Fermenter and carboy requirements fot 200lb grapes?

[v8rx7guy]

Maybe I am over thinking this. Next year I plan to harvest about 200lb of grapes from my vineyard. What would you all recommend for equipment to handle this? I was thinking 2x 8gal plastic primary fermenters and 4x 6gal glass carboys. That way I'll have two spare clean carboys to rack into at all times.

Or is it smarter to get 2x 6gal and 2x 5gal for less headspace after racking off gross lees? That's assuming I lose about a gallon throughout the process.

Any inut would be great!

 

[Johny99]

For reds I'd use a 35 gallon Brute or other food safe waste can. Whites I use a Spiedel plastic fermenter. 200lbs should yield you around 40-60l of pressed juice/wine. So you could do 3 5 or 6 gallon Carboys, one to rack to, and a 3 or just 4-5 one gallon.

Exciting to get your own grapes. What type?

 

[v8rx7guy]

For reds I'd use a 35 gallon Brute or other food safe waste can. Whites I use a Spiedel plastic fermenter. 200lbs should yield you around 40-60l of pressed juice/wine. So you could do 3 5 or 6 gallon Carboys, one to rack to, and a 3 or just 4-5 one gallon.

Exciting to get your own grapes. What type?

Thanks for the info. I am surfing craigslist and cant believe all of the deals to be had for carboys!

My parents in law planted 50 vines of Regent here in NW Wa this spring. Its a pretty popular grape for our climate. We are trellising bi-lateral cordon VSP so are expecting about 4-5lbs per vine for just one cordon in 2017.

 

[Johny99]

You might go one more year to let the vines develop. Old Jewish law is not to make wine before the third leaf. One text I have says if the cordon is woody, go ahead and let it grow some grapes. Of course, it all depends on how fast they grew this year. Did you form cordons already?

Craigslist is great. You can never have enough carboys

 

[salcoco]

I would go with a larger Brute I believe they have a 42 gallon. 200lbs of grapes should yield 13-17 gallons of wine. 3 - 6 gallon carboys should hold the wine. You will only need one more to rack. just rack and clean previous carboys. If you can get a good deal buy more carboys. be prepared they will call to you to have them filled and you will be back to the dilemma of more wine and no carboys.

 

[NorCal]

Home Depot sells 44 gallon, food safe brute garbage pails for cheap. I would look for used 5 gallon carboys; 6.5 gallon just weighs too much @ 8 pounds per gallon. It takes me between 15-16 lbs of grapes to make one finished gallon of wine.

 

[v8rx7guy]

I like the idea of food safe Brutes, but I have one hang-up on that. How do you transfer the juice and skins to your press when you have such a massive quantity/weight of product in the Brute?

 

[Johnd]

Number of ways to do it, assuming that like most of us home winemakers you have no mechanical means to hoist your fermenter into the air.

One is to use smaller buckets and simply scoop and transfer, skins stay in the press and the free run flows out into your receiving vessel.

You can vacuum rack the wine out of the fermenter using your racking cane inside of a tube with perforations to allow the juice into the cane, but not the skins, which quickly clog it up. This allows you to move the liquid and leave mostly skins behind, which can be scooped or dumped into your press.

 

[salcoco]

A small cooking sauce pan with handle works great.
to get out the free run I usually place a colander into the must. this filters the skins and only the juice is in the colander. use your normal siphon to rack the juice. once you get to the bottom use the small sauce pan to place must into the press.

 

[whackfol]

Simple rule of thumb for most vinifera: 200 pounds of grapes: 20 gallons of must : 13 gallons wine after settling.

Allowing for some cap space and fudge factor, you will need at least a 35 gallon fermenter. Carboys depend on the size. Just make sure to top them up.

Scooping is my preferred method of moving small quantities. I pressed and cleaned up three - 30 gallon batches of fermented must in a size 40 ratchet press in less than an hour and a half. I prefer not to press the seeds and the skins act as a filter bed for the juice. Loading the press takes less than ten minutes. For me, it's not worth dirtying anything else for such a simple process..

 

[Treeman]

I would suggest getting 2 brutes so you can use different yeast or fermentation additives in each ferment. Keep these separate until bottling and then you can decide if you want to blend. I would also recommend getting some 1gal and 1.5 L glass jugs for topping.