One wheel in hand and eight on the ground...2022 Wine Making Season

[crushday]

Update:

I hit the interstate on Friday morning a few minutes early. Glad I did as it took about 25 minutes to fill my gas tank when I stopped to refuel at the Express Fuel in Yreka, CA. I saw how slow the pump was so I walked into the store, stood in line to use the bathroom, and when I came out it was still clicking away, LOL. A few minutes later I was back on the road.

Traffic coming into Sac was to be expected on a Friday afternoon. Lot's of weekend get-awayers headed to Lake Tahoe.

I dropped my trailer and bins at the vineyard staging area after what turned out to be an 11 hour drive. I regret not taking pictures. All the macro bins laid down next to each other would have produced a pretty cool shot. I met the new vineyard manager, Rick. Nice guy.

After getting settled at the hotel, I drove over to the KK Ranch ( @NorCal ) for the wine tasting. Previously in this string and at least one other, @NorCal was critical of his 2021 wines and lamented nothing worth sharing. IMO, the host at the KK Ranch is way too hard on the content of the three bottles I tried last night. I would take any one of them home with me. Wines from @Busabill @4score and his son Chris were amazing too.

Picking up grapes this morning and scooting back home.

 

[NorCal]

Safe travels George. We tasted 15 wines and I can honestly say there was not a bad one there.
The scale, breadth and quality of wine @crushday makes is truly remarkable.

 

[crushday]

Update: HOME

Just finished what ended up being a 12 hour drive home. I decided not to push it too hard and hung mostly to the far right. I've always wanted to hang with the big boys...

Grapes traveled well. I'll get the crush pad set up tomorrow at 7am. Tomorrow I'll post crush pics and numbers.

Here are some pics of the grapes from this morning...

 

[crushday]

Update: Crush Day at crushdays

As was planned, I started getting the crush pad all set up at 7am. We were crushing by 8am - finished at 10am. All cleaned up by 11am and started initial tests.

Here are the numbers on the following fermentations:

Petite Sirah 1: 24.5 Brix, 3.67 pH
Petite Sirah 2: 25.8 Brix, 3.68 pH
Petit Verdot: 27 Brix, 3.59 pH
Cab Franc 1: 25.4 Brix, 3.69 pH
Cab Franc 2: 25.4 Brix, 3.61 pH

I'm happy with the numbers and not planning on making any adjustments, sans the Petit Verdot (I'll see what happens overnight and if the numbers creep a little bit).

Had one problem with the Petite Sirah (twice) - the must was so thick that my must pump clogged twice. I thought that might happen as there was more raisins than I typically see from Clos Du Lac. I don't typically sort; choosing, rather, to take what nature provides. The resulting wine is either going to be a massive, inky and concentrated masterpiece or a really great blender. I'm more excited about the first notion...

I pulled 6.5 gallons (Saignée) from the Cab Franc. Pitched the same yeast as the others.

SO2 added to 50ppm, GoFerm, Fermaid O and Chr. Hansen's Harmony yeast pitched.

Now, a few pics...

 

[crushday]

Update: First punch down this afternoon. Light cap on everything but overnight will continue to develop. We should be F1 by tomorrow morning...

Not much change over night from the initial Brix readings. But, I'm going to water back the Petit Verdot tomorrow morning. At now 27.6 Brix, that's too high of a ABV for my taste and for the yeast. Acidulated water will be added tomorrow if the readings are anywhere near what they are now. I'll account for any yeast consumption.

The Petite Sirah is posing a difficultly to me. Here is a pic of the punch tool. You can see how much already is coating the handle. There's not much juice in the must at this point. If I had to guess, what would normally produce 65 gallons of wine will only be 40 gallons. 40 gallons per 1000 pounds of grapes - that makes the price per gallon too high for satisfaction. Bright side: maybe with all the raisins, I’ll get more of a Petite Sirah Amarone style!

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Nice going, that's a lot of crushing in 2 hrs!

Those raisins can lead to confusing brix numbers in the early days - as they rehydrate they can give up their sugar and increase brix (or at least make it look as if your fermentation isn't moving. I'd measure brix/temps daily if you're not doing do already...

 

[mainshipfred]

Update: First punch down this afternoon. Light cap on everything but overnight will continue to develop. We should be F1 by tomorrow morning...

Not much change over night from the initial Brix readings. But, I'm going to water back the Petit Verdot tomorrow morning. At now 27.6 Brix, that's too high of a ABV for my taste and for the yeast. Acidulated water will be added tomorrow if the readings are anywhere near what they are now. I'll account for any yeast consumption.

The Petite Sirah is posing a difficultly to me. Here is a pic of the punch tool. You can see how much already is coating the handle. There's not much juice in the must at this point. If I had to guess, what would normally produce 65 gallons of wine will only be 40 gallons. 40 gallons per 1000 pounds of grapes - that makes the price per gallon too high for satisfaction. Bright side: maybe with all the raisins, I’ll get more of a Petite Sirah Amarone style!

My guess is you will be surprised with the yield. My Norton is always similar to what you described and I usually get a pretty good yield even though it has thick skin and large seeds.

View attachment 92252

 

[crushday]

My guess is you will be surprised with the yield. My Norton is always similar to what you described and I usually get a pretty good yield even though it has thick skin and large seeds.

Thanks, Fred. That is reassuring. I've been in communication with the vineyard and they are looking for a replacement. I'll know more as early as this evening.

 

[crushday]

Update:

I have been punching twice daily at 6am and 6pm. Everything is going well on the Cab Franc and the Petit Verdot - as expected. The Petite Sirah punch down was easier this morning than previous punchdowns. The yeast is beginning to eat through the sugar and creating alcohol (liquid) which is helping. Before it was like punching cake batter; a cacophony of skins, seeds and concentrated sugars mixed in with what little juice was there. I'm holding to my original estimate of 40 gallons of finished wine. Mrs. Crushday says it's going to be awesome. We'll see...

 

[crushday]

This is my new bottle filler that I had welded up. After all the aluminum was welded, according to the plans I drew up, I assembled the other parts. The powerplant of the system is my All In One unit. @vacuumpumpman

Right now it’s set up with two fillers with the option of a third. I taped off and sprayed the base with a rubberized paint.

 

[crushday]

Update: Capectomy?

If you've been following this journey, you'll know that the Petite Sirah has been a challenge. We had an extraordinarily high level of raisins in the bin. We decided to crush everything together and hope for the best. I'm certain several winemakers will want to pushback on this decision - but, the decision was made. Now, we live with the consequences or prosequences (I made up a word!).

I'm providing a couple links to videos that I shot this morning during the punch. The first one is the cap from Petite Sirah #2. The second one displays the cap of Petite Sirah #1. And, for contrast, I'm including a link to the cap of Cab Franc #1 - which by all accounts is a normal ferment.

I'm aware that the food grade 55 gallon drums I use don't match the 'high as wide' ideal of wine fermenting. I like the volume (and the cost) of the drums and I can get the contents of one drum in my hydraulic press for...the press.

I'm considering moving both Petite Sirah batches to one Macrobin and letting them finish out. Or, I might perform a Capectomy (I made up a second word!) on Saturday and remove 6-8 inches of cap from each batch. I'm leaning toward the Macrobin and have many suggestions for such from @NorCal @4score and @Busabill. To do so, I'll have to devise a screen to keep out the pesky fruit flies that are hovering about...

Here are the links (links expire 10/01/2022):

Petite Sirah 1 - iCloud

Petite Sirah 2 - iCloud

Cab Franc 1 - iCloud

 

[Cynewulf]

Crush, your videos remind me of a couple of videos of Clos Fantine in Faugères, France doing punch downs I shared in another thread about two years ago . It takes them probably around 5 minutes to break through the cap of their Syrah and Grenache!

Post in thread '2020 Fall Grape Season Coming Up'
2020 Fall Grape Season Coming Up

 

[Kraffty]

You were not exaggerating about that cap, holy cap! That looks to be some intense wine.

 

[crushday]

Update: Brix Check

Just pulled a Brix test during last night’s punch down. A few surprises:

CF 1: 10
CF 2: 5.5
PV: 8
PS1: 7
PS2: 5

CF1, in relation to CF2, is a surprise.

PS2 is a surprise.

I would think that PV would be the highest at this time considering it was the highest at the onset.

Maybe press Monday if we can stay at a good pace.

 

[winemaker81]

I would think that PV would be the highest at this time considering it was the highest at the onset.

The yeast in that batch are overachievers! Or maybe just really hungry!

Seriously, it's likely that either that colony started our larger, or the conditions for reproduction are better, or both. Most ferments are about the same, but on occasion I get a surprise (preferably good surprises!).

 

[Kraffty]

Did you end up pressing today?

 

[crushday]

Did you end up pressing today?

Mike, no pressing today. But, I did strongly consider it.

Current Brix readings are:

CF1: 5.5 (previous reading was 10)
CF2: 2 (previous was 5.5)
PV: 5 (previous was 8)
PS1: 4 (previous was 7)
PS2 3 (previous was 5)

I don’t have any logistics driving me to press except I don’t work today. Any pressing T-Th will be in the evening. But, I am concerned with seed tannins leaching in the high alcohol environment.

Because I’m keeping free run and press wine separate, I could look at CF and PS as composite brix readings at 3.75 and 3.5 respectively as I plan to blend them together while they settle out.

I decided to let them go dry before pressing.

 

[crushday]

Update: Press Day on 9.8.2022 (Thursday)

I punched down this morning and decided to taste everything just to get a sense of tannins - which are my big fear with both the Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot. Both of these can produce an overly tannic wine that I don't think 100 years in the bottle would even tame (purposely exaggerated). All three varieties taste good. The Petite Sirah, though viscosic, isn't displaying much tannin but is very chewy. Chewy since it has the density and texture of slighly reduced balsamic vinegar. This thing is going to be a tooth stainer for sure! Actually, the Petit Verdot isn't much different - just less thick. It's huge - really huge.

The cap on the CF is easily broken up but still forming. The cap on the PV is second in line in terms of ability to break up. The PS is a whole other story. I don't even touch those two fermenters unless I've taken a 500g carb load since I need so much energy to break the cap up...

I have cleared my calendar for a Thursday afternoon press.

 

[crushday]

Update: New Brix Readings on evening of 9.6.2022

*Brix readings today verses yesterday

CF1: 3 Brix (preciously 5.5)
CF2: 0.7 Brix (previously 2)
PV: 3.5 Brix (previously 5)
PS1: 2.6 Brix (previously 4)
PS2: 1.7 Brix (previously 3)

Moving along to my goal of 48 hours from now I’ll be cleaning everything up…

 

[crushday]

Update: Press Day

I had a successful press, but not one without incident. More on that later...

You can see from the pictures, how I set things up. I pressed the Petit Verdot first so I could pump the free run to a stainless container. I needed the fermentor to pump the Cab Franc into after I cleaned it. Cab Franc was second and last was the Petite Sirah.

The free run of the PV was just that and whatever was produced at 1/4 bar. Yield was 30 gallons free run and 6 gallons press. Press was at 1 bar.

The free run of the CF was just that and whatever was produced at 1/2 bar. Yield was 52 gallons free run, 6 gallons press and 5 gallons Rose'. Press was 1 bar.

The free run of the PS was just that and whatever was produced at 1/4 bar. Yield was 35 gallons free run and 7 gallons press. Press was 1/2 bar first fermenter and 1 bar for second.

My motivation on keeping both the PV and PS at such a low pressure for the press is all about tannins. Those varieties are plenty tannic and I did not want to extract anymore from pressing too hard. HOWEVER, you'll notice in the pictures that the PS at only 1/2 bar did not create a dense enough cake so when I lifted up the cage, the pomace fell everywhere. A little bit of mess but I got it cleaned up. Lesson learned...

All in all, the press was fun, educational and most importantly, a success. I'll let these guys settle out until Sunday at which time I'll transfer off the gross less, get under airlock and add the bacteria (CH16).

After press brix readings are as follows:

PV: 1 Brix
CF: 0 Brix
PS: 1 Brix