Homemade vs. Commercial and what I am doing to close the gap

[Nebbiolo020]

Lots of great information here,I enjoyed reading the post. @NorCal I have seen a lotnof talk about temperature during fermentation,but I would like to hear more specific. For a big red,if you could control temperature,what would be your ideal regime?How would you extend contact time?
Also you mentioned a winery has done a cold soak for you,how did that turn out?

For big reds I like hot ferments for maximum extraction. Don’t worry about temp during ferment during cold soak just drop in dry ice and use that to control temp

 

[NorCal]

Lots of great information here,I enjoyed reading the post. @NorCal I have seen a lotnof talk about temperature during fermentation,but I would like to hear more specific. For a big red,if you could control temperature,what would be your ideal regime?How would you extend contact time?
Also you mentioned a winery has done a cold soak for you,how did that turn out?

My ideal temperature for ferment for a big red would be in the mid 80's. Because I make barrel quantities at a time, I would see the need for a tank with a glycol chiller. My ideal profile for reds is fruit forward with light tannins. I'm ok sacrificing some color extraction for lower tannins, if I achieve the fruit characteristics of the variety and a clean ferment. The lower (but not too low) peak temperatures also tend to be the longer and less troubled ferments as well.

A winery did a cold soak on my Petite Sirah from 2021. Here is the link. The wine turned out excellent, my second favorite wine I've ever made (ten years, 50 different wines and 10K bottles).

 

[Nebbiolo020]

My ideal temperature for ferment for a big red would be in the mid 80's. Because I make barrel quantities at a time, I would see the need for a tank with a glycol chiller. My ideal profile for reds is fruit forward with light tannins. I'm ok sacrificing some color extraction for lower tannins, if I achieve the fruit characteristics of the variety and a clean ferment. The lower (but not too low) peak temperatures also tend to be the longer and less troubled ferments as well.

A winery did a cold soak on my Petite Sirah from 2021. Here is the link. The wine turned out excellent, my second favorite wine I've ever made (ten years, 50 different wines and 10K bottles).

Interesting, for me my ideal red wine profile is full bodied, heavy but well integrated tannins and deep color extraction. My fermentations tend to average 7-12 days fastest I ever had was 5 even with temp control. Longest I ever had was 28 days.

 

[Christopher Anderson]

Having seen the @NorCal set up, and tasted the wine, I'd say you're being too hard on yourself. Because the wine is already excellent, and any of us would be proud with that result. And the fruit there is beautiful and well tended, and likely better than anything out of a Lodi commercial vineyard. I have not tasted enough Cabernet Franc to know exactly what to look for, but are you comparing apples to apples or Gala to Granny Smith?

I had another thought too. @NorCal, you mentioned that you minimize fermentation additives like Opti-Red or tannin. For sure, the commercial guys do not, and they have access to all the specialized toys.

Agree with this:



And that's not to mention how commercial process on a large scale is just better than what can be done in the garage. For instance, I was at a winery 3 days ago picking up grapes. They were loading the crusher and immediately steam cleaning the bins. Then the bins were filled with must and ready for fermentation. So in 30 seconds the 1000 pound bin was emptied, cleaned, sterilized and back in use with no wasted motion. I was thinking how smart and how quick that was with no cleaner needed. The owner let me use the steam wand to clean out my Brute fermentors and I was immediately impressed. It was a combination steam cleaner and pressure washer. Perfect. And likely every stage of the commercial process is like that.

I have bought a steam cleaner for the home and vehicle. I thought about using it for cleaning the wine and beer making equipment also. That would cut down on using chemicals to clean. and sanitize.

 

[Hazelemere]

My goal is to make a $5 bottle of wine that will stand up to the local $25+ commercial wines that I like. This is my 7th vintage and below are the conclusions that I have reached, what I have tried and what I am trying.

I believe my wines would will stand up (blind tasting of knowledgeable people) against the average and below wineries in our area. The same cannot be said versus the top wineries in our area. I recently opened up a bottle from my favorite winery in the area and said to myself, $*#@#, why can't I make wine that taste like this.

The difference I find is the depth and breadth of flavors I get from these excellent commercial wines.

I believe that the biggest differentiating factor for me the ability to control fermentation temperature, which has been discussed before. Their ability to cold soak, slow fermentation and do extended maceration after fermentation has been completed is where the depth and breath of flavors are being extracted from the grapes.

Since I'm making 100-200 gallons per year, the cost associated with buying a chilling unit is beyond the hobby level. So, this is what I've done and this is what I'm trying to elevate the quality of my wines.

Blending - I find myself leaning on Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot more and more as a means to bring color, tannin and depth to my wines. It has made my Cab Sauv and Cab Franc's much better wines.

Slowing Fermentation - I've tried fermenting in my cold box (65-69 degrees), frozen milk cartons and this year adding 50%-70% of the yeast that is called for. Fortunately this year, grapes were late, so we naturally had cooler ambient temps and my fermentations were 10-12 days vs the typical 7

Free Run - This year I kept the free run cab franc separate from the pressed cab franc. The freerun has much more of the varietal flavor than the pressed wine. I used a much higher percentage of the free run wine in this year's barrel.

Slow to Press - Even though the brix level hit 0, I let it sit an extra day / day and a half. The weather was cooler than usual and I may be flirting with spoilage opportunities, but I was willing to take the chance.

Saignee Pulling 15%-30% of the juice out of a red ferment

Anything else you can think of?

yeast choices. Pasteur Red, RC212 with high end nutrient are both good.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

I have bought a steam cleaner for the home and vehicle. I thought about using it for cleaning the wine and beer making equipment also. That would cut down on using chemicals to clean. and sanitize.

It’s not effective, that’s the old way to do it and it was determined to not be as good as chemical sanitizers and doesn’t meet health standards in wineries.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

yeast choices. Pasteur Red, RC212 with high end nutrient are both good.

Yeah RC212 needs a lot of nutrients otherwise it tends to produce a lot of hydrogen sulfide it can be a bit of a finicky yeast if not treated right

 

[Hazelemere]

Yeah RC212 needs a lot of nutrients otherwise it tends to produce a lot of hydrogen sulfide it can be a bit of a finicky yeast if not treated right

Agreed but with high end b vitamin nutrient it can produce beautiful rich, fragrant red wines.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

Agreed but with high end b vitamin nutrient it can produce beautiful rich, fragrant red wines.

That is true, it’s a good yeast. I haven’t personally used it in a few years as I have other go to strains commercially for reds it’s mostly stuff like FX-10 from laffort, RP-15, BM45 and D21 and I do sometimes use Exotics Mosaic.

I tend to stick with a few favorites consistently.

 

[Snafflebit]

I thought steam cleaning barrels was used to get the sediment out, not to santitize.

 

[winemanden]

When I was a young lad, the local dairy used to put a steam hose into the stainless steel tank that was used for bulk storage of the milk, to sanitize it. That was only after a thorough cleaning and scrubbing, though!

 

[Nebbiolo020]

I thought steam cleaning barrels was used to get the sediment out, not to santitize.

Typically we have a barrel washer it doesn’t always need hot water to work but it’s super high pressure much more than a pressure washer and would take your skin off. Most barrels don’t need much to get sediment out

 

[Nebbiolo020]

When I was a young lad, the local dairy used to put a steam hose into the stainless steel tank that was used for bulk storage of the milk, to sanitize it. That was only after a thorough cleaning and scrubbing, though!

Heat doesn’t sanitize reliably, after we clean and sanitize the final rinse before wine goes into tank is ozone water which does kill bacteria and is effective. Steam does not sanitize well at all unless it’s held for long periods of time

 

[winemaker81]

Heat doesn’t sanitize reliably, after we clean and sanitize the final rinse before wine goes into tank is ozone water which does kill bacteria and is effective. Steam does not sanitize well at all unless it’s held for long periods of time

A good example is the autoclave dentists use to sterilize equipment -- it's not a quick process. I don't know the timing, but it's not just a minute or two.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

We use a Moog for cleaning barrels. Sort of like a pressure washer, except the spray comes out of the middle of the wand and the sprayer rotates around 2 axes so it sprays the whole of the inside of the barrel.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

We use a Moog for cleaning barrels. Sort of like a pressure washer, except the spray comes out of the middle of the wand and the sprayer rotates around 2 axes so it sprays the whole of the inside of the barrel.

Yeah that’s the tool we have like 4 of them.

 

[Flying Penguin]

......
Saignee Pulling 15%-30% of the juice out of a red ferment
.....

Is 15 - 30 % proportional to the the initial volume or to the end product.? What I am asking is, if I am fermenting 10 gal. must, I assume that I will get more or less around 5- 6 gal. fermented and pressed juice. Should I pull 30 % X 10 gal = 3 gal. or 30 % X 6 gal = 1.8 gal to saignee before fermentation starts?

I am asking because 30 % on initial volume makes quite an amount; which is nearly half of the end volume.

 

[NorCal]

Is 15 - 30 % proportional to the the initial volume or to the end product.? What I am asking is, if I am fermenting 10 gal. must, I assume that I will get more or less around 5- 6 gal. fermented and pressed juice. Should I pull 30 % X 10 gal = 3 gal. or 30 % X 6 gal = 1.8 gal to saignee before fermentation starts?

I am asking because 30 % on initial volume makes quite an amount; which is nearly half of the end volume.

To do saignee and how much to do really depends on the varietal and what I’m trying to achieve. I couldn’t see making a Petite Sirah utilizing saignee, but I feel that low and medium body wines really benefit from it. Probably the #1 thing that can be done to improve homemade wine, once you have the basics down.

I would say that 10-15% of the finished volume (did this today) is probably a better range. Meaning if 1000 pounds of grapes will yield me 68 gallons at press, I’ll pull 7-10 gallons of juice out at crush to make a rose.