the grapes!

 

[ceeaton]

Thanks, John, Ajmassa, and Pgentile! I'll go with the MLF on the grapes!

The only con to co-innoculatation of MLB is if you planned to add the used grape skins to a kit in the future. I think most suggest not to perform MLF on kits, and adding grapes that went through MLF would most likely introduce MLB to the kit juice.

 

[mainshipfred]

Question please! I just did a light press of my SA Cab and reintroduced the skins into the Cab juice bucket. I hydrated the yeast using Go Ferm abd added Ferm K @ 1/2 or so sugar depletion. Initially used 8 gram packs of d80 and 254 and a 5 gram pack of Vintner's Harvest R56 into 3 - 4 gallon batches. Do I need to add any more Ferm K or O at this time? FWIW I got 7 gallons of lightly pressed wine out of 7 lugs.

 

[pgentile]

Question please! I just did a light press of my SA Cab and reintroduced the skins into the Cab juice bucket. I hydrated the yeast using Go Ferm abd added Ferm K @ 1/2 or so sugar depletion. Initially used 8 gram packs of d80 and 254 and a 5 gram pack of Vintner's Harvest R56 into 3 - 4 gallon batches. Do I need to add any more Ferm K or O at this time? FWIW I got 7 gallons of lightly pressed wine out of 7 lugs.

Not 100% sure I understand your question. When I add skins from press to buckets I don't add any yeast, there's more than enough to handle the bucket. I usually do 3 buckets and don't add yeast. But I do add nutrients at the proper steps.

 

[mainshipfred]

Not 100% sure I understand your question. When I add skins from press to buckets I don't add any yeast, there's more than enough to handle the bucket. I usually do 3 buckets and don't add yeast. But I do add nutrients at the proper steps.

That was my question and I researched and found that additional yeast is not needed as you said. As far as proper steps would it be an immediate nutrient addition and then again at 1/3?

 

[jburtner]

The only con to co-innoculatation of MLB is if you planned to add the used grape skins to a kit in the future. I think most suggest not to perform MLF on kits, and adding grapes that went through MLF would most likely introduce MLB to the kit juice.

There is that - And I remember now that's why I didn't co-inoculate last year and I ended up running a stags leap merlot kit through the left over skins and mlb'ing the cab after pressing.

I did however blend the merlot kit and the mlf'd cab sav from grapes after the fact and it's great today...

The mlf / kit issus is that the kit's have already been acid balanced so MLF would then unbalance them and require further acid adjustments depending on the acid content of the kit... That's my understanding anyway - maybe not the end of the world..

Cheers!
-johann

 

[pgentile]

That was my question and I researched and found that additional yeast is not needed as you said. As far as proper steps would it be an immediate nutrient addition and then again at 1/3?

Yup, that's what I do.

 

[mainshipfred]

There is that - And I remember now that's why I didn't co-inoculate last year and I ended up running a stags leap merlot kit through the left over skins and mlb'ing the cab after pressing.

I did however blend the merlot kit and the mlf'd cab sav from grapes after the fact and it's great today...

The mlf / kit issus is that the kit's have already been acid balanced so MLF would then unbalance them and require further acid adjustments depending on the acid content of the kit... That's my understanding anyway - maybe not the end of the world..

Cheers!
-johann

No evidence, no proof and no experience but this is my take on the whole MLF/kits debate. Kit instructions and recommendations are for the beginning winemaker. Even though experienced winemakers use kits I doubt they follow the directions. This is obvious with the responses the experienced give to the beginners. I get the balanced thing and from what I gather on this site, kits are high in Malic additions. Artificially produced Malic will not convert to lactic. Then there is not knowing how the juice is processed which could be an issue. As you said Johann if it where to be able to go through MLF adjustments would have to be made which would be an added step which most people couldn't or wouldn't want to do.

 

[Ajmassa]

Unfortunately life and work got pretty busy lately. Still is. Haven’t had time to get on here and talk shop much. Wanted to quickly post on the 2018 Chileans. I got 16 lugs of Malbec. Went with Malbec since it’s a varietal Chile is known for. Saving the cabs for Cali (or Wash St. )
Grapes came up in great shape. Extremely happy with quality. Picture perfect clusters everywhere.
New wineroom temporary setup worked awesome as well. The new/old crusher destemmer was a damn beast! Had to do some rigging on the fly, but I anticipated that anyway. A beast! (@JohnT, here’s lookin at you!)
I could drone on forever- but no time. Wine is currently rockin and rollin! We are past lag phase- 1st half nutrient dose- MLF inoculated, a few punches already, super thick caps and getting thicker, (and forming back in minutes), only about .010 Sg drop so far. A new grape ferment is truly a blast. The room is just about starting to smell like my favorite smell on earth.
Btw the pic of the punchdown was the only ‘help’ I got at all. Everyone else is busy too. Spring doesn’t tend to garner the same anticipation as fall by ‘outsiders’. Worked my *** off! —— We are making wine! And life is good.
Buenas noches.

 

[sour_grapes]

Where's the quadruple like button!?