Wine from Just plain grapes?

[mennyg19]

So I crushed another 45 pounds of grapes and added SO2, I plan on adding it to my additive must to ferment. I will leave both sets of skins in for about 3-4 days and then take them all out and press. Hopefully the tannin levels will be similar to the natural must.
Had two kids help me destem and it still took 2 hours to destem and crush...

 

[mennyg19]

So my regular must measured at 1.006 yesterday afternoon. It still measured the same tonight. I added from my new must to it. My new must measured at 1.084, and now my must measures at 1.036 i think (not there right now).
I also added from my new must to my natural must. My natural must measured at 1.020 on Friday and caught up to my regular must at 1.005 tonight. I added to it (not as much as i added to the regular must) and it now measures back to about 1.020
Ihope this all works. Now that I added to my natural must from my new crushed grapes its not 100% natural as I added sulfites to the new must on Friday.
Also, I have 25 liters of regular must and about 18 liters of natural must. I have a 20 liter demijohn ready for the regular one and have a 15 liter one on order for the natural must.

 

[mennyg19]

Regular Must: 1.029
Natural Must: 1.018
Added some skins back to the natural must to get some more tannin maybe. Will hopefully press both musts on Tuesday.

 

[mennyg19]

Regular Must: 1.020 and 25C
Natural Must: 1.013 and 25C

 

[Johnd]

Time to press!!!

 

[drainsurgeon]

Not to discourage you, but I'm not sure it will be much benefit adding more fruit this late in the ferment. I did that once about 2 1/2 months ago with my first Dragon Blood. I had squeezed the fruit bag daily and it was getting smaller by the hour. Almost nothing left after 5 days into the ferment. I added some frozen blueberries on day 6 for 2 reasons. I had done a lot more reading in the Dragon Blood thread and found that several people were adding more fruit to their 2nd and 3rd batches of DB to try and get more fruit flavor. My must was also getting pretty warm at 84 degrees and wanted to try and cool it off a bit. I stirred, recorded and squeezed the bag twice daily and on day 8, when SG was at .994, I did a final squeeze and removed the pulp. There was quite a bit of the blueberry pulp left that I had added late and surmised that I probably had not gotten much flavor extraction out of the late berry addition. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I felt that the 2# of Blueberries was kind of a waste adding it that late in the game.

 

[mennyg19]

Time to press!!!

Both musts or just the natural?

 

[Johnd]

Both musts or just the natural?

I press at around 1.020 (5 Brix).

 

[mennyg19]

Soo. I pressed my regular must. I ended up using a sock and this:



and a sock. Worked, but it took a while and I didnt get as much juice as I had hoped. Anyway, my demijohn is not full which is an issue. I have a friedn who hopefully will have a 15L demijohn to lend to me.

Plan on pressing natural must tomorrow
Heres a picture of the pressed juice going into my demijohn. Siphoning is cool btw...

 

[Johnd]

I hope it was a clean sock................!! Don't worry too much about the headspace right now, just keep your airlock on and don't mess with it, the CO2still being produced will keep you protected while it finishes fermenting.

If you're doing MLF, you'll want to rack in a couple days to the right sized container and add your MLB. If not, just let it go til it's completely done before racking to the right sized container(s).

 

[mennyg19]

Brand new white sock (well, now its pretty purple), im not that stupid
I wanted to ask about the MLF, can I go without it? What are the pros and cons each way?

Im also new to siphoning so I got a mouth splash of wine. I don't know how to describe wine with all the fancy terms, but besides for the bit of yeast and sediment, I have to say that I like the way its coming along...

 

[mennyg19]

Oh and btw, SG is 1.010

 

[Johnd]

Brand new white sock (well, now its pretty purple), im not that stupid
I wanted to ask about the MLF, can I go without it? What are the pros and cons each way?

Im also new to siphoning so I got a mouth splash of wine. I don't know how to describe wine with all the fancy terms, but besides for the bit of yeast and sediment, I have to say that I like the way its coming along...

MLF is not a requirement for making red wine. It does have the benefit of smoothing and mellowing the wine by changing the harsher malic acid into the smoother lactic acid. It typically requires the addition of MLB, and nutrients, holding off on adding KMS, and letting the process complete over a few month period of time. The choice is really yours.

 

[mennyg19]

MLF is not a requirement for making red wine. It does have the benefit of smoothing and mellowing the wine by changing the harsher malic acid into the smoother lactic acid. It typically requires the addition of MLB, and nutrients, holding off on adding KMS, and letting the process complete over a few month period of time. The choice is really yours.

The real question is, will MLF quicken my wine being drinkable, I want it to be ready in 6-7 months from now.

 

[Johnd]

The real question is, will MLF quicken my wine being drinkable, I want it to be ready in 6-7 months from now.

The term "drinkable" means something different to everyone, and because you are ready, doesn't necessarily mean it will be. If you are asking, as it seems you are, "how will my wine taste in 6-7 months if MLF is done / not done?", not sure anyone can say unequivocally. It could be nice either way, it could be poor either way, but it'll be very young either way. Generally speaking, and I mean generally, not all, my belief is that the best quality reds are produced with MLF as a part of the winemaking regimen. That still doesn't mean you have to.

If your wine tastes acidic and sharp, MLF will make it better in 6-7 months than it would be without it, and better for all time past that mark. If you try to reduce the acidity / sharpness by other means, like potassium or calcium bicarbonate, the resultant wine can be lower in acidity (higher pH), but take on a flat or flabby mouthfeel. That's not a given either, there are many awesome high pH wines. Every grape is different, so every resulting wine is different too. I guess that's where it's more art than science.

Regardless of which path you choose, when you are doing medium to full bodied red wines from grapes, 6-7 months is infancy.

Most nice, commercially produced red wines, undergo MLF, spend many months, if not years, in barrels, before even being bottled and released to the general public for consumption.

 

[mennyg19]

I guess Ill wait on my natural and try to get a MLF culture for my additive one.
Another thing. I moved my regular must to a demijohn, but i didnt have another demi for my natural. (Getting it hopefulyl later today). So I snapped down the lid of my bucket and put an airlock. The airlock on my demi is bubbling away, but my buckets airlock is still even on both sides, is that something to be worried about? Maybe the splash racking started the ferment again on the regular one but since i didnt rack the natural its stalled for now?

 

[Scooter68]

Plastic bucket seals often don't. You can put some water in the groove with the seal and then try snapping it on again. I don't use those lids anymore - just a muslin cloth over the top and a string to tie it down so it can't get knocked off or fall in.

 

[Johnd]

I guess Ill wait on my natural and try to get a MLF culture for my additive one.
Another thing. I moved my regular must to a demijohn, but i didnt have another demi for my natural. (Getting it hopefulyl later today). So I snapped down the lid of my bucket and put an airlock. The airlock on my demi is bubbling away, but my buckets airlock is still even on both sides, is that something to be worried about? Maybe the splash racking started the ferment again on the regular one but since i didnt rack the natural its stalled for now?

Odds are that the lid snapped down on the primary bucket isn't airtight, allowing CO2 to escape through the lid instead of through the airlock.

 

[brewski09]

Man, a lot of negativity to spontaneous fermentation here.

In short, yes, you can ferment with wild yeast/bacteria and they are going to be most prevalent on the skins of the grapes but you may not like what you get. Also, brettanomyces is generally considered negatively when talking about wine and is probably the most likely spontaneous fermenter you'll get from skins or the environment. I would probably pitch my own yeast first until I had everything else under control and then do a spontaneous ferment.

If I may recomend checking out Milk The Funk as a resource there's a lot of good info about spontaneous fermentation there (Facebook and Wikipedia pages). I'll forewarn you though, it's geared to sour beer fermentation do some of it may not be applicable to you. The technical knowledge is phnom onl there though and there are a few winemakers (amateur and pro) that are playing with Brett in wine.

 

[drainsurgeon]

Man, a lot of negativity to spontaneous fermentation here.

In short, yes, you can ferment with wild yeast/bacteria and they are going to be most prevalent on the skins of the grapes but you may not like what you get. Also, brettanomyces is generally considered negatively when talking about wine and is probably the most likely spontaneous fermenter you'll get from skins or the environment. I would probably pitch my own yeast first until I had everything else under control and then do a spontaneous ferment.

If I may recomend checking out Milk The Funk as a resource there's a lot of good info about spontaneous fermentation there (Facebook and Wikipedia pages). I'll forewarn you though, it's geared to sour beer fermentation do some of it may not be applicable to you. The technical knowledge is phnom onl there though and there are a few winemakers (amateur and pro) that are playing with Brett in wine.

Pitching yeast and THEN do a spontaneous ferment? Please explain how this would work.