Eight hours, a chicken leg, and two glasses of beer later

[lawrstin]

This is the labor of love, the front yard Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

[Julie]

That is a labor of love, but you have to admit, it'd worth it!

 

[lawrstin]

That I'd a labor of love, but you have to admit, it'd worth it!

And I would do it all over again.

 

[Boatboy24]

You forgot to crush them!

 

[saddlebronze]

You have to pick them off the stems? Now that's what I'm doing wrong!

 

[BobR]

lawrstin,

Only eight hours? That's not too bad if you were destemming them by yourself. I was given around 85-90 pounds of Concords over the weekend and luckily, my daughter stopped by and helped destem. It still took us over five hours to destem/crush a bucket full by hand. Put the yeast in last night and they are cooking like crazy this morning. Hopefully, I'll get 5-6 gallons out of this. I have another 144 pounds on order and I dread destemming them. Last year, it took both of us a good six hours to destem them all. At least with this small batch, we were able to do them downstairs, inside the patio doors. It was 97 degrees outside with a heat index of 105. We ended up with around 20 pounds of waste...stems, green grapes and rotten grapes. A lot of under ripe grapes, but the guy wanted them picked right now, so I could not argue with the price. We probably had another five pounds or so that we did not have room for in the bucket.

 

[lawrstin]

I have a destemer/crusher but the grapes were not of quality that I could run them through it. On the bright side, the quality is going to be improved and no spiders or stems in the must.

 

[spaniel]

I've gone to crushing and then picking out the stems by hand. It works pretty well. I had several times over that volume so destemming by hand was a non-starter.

 

[lawrstin]

I've gone to crushing and then picking out the stems by hand. It works pretty well. I had several times over that volume so destemming by hand was a non-starter.

I wish I had that option but unfortunately there was a mix of ripe, overripe and underripe in clusters. A result of extensive travel
And not being in the mini vineyard each day. I am happy to have enough grapes to play around with.

 

[lawrstin]

My clusters did not allow to use that method. I don't think they make a destemmer/crusher that keeps all the stems out. Have you ever try outing a mesh screen in your crusher/destemer?

 

[spaniel]

My clusters did not allow to use that method. I don't think they make a destemmer/crusher that keeps all the stems out. Have you ever try outing a mesh screen in your crusher/destemer?

If you were asking me, I don't have a crusher/destemmer. My crusher is my feet and my destemmer is my hands sifting through the pulp after crushing.

I'm not sure how vital it has to have ALL of the stems out. Some people actually add some back as a way to control the flavor. I probably get 70-80% out by my method.

Best of luck with your grapes.

 

[lawrstin]

If you were asking me, I don't have a crusher/destemmer. My crusher is my feet and my destemmer is my hands sifting through the pulp after crushing.

I'm not sure how vital it has to have ALL of the stems out. Some people actually add some back as a way to control the flavor. I probably get 70-80% out by my method.

Best of luck with your grapes.

Thanks Spaniel!

Your evaluation leads to some interesting discussion points. I have to believe that leaving stems in wine is like leaving spiders in wine. When the volume is so massive you have to invent reasoning.

 

[spaniel]

Thanks Spaniel!

Your evaluation leads to some interesting discussion points. I have to believe that leaving stems in wine is like leaving spiders in wine. When the volume is so massive you have to invent reasoning.

Well, I don't fish the spiders out so I guess I"m in trouble.

I should really make a rabbit wire screen frame to improve the stem removal a bit. But with the varieties I have the bunches are pretty small so I'm not sure it would help much. Last year's red had no hint of stem-derived bitterness.