Ajmassa
just a guy
Interesting fermentation so far with this. Out of the roughly 90lbs of whole clusters in there I probably crushed a 1/3 about halfway thru. Tried to get Olivia for some old school stomping— but apparently binge watching The Office with her girlfriend was more important. Go figure.
Plan B was to just use my punchdown tool in the brute but that wasn’t gettin it done. Finally I just fished out clusters to crush and put back in. Punchdown tool only pressed tho- not exactly crushed. Tried to improvise and ceaned up a garden tiller but still wasn’t crushing properly. (Before any gasps- I cleaned the hell out of it and coated in silicon spray. Plus after seeing how the fam made wine you do get a unique perspective)
Eventually I said screw it. Just dumped thru the manual crusher right back into the brute. Did bucket of fished clusters and another of skins/stems/berries just to get some of those loose whole berries which were everywhere.
Sunday was at .998 and transferred free run. Left the cap and used the pvc racking cane filter pipe (GHP) to get a full demi from 30gal of super thick must. Mashed up the remaining skins a with a 2x4 to crush some berries. Covered up the skins with plastic, and covered brute with towel and lid. Was at the 16gal mark. (17 this morning). Will press today.
Now I’ve done the ‘plastic skins cover/next day press’ a bunch of times and I always transfer under 1.000. (Actually think it’s helped and my pressed wine consistently tastes better than the free run before mixing) But never had it still active like this before. The demi is bubbling like crazy-not just the typical mlf activity. And the skins in the brute are still forming a damn cap!— or as much of a cap its able to form at least. I suppose I can attribute this to whole cluster- but then again SG doesn’t lie. Both the free run and skins at .998 and chugging away is surprising.
As long as this is active I wonder if it’s beneficial to just let it go and hold off on pressing till it chills out. Expecting another 5-6gal of wine out of the 16gal of slop.
Plan B was to just use my punchdown tool in the brute but that wasn’t gettin it done. Finally I just fished out clusters to crush and put back in. Punchdown tool only pressed tho- not exactly crushed. Tried to improvise and ceaned up a garden tiller but still wasn’t crushing properly. (Before any gasps- I cleaned the hell out of it and coated in silicon spray. Plus after seeing how the fam made wine you do get a unique perspective)
Eventually I said screw it. Just dumped thru the manual crusher right back into the brute. Did bucket of fished clusters and another of skins/stems/berries just to get some of those loose whole berries which were everywhere.
Sunday was at .998 and transferred free run. Left the cap and used the pvc racking cane filter pipe (GHP) to get a full demi from 30gal of super thick must. Mashed up the remaining skins a with a 2x4 to crush some berries. Covered up the skins with plastic, and covered brute with towel and lid. Was at the 16gal mark. (17 this morning). Will press today.
Now I’ve done the ‘plastic skins cover/next day press’ a bunch of times and I always transfer under 1.000. (Actually think it’s helped and my pressed wine consistently tastes better than the free run before mixing) But never had it still active like this before. The demi is bubbling like crazy-not just the typical mlf activity. And the skins in the brute are still forming a damn cap!— or as much of a cap its able to form at least. I suppose I can attribute this to whole cluster- but then again SG doesn’t lie. Both the free run and skins at .998 and chugging away is surprising.
As long as this is active I wonder if it’s beneficial to just let it go and hold off on pressing till it chills out. Expecting another 5-6gal of wine out of the 16gal of slop.
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