My red muscadine

[seth8530]

Well, im off on break from college and i decided to visit my folks instead of sit at home in my apartment all alone and i managed to catch the tail end of our muscadine harverst. Needless to say, I spent 6 hours today picking red Muscadines. I managed to get around 160lbs.

Here is the plan. Juice the Muscadines for about 10 gallons worth of juice. sulfite.
Put about 7 gallons of juice in the primary with the skins on. With the remaining 3 gallons i will make a syrup boiling it down and sweeten the muscadine juice in the primary untill it reaches about about 1.100 on the hydrometer.check the acid, and adjust if needed. and add nutrients. Later on in the day or night ill pitch the yeast..

So, my question.. between d47 or 71b 1122 by lavlin, which would you recomend for a low maintance about 67 degree ferment? Also any other comments are wanted and welcome.

 

[Sirs]

well you asked for comments lol it being muscadines I'd go with the yeast on them.

 

[Julie]

Both yeasts will tolerate about the same temps, so my choice would be 1122.

 

[djrockinsteve]

I just returned from Sirs place with some muscadines. I'll let them ferment on their own yeast.
As far as lalvin you could use either if you want to go that route.

 

[seth8530]

10/2/11

Thanks for the advice fellas!

Ok, we had to go picking again and this time i brought a buddy. What took me 5 hours we got in under an hour. So our gross haul was around 500 lbs of muscadines.

The first haul brought be up to 6 gallons of juice, from the second haul we managed to juice about 14 gallons. From that 14 gallons i used around 5 and a half gallons and turned it into about a gallon and a halfish of muscadine syrup ( No sugar added) and used it to sweeten up the must to about 10 percent alcohol potential. I then added about 2 lbs worth of sugar to it to bring me up to 1.094 or about 12.2 Potential. P

Checked PH it was on the low end about 3.2 so i added a few tablespoons of baking soda and brought it up to 3.6 . Added all the lovely nutrients, tannin, energizer, pectic enzyme but no acid because these muscadines are quite acidic already.

I pitched with the 71b Because i read that it metabolizes acid's very well.

Questions or comments?

 

[sevenal]

1122 worked good for me with the concentrate

I have just started an 18 gallon muscadine must and am trying the wild yeast method.
Good luck I'm sure the 1122 will work as well.

 

[seth8530]

Thanks for the replies, not long after i added my chemical cocktail my muscadine juice turned brown on me /:

 

[Sirs]

I've had a friend do he same the color should come back one reason I don't care for the chems. in my wines I don't use anything unless I absolutely have too

 

[seth8530]

ahh, well atleast im not alone. It looks like my colour came back to looking pretty... odd..

 

[Julie]

ahh, well atleast im not alone. It looks like my colour came back to looking pretty... odd..

Hi Seth,

Did you do an acid test? And did you add any water or is this straight juice. Muscadine is very strong, you would need to add some water to it.

 

[seth8530]

I used ph strips to test for acidity, the strips are geared for wine making because they only read between 2.8 and like 3.8 i think. It started at 3.2 and i added caco3 until i hit 3.6. And i added no water at all to this.

 

[seth8530]

Posting an update of the muscadine wine. Mine is in the middle, my dad's is to the left which used sugar to reach desired starting potential


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[seth8530]

Ok, i have added the mlf culture, noticed a nice amount of what looks like flakes on the bottom and side of carboy and stirred it all up.

 

[seth8530]

Ok, been a while guys, but I just got back from university and a job interview.

So, I went downstairs into the basement and checked on my red muscadine. The carboy had a beautiful red colour to it. I siphoned out half a wine glass worth of it and it had more of a golden colour you would associate with apple wine or mead. It is quite tart and strong tasting in the muscadine flavour and the smell is very strong (good thing). With the displaced volume I dosed it with 50mg/l of sulfites as well as some superkleer because i intend on racking into a 6 gallon carboy as well as a wine bottle or two.

When i added the sulfites the wine started bubbling and then turned a murkey brown on me... Just like it did before. I imagine it will be a little bit before it turns back.

 

[jswordy]

Have you degassed it? Might be a lot of CO2, and it bubbles out when it contacts the small sulfite granules. Yes, should clear.

 

[seth8530]

It is degassed to the extent of being flat on the tongue when tasted. The wine turned back to its original colour within a day.

 

[seth8530]

5/10/12
I added 7 tsp of lyzosomes to the wine, when I did i was greeted with a wine fountain. Fortunately, I only lost a few oz because the wine has been aging for a while and was not as gassy as it could of been. The lyzosomes were added to allow me to back sweeten the wine after added MLF bacteria. The reason being, if their are any MLF bacteria that are still active they would eat the sorbate and produce some nasty smells/tastes. Therefore, i neutralized them, which will allow me to add sorbate, and subsequently sweeten the wine to a desired level.

 

[seth8530]

I tried a bottle last night and it is very dry and crisp with a muscadine aftertaste. It is kind of acidic with some people liking it that way and others thinking it is too much. I feel like this wine would do very well paired with food because it would cleanse the palate quite well. Im still undecided on whether I want to sweeten the wine or not. I think once the end of summer is here I will bottle it up and then we can see what it needs. Ie sugar addition and acid adjustment.

 

[toddrod]

sweeten half and keep the rest dry.

 

[seth8530]

Im considering bottling this wine this coming up weekend.. If I add sugar to it and its stabilized you reckon Im gona have to worry about getting cloudy wine?