First Juice Bucket is Weak

[deedubbs]

Last May I bought my first juice buckets, two cab franc.

To determine what we like, I put one through MLF and one no MLF. Oakes both on medium toast chips for about a month.

Right now, still bulk aging around 55 degrees, both taste kind of bland and weak.

Any hope that they get body over time?

 

[Boatboy24]

They should get better over time, but juice buckets will be a little thin, as there is little or no time on the skins. You can add some tannin and that should help a little. One thing that makes things significantly better is adding fresh grapes to the juice buckets. This gives you some skins to ferment on as well as providing some additional volume for topping up after racking. It's too late to do that for these batches, but you can certainly use it going forward. Spring is coming and so is the Chilean harvest.

 

[deedubbs]

I'm assuming that you mean just the fresh grape skins, right?

Thanks!

 

[Turock]

I agree that juice is thinner. But I have had more of these issues with Chilean juice than with Calif. If there is a big rainfall right before harvest, the juice will be even thinner. Who watches the weather in Chile right before their harvests? I've had this problems a couple times and I now wait to get Calif. buckets in the fall. I've had pretty good luck with reds from Chile, but the whites were very tasteless--seemed very dilute.

One year, we got a Cab Franc from Chile---it was unremarkable.

 

[Boatboy24]

I'm assuming that you mean just the fresh grape skins, right?

Thanks!

Whole, fresh grapes. My supplier not only sells buckets, but grapes as well. So, if I were doing a Malbec bucket, I'd get a lug of Malbec grapes. Then destem and crush them and ferment them along with the juice.

 

[deedubbs]

So, must not be much juice, huh? I feared that adding fresh grape juice might unbalance the juice.

 

[Boatboy24]

If they're Chilean lugs, they are 18lbs. That will yield about 1.25 gallons to the six you have in the juice bucket. If it throws off the balance, it wouldn't do it by too much. If you have a pH meter and a little tartaric acid, you can test and rebalance prior to pitching the yeast.

It's the addition of the skins to the ferment that really makes the difference.

 

[ceeaton]

Hey Jim, is the supplier for the grapes/juice you are speaking of Harford Vineyards? If so, I assume the grapes and juice come in around the same time, otherwise it would be difficult to ferment together?

Also, do you usually split the juice batches into two different containers when you add the crushed grapes? Or in my case, if I'd do one bucket and one lug of grapes would that be the way you would proceed?

Thanks for any information,
Craig

 

[Kraffty]

Hi Craig, I just did this for the first time and Boatboy's right, it makes a big difference. I split about 5.5 gal. of juice and a 36 lb. lug of cabernet between two primary (approx 7 gal sized) buckets. It left plenty of room for the cap to rise up and not make a mess when I punched down each day. Ended up with about 7-1/2 gal of wine after pressing and combining back together.
Mike

 

[ceeaton]

Thanks Mike. I started harmlessly enough making a niagara/raspberry from Welches concentrate and am picking up speed with each passing month (running out of carboys, common problem it seems like on this forum). I want to try a juice bucket but also want to make it the best I can, and adding the grapes sure sounds like a winner to me. If I'm going to take precious space from my beer making, it needs to earn it's time in the carboy!

Craig

 

[heatherd]

Hey Jim, is the supplier for the grapes/juice you are speaking of Harford Vineyards? If so, I assume the grapes and juice come in around the same time, otherwise it would be difficult to ferment together?

Also, do you usually split the juice batches into two different containers when you add the crushed grapes? Or in my case, if I'd do one bucket and one lug of grapes would that be the way you would proceed?

Thanks for any information,
Craig

Craig,

Harford does distribute grapes and juice at the same time. So the grapes come within a few days or weeks of the juice. You can buy one lug of grapes, and they will crush and destem them for $25.

Another way to go about it is currants, raisins, a grape pack, elderberry, or some other type of fruit. There are also tannins made of grapeskins that add some body.

Heather

 

[jas3019]

Hey Jim, is the supplier for the grapes/juice you are speaking of Harford Vineyards? If so, I assume the grapes and juice come in around the same time, otherwise it would be difficult to ferment together?

Also, do you usually split the juice batches into two different containers when you add the crushed grapes? Or in my case, if I'd do one bucket and one lug of grapes would that be the way you would proceed?

Thanks for any information,
Craig

I did exactly this last year with Harford's Chilean juice/grapes - got a bucket of carmenere and a lug of cab sauv grapes. I didn't use their destem/crush service, though. For 1 lug it didn't really seem worth it.

A few friends and I sat around to destem the grapes (took about half an hour). Then I put the grapes into a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in an empty bucket and used a potato masher to crush the grapes. I split the grapes and juice between two buckets to ferment. The paint strainer bags made it really easy to squeeze out the juice periodically and at the end to remove the spent grapes.

 

[Matty_Kay]

Have any of you guys added an all grape pack during fermentation to juice buckets to boost tannins, color etc? I ask because I may not have access to Chilean grapes due to my schedule and the suppliers shipments not meshing so I was looking for an alternative to fresh grapes.

 

[Kraffty]

Not to get too off-track but you can also add something like the Vintners Harvest fruit bases to bring up body and flavor a bit. I've added the blackberry to a Merlot bucket. Love the flavor and while still kind of light bodied I believe it helped.
Mike

 

[ceeaton]

I did exactly this last year with Harford's Chilean juice/grapes - got a bucket of carmenere and a lug of cab sauv grapes. I didn't use their destem/crush service, though. For 1 lug it didn't really seem worth it.

A few friends and I sat around to destem the grapes (took about half an hour). Then I put the grapes into a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in an empty bucket and used a potato masher to crush the grapes. I split the grapes and juice between two buckets to ferment. The paint strainer bags made it really easy to squeeze out the juice periodically and at the end to remove the spent grapes.

That sounds like the way I'll go. I have everything I need, including four kids who would love to destem and crush 18 lbs of grapes, at least this one time. I like the idea of a grape only batch, plus I've done the bag and fruit thing with the periodic squeezing routine for raspberries, cranberries etc, why not grapes!

Plus my wife and I can use it as an excuse for an excursion, sans kids, and maybe have a nice lunch somewhere on the way back. It was her idea and I like it!
Craig

 

[heatherd]

Have any of you guys added an all grape pack during fermentation to juice buckets to boost tannins, color etc? I ask because I may not have access to Chilean grapes due to my schedule and the suppliers shipments not meshing so I was looking for an alternative to fresh grapes.

If you are talking about the one from Mosti Mondali, yes. I have used one of their grape packs for a juice pail in the past, and it worked well. It is a really nice grape pack, probably something you could use twice. It is very convenient.

The other thing I have done is frozen must from M&M, because they ship anytime and it's based on your own schedule. Looks like there are some frozen musts that are seasonal and others that are available all year. The ones from Argentina are interesting..... Some are as low as $75 if you look around on their site.

Have also made a double batch with one fresh juice pail and one fozen must pail, all cofermented. That worked quite well.

Heather

 

[Matty_Kay]

Thanks Heather. Yes, I was looking at the one from mosti mondali, glad you had success with it. It's crazy how quickly weekends are filling up with activities, family stuff etc. so I figured this was a decent alternative to fresh grapes. Probably gonna give it a try. Thanks!

 

[jethro]

If I can get fresh grapes to throw into the fermentation vat, would it be okay to just throw them into the sanitized blender, and from there into the fermentation vat? So what if the seeds get torn to shreds--the shreds will just settle out into the lees, right?

 

[Boatboy24]

If I can get fresh grapes to throw into the fermentation vat, would it be okay to just throw them into the sanitized blender, and from there into the fermentation vat? So what if the seeds get torn to shreds--the shreds will just settle out into the lees, right?

You don't want the seeds to be crushed or shredded. That will impart harsh tannins into the wine. Just mash the grapes up with a potato masher, or a fist. It doesn't need much - just enough to break the skin.