First All Grape Attempt!

[mainshipfred]

I think you'll be pleased enough with an all grape must, that you won't find EM to be necessary. Use enzymes prior to pitching, and the wine will have plenty of extraction. EM is an advanced technique with lots that can go wrong. Wineries that do it have proper equipment to prevent air exposure and control temperature, that home winemakers rarely have. Longer term, you should of course try it as an experiment. But only after you have a cellar (closet!) full of wine that you like.

Good job though jumping into wine making from grapes! From now on, no safety net.

I like the no safety net comment.

 

[jsbeckton]

I think you'll be pleased enough with an all grape must, that you won't find EM to be necessary. Use enzymes prior to pitching, and the wine will have plenty of extraction. EM is an advanced technique with lots that can go wrong. Wineries that do it have proper equipment to prevent air exposure and control temperature, that home winemakers rarely have. Longer term, you should of course try it as an experiment. But only after you have a cellar (closet!) full of wine that you like.

Good job though jumping into wine making from grapes! From now on, no safety net.

I actually have a fermentation chamber so I can control temp and O2 pretty well but if enzymes will do a good enough job I am all for keeping it simple. I’ve been brewing beer for about 10 years and went through a spectrum of my process over that time: simple->complicated->back to simple again. Ive learned that sometimes less is more. Therefore trying to only do what’s having a fairly big impact here.

I’ve got about 300 bottles of premium kit wine in a temp controlled cellar so should be ready to gamble with EM on an all grape batch some day.