Other Skins

[Vlabruz]

Does anyone press skins after fermentation with kits?

 

[Johnd]

Does anyone press skins after fermentation with kits?

If you mean pressing the skins that come from the grape pack that you added, the answer is “Absolutely!!”. Get every bit of goodness you can out of those skins, just don’t pop seeds.

 

[Jim Welch]

Does anyone press skins after fermentation with kits?

I do too, collect the first bit with a gentle press then use another container for a firm press. Taste test the second before using. Knock on wood, not yet had an unusable firm pressing.

 

[Vlabruz]

Cool, I dont have a grape press but I may try my sausage press. Better than nothing I guess

 

[Jim Welch]

Cool, I dont have a grape press but I may try my sausage press. Better than nothing I guess

It can't hurt to try. There is also wine in the lees, I've taken to collecting them and cold crashing in the fridge. In my (somewhat limited) experience, the volume of firm lees is about 10-20% wine while loose lees are 40-50% wine. I figure I already paid for the wine, no sense letting any more than neccesary go down the drain or in my compost pile.

 

[Vlabruz]

It can't hurt to try. There is also wine in the lees, I've taken to collecting them and cold crashing in the fridge. In my (somewhat limited) experience, the volume of firm lees is about 10-20% wine while loose lees are 40-50% wine. I figure I already paid for the wine, no sense letting any more than neccesary go down the drain or in my compost pile.

That I've been doing. I have a cabernet lees I funneled into a wine bottle. Probably half the bottle is wine now.

 

[Fencepost]

Same here... but it was always difficult to decant the wine from the lees... I been using a 1/8" hose (water line; icemaker hose actually), fill it with water, put one end in the wine/lees bottle, gravity drain the water to the sink (just 3 seconds) then wine will come out, and put it in to a clean/sanitized bottle and it is very easy to suction the wine out with no residual lees (usually just tip wine/lees bottle to the side when it is near the end of the wine layer on top of the lees). Pretty much gets every drop, with no fines carry over. I do this after it has been refrigerated like @Jim Welch says.

 

[winemaker81]

Last fall I hung the skin packs inside a primary to drain for about 10 minutes, then pressed 6 in a press, netting 1.5 liters of additional wine from the pressing, e.g., 0.5 liters per kit (was triple batches). While this is not a lot in comparison to 23 liters, it was worth the effort.