Over the weekend I started, for the first time, a Cabernet Sauvagnon and Pinot Noir both from about equal parts whole grapes and fresh juice from northern california.
I talked the grandkids into joining in and they really did jump in and work as hard as they could. They plucked grapes and crushed grapes by hand and took turns adding ingredients for quite a few hours. The night before I cooked a brisket and we all had shredded BBQ beef sliders for lunch. I think they really enjoyed a different kind of day then they normally have.
This was the first time I’ve even held a bunch of wine grape let alone work with them and was surprised by the size of the clusters and grapes. I was also surprised that once we were down to just the grapes we had almost a full 5 gallon bucket from each lug. Once crushed and split between two buckets they came to about 1/3 of a bucket. I then split 6 gallons of juice between the two buckets and added another 1/2 can of the same type concentrate to bring the SG up to 1.112 for the Cab and 1.100 for Pinot. Shooting for approx 15% and 13% final ABV.
So far so good, I’ve been following the More Wine Red Wine booklet pretty accurately and seem to be right on track. I even followed their re-hydration steps for the yeast instead of just sprinkling it over the bucket. I used BN45 for the cab and BN 4x4 on the Pinot and pitched them around 9:00am Sunday, I had bubbles in all 4 buckets by 6:00 that night.
My one concern might be that the pinot grapes seemed to sink to the bottom and the Juice was sort of tan to start with compared the cab juice looking dark red and those grapes floating from the beginning. By this morning though all the buckets had thick caps of grapes and much redder juice so I guess I’m just fine. Now all I can do is keep punching it down 2 or 3 times a day and get ready to press on saturday.
I talked the grandkids into joining in and they really did jump in and work as hard as they could. They plucked grapes and crushed grapes by hand and took turns adding ingredients for quite a few hours. The night before I cooked a brisket and we all had shredded BBQ beef sliders for lunch. I think they really enjoyed a different kind of day then they normally have.
This was the first time I’ve even held a bunch of wine grape let alone work with them and was surprised by the size of the clusters and grapes. I was also surprised that once we were down to just the grapes we had almost a full 5 gallon bucket from each lug. Once crushed and split between two buckets they came to about 1/3 of a bucket. I then split 6 gallons of juice between the two buckets and added another 1/2 can of the same type concentrate to bring the SG up to 1.112 for the Cab and 1.100 for Pinot. Shooting for approx 15% and 13% final ABV.
So far so good, I’ve been following the More Wine Red Wine booklet pretty accurately and seem to be right on track. I even followed their re-hydration steps for the yeast instead of just sprinkling it over the bucket. I used BN45 for the cab and BN 4x4 on the Pinot and pitched them around 9:00am Sunday, I had bubbles in all 4 buckets by 6:00 that night.
My one concern might be that the pinot grapes seemed to sink to the bottom and the Juice was sort of tan to start with compared the cab juice looking dark red and those grapes floating from the beginning. By this morning though all the buckets had thick caps of grapes and much redder juice so I guess I’m just fine. Now all I can do is keep punching it down 2 or 3 times a day and get ready to press on saturday.
