Wine from Just plain grapes?

[mennyg19]

Ok, so even thought this thread is a bit old, my grapes will hopefully be delivered tomorrow and i have a question:
Again, I want to use the wild yeast on the skins of the grapes and not add yeast. Question is, do I was the grapes to get rid of pesticides? Or are there no pesticides? Will the washing get rid of they yeast also?
Thanks again everyone!
Gonna try a petit syrah for my first go

 

[Steve_M]

You do not want to wash grapes, doing so may dilute brix.

 

[Scooter68]

You need to contact the source for your grapes for that answer (Were pesticides used?)

That's sort of where your plan hits a big bump in the road. Getting rid of the pesticides may also get rid of a lot of the natural wild yeasts on them.

By the way using a wine yeast is really not using an "additive" it's more like bumping up the speed of fermentation and the quality of that fermentation by introducing a yeast what will provide a better end result. Sticking to your game plan is going to introduce a number of variable over which you will have little or no control without 'additives.' If a bacteria is on the grapes and is not killed off then, as others have mentioned, your entire effort may be the production of an undrinkable wine.
Unless you use some basic tools like a Hydrometer and a TA test kit or pH meter you will sort of starting something putting it in a black box and not knowing what's happening until it's too late to correct any problems that occur.

It wasn't that many years ago that commerical wine makers even struggeled to produce good wines due the the variation of conditions in the vineyard as well as during the fermentation process. That's why some years vintages were so treasured. Now days there are so many ways to adjust the process from the vineyard to the bottle - as result most commercial wines nowadays are not meant to be aged but rather best drunk within a year from bottling. Basic aging is still done at the winery but once bottled keeping wines for several years can lead to some unhappy events.

 

[JohnT]

I agree with scooter..

With wild yeast, you do not know what you are getting. It is far safer and has a far better potential for success when you go with cultured yeast.

I also agree, never wash grapes. This will only dilute the sugar, flavor, and acid that the vintner and God have worked so hard to produce.

 

[NorCal]

Good luck, let us know how it goes. Most all the products we use on the grapes are sulphur based (yep, unless your grapes are specifically organically grown, you will have sulphur).

All my experience with Petite Syrah us that it will pick up a lot of tannin (gives you the mouth pucker feeling), due to the juice/berry ratio. I would look to minimize time on the skin and press earlier than later.

How is fermentation going?

 

[mennyg19]

Good luck, let us know how it goes. Most all the products we use on the grapes are sulphur based (yep, unless your grapes are specifically organically grown, you will have sulphur).

All my experience with Petite Syrah us that it will pick up a lot of tannin (gives you the mouth pucker feeling), due to the juice/berry ratio. I would look to minimize time on the skin and press earlier than later.

How is fermentation going?

So you think that even with all of @JohnT's opposition i should still give it a try?
Im getting my shipment of 110 pounds of grapes tomorrow. Is that enough? I have a 25 liter bucket and carboy. Which is about 6.6 gallons each...
I also have a 20 liter carboy which is now aging a Dragon Blood. I should be bottling by the time it comes to move the grapes out of primary. Thats about 5.2 gallons...

 

[ceeaton]

I'm getting my shipment of 110 pounds of grapes tomorrow. Is that enough? I have a 25 liter bucket and carboy. Which is about 6.6 gallons each...

I think with 110 lbs of grapes you'll need a larger fermenter. I calculate roughly 12 gallons of must or 45 litres, plus you need some headspace for the cap when it rises. So if you can I'd go get a larger bucket.

Here's a thread I just saw:

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=617349&postcount=5

 

[Johnd]

So you think that even with all of @JohnT's opposition i should still give it a try?
Im getting my shipment of 110 pounds of grapes tomorrow. Is that enough? I have a 25 liter bucket and carboy. Which is about 6.6 gallons each...
I also have a 20 liter carboy which is now aging a Dragon Blood. I should be bottling by the time it comes to move the grapes out of primary. Thats about 5.2 gallons...

The 25 liter bucket is not going to cut it, and you can't use carboys for primary fermentation, if you did manage to push all of the grapes through the hole, and were able to punch down through the hole, it would be a holey mess, pun intended.

As Craig said, get a bigger fermenter, a 20 gallon Brute from Home Depot or some other store will work just fine, make sure it's food grade.

When you press your grapes and rack to glass later on, you'll need more than one 6 gallon carboy, but you won't fill two of them, so have some options on hand before you press and rack. I keep a couple of 3's, a couple of 2's, four 1's and four 1/2's. You don't need that many, but you'll need options, and make sure you have the proper bungs and airlocks for them. I'd estimate that you will end up with +/- 8 gallons in secondary, that just depends upon the grapes themselves.

In subsequent rackings as the wine clears and ages, you'll be able to use the smaller vessels to top up the bigger ones.

 

[JohnT]

So you think that even with all of @JohnT's opposition i should still give it a try?
Im getting my shipment of 110 pounds of grapes tomorrow. Is that enough? I have a 25 liter bucket and carboy. Which is about 6.6 gallons each...
I also have a 20 liter carboy which is now aging a Dragon Blood. I should be bottling by the time it comes to move the grapes out of primary. Thats about 5.2 gallons...

I am not opposed to it, I just do not recommend it.

 

[NorCal]

So you think that even with all of @JohnT's opposition i should still give it a try?

When I make wine it takes a lot of time, effort and $. Having good biological control of bacteria and introducing yeast that has a proven track record are two components that I believe improve my chances of making a good wine.

Certainly not saying that it won't work without adding SO2 pre-ferment and using known yeast, but I like to improve my odds.

My calculations are:
100 lbs of grapes
11 gallons of must
6.5 gallons finished
32 750ml bottles

 

[Rhetoric]

I'm kinda in the same situation you're in, though not voluntarily. Wine making is not practiced in Japan, so the basic materials are not easily available. But. I have a small garden and some grape vines, so I tried to make wine out of the produce I'd grown. I used the natural yeast on the grapes and it worked great! I liked it so much that I bought some grapes (kinda cheap this time of year) and tried again with commercial yeast. The result was not nearly as satisfactory as the results with the natural variety from my garden, so I kept part of the must and intend to keep it going as a culture. I'm using it now with blueberries and have strawberries and kiwis up next. If the fermentation doesn't become aggressive enough, I'll add a small bit of the commercial yeast (Pasteur Red was all I could get here).

 

[stickman]

Menny, based on your original post, I think you have to make a few batches of additive free wine, if for no other reason, to give you something to compare against should you decide to use additives in the future.

Most winemakers know someone from the "Old Country" that makes wine without additives, for me, it was my Father-in-law. The wine he made was not that bad when the barrel was tapped, but they never bottled it, so as the occasional jug was drained from the barrel, the remainder eventually spoiled due to oxidation and vinegar bacteria.

There are a number of wineries making additive free wine, but you have to dig a little bit to find information on their winemaking practices. Some wineries are truly old world, and some are using technology such as ozone for sanitizing (accepted organically) to help avoid the use of additives. Some sites here will get you started.

http://postmodernwinemaking.com/when-bottle-sulfite-free-cab
http://www.freywine.com/Our-Winemaking-Philosophy/No-Sulfites-Added
http://postmodernwinemaking.com/sulfite-free-winemaking

 

[mennyg19]

Thanks @stickman
So after thinking long and hard and after spending a boatload of money on all the equipment and grapes I decided that to make additive free wine only is too risky.
So I decided to split my grapes and do half and half. That way I can compare the two and see what happens... So here's what I have based on my reading here and online. Remember Im using Petit Syrah, just got the shipment today. Gorgeous, but like @NorCal said, they're small. So the tannin ratio will be high.
So, tonight I will squeeze into two primaries.
Add K-meta to one, (do I add sorbate also or just sulfites? Also, how much?) and let it sit overnight. The other will just be sitting.
After 24 hours, I will add DV10 yeast to the additive one.
Since the additive free one will not be able to age long, I will be pulling the skins out early, say 5 days into fermentation. The additive one I also don't want so much tannin, so I will pull out after a week and a half and press. (Or maybe longer? Somebody help me out)
Leave both primaries covered with a towel until SG drops below 1.040. Rack into secondary. I have 2 25 liter and 2 20 liter carboys. Someone do the math and tell me if ill be ok please?
Airlock, and let it go.
When it hits below 1.000 and stabilizes, I will leave the airlock on the additive free one, and add sulfites and sorbate to the additive one and let them bulk age for a couple of months. I will then bottle, the additive free one will probably be after 3-4 months. I will then flash pasteurize the additive free one to kill whatever yeast may be left in there. I saw this: http://www.wikihow.com/Pasteurize-Your-Homemade-Wine
Will it work or kill my wine?

Any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism is welcome and requested

Here are my 50 kilo of grapes:

 

[ceeaton]

Add K-meta to one, (do I add sorbate also or just sulfites? Also, how much?) and let it sit overnight. .... and add sulfites and sorbate to the additive one and let them bulk age for a couple of months.

No sorbates necessary, unless you are back sweetening the wine after fermentation is complete, which I think is unlikely since you are doing Petit Syrah. Sorbate will keep the yeast from budding (how it reproduces) so that would be a disaster in the making if you add it before adding your yeast. I use 1/4 tsp Kmeta per 6 gallons of must. Someone here likely knows how many grams per liter, I don't.

By the way, nice looking grapes there!

 

[JohnT]

Also,

Be sure to sort your grapes (pull out any leaves or foreign debris).

 

[stickman]

A lot of good advice has been given, but it ultimately depends on what you want from the wine. For the additive free wine, you have a choice, as Norcal suggests, short skin contact to make an early to drink wine, or longer skin contact to deliberately extract more tannin which is a natural preservative. The wine with more tannin will have a longer life, and will be more resistant to vinegar bacteria, but will require more aging time to soften. The choice is yours. As everyone knows, you can spend a lifetime experimenting with wine.

 

[NorCal]

You should have around two 6 gallons of must. 1.6 grams of SO2 in 6 gallons should give you a little less than 50ppm. Then, let the must it sit till the next day and then inoculate. I think it is good to have a plan, but also prepare to deviate. Taste the wine as it is fermenting; how's the flavors, the color, how quickly is it fermenting? Any signs of h2s?

You also have to make the call on extraction vs. your willingness to let it age. Petite Syrah is not an early drinker as a single varietal.

Good luck!

 

[mennyg19]

So here are my notes on the first night of squeezing (not done yet).
Those beautiful bunches had a lot of white stuff growing between the grapes, i think its mold. I left the grapes touching the white out of my must.
It takes a LOT more work than I thought to destem and squeeze grapes... I only got through 2 out of 5 boxes.
2 boxes got me about 15 liters of must. That means I'm headed toward about 37 liters in total between the two (a little less than 10 gallons). I didn't finish destemming and squeezing the two boxes. I need to go through each stem and pull off the single grapes I missed. There are also a few full bunches that I didnt touch due to the white stuff, so I have to go back and pull off the grapes that are good.
A bunch of bugs were in the grapes. Whatever I got on my hands did NOT go into the must. But I'm sure some got in. Two issues with that: will my wine turn into vinegar now? Also, when I rack, I'll lose all the bugs, right? Cause bugs ain't kosher and that'll be a big issue for me...
About the color. I've never squeezed grapes (besides making concord grape juice when i was 10) so I don't really know, but the juice looks brownish. Not the deep maroon I was expecting, maybe the skins will develop that color?
Anyway, feeling very accomplished and exhausted now. Gnite y'all

 

[mennyg19]

So I still couldnt finish squeezing my grapes. Friday is a hectic day, gotta prepare for the sabbath.
I squeezed about half the grapes and got about 20 liters of must, which is a bit less than 6 gallons. Will the rest of my grapes go bad over the next day or two? The temp in the room is pretty nice, about 65 degrees.
I didnt add anything to the must so this will be my additive free one. Starting SG is 1.092 at 27 degrees celsius. I lowered the AC in the room so it should cool. It seems like I wont have to add sugar to my additive one either as the starting SG seems to be perfect.
The color is developing beautifully. A nice deep maroon. Heres a pic from 5 mins ago:

The brown stuff are seeds, are they supposed to be taken out?
Also, its covered with a cloth and the lid is on top of the cloth, i hope thats good. Like this:

 

[JohnT]

These bugs, are they fruit flies?

They are know carriers of acetobacter (the most common family of bacteria that will convert wine to vinegar). One or two fruit flies should not really be a concern, but you do want to try and keep as many of those little *******s out as possible.

It is also good to try and keep as many of the seeds out of the wine as possible. Seeds will add a type of tannin that most people do not like (IMHO, it makes the wine bitter).