Wine Press recommendations

M38A1 · Jul 9, 2018

Last year was my first harvest/press using roughly 50lbs of wild Muscadine grapes. We pressed with a screw type barrel and it worked, but not as well as I would have thought. There's always the possibility I did it wrong or overloaded it.

This year we've just harvested 101lbs. and my little homemade bucket press just isn't up to the task. These Muscadines are slimy by nature and the must bag clogs up too quickly in the perforated bucket.

What recommendations do you have for a small guy/home unit to press these grapes and maybe some other fruits down the road to change it up a bit?

salcoco · Jul 9, 2018

if in the budget a bladder press is the best.

balatonwine · Jul 10, 2018

If you have a destemmer and the money for a small bladder press, then that is ideal for both grapes and fruit. I would not use unstemmed grapes on a bladder press.

If you are on a budget (i.e. no destemmer or if you make white wine), then a small basket press will service your needs as well for both grapes and fruit.

garymc · Jul 12, 2018

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no stems in harvested muscadines. I have a screw type basket press, which works fine for muscadines that have been fermented. I tried pressing some bronze muscadines before fermentation once, and I got about a quart of juice from a 5 gallon bucket of muscadines. Since then, I've always done the bronze ones the same as the red ones. Crush, ferment, then press.

balatonwine · Jul 12, 2018

garymc said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no stems in harvested muscadines.

I am probably wrong. And certainly ignorant here, as I have never harvested muscadines

M38A1 · Jul 20, 2018

They (Muscadines) have stems like any other grape except there's only five to eight grapes per stem instead of eleventy-billion.

Here's what they look like from the central Tejas area picked from the vines. That's 117lbs of them - stems and all. Netted out to be 101lbs of just grapes.

I wound up making a bucket press that worked reasonably well. In fact, I almost think it worked better than the 25gal basket press I rented last year. In retrospect though, I probably didn't know how to really utilize the basket press as I put the cleaned/de-stemmed grapes whole in there instead of macerating them a bit first. This year with the bucket press I macerated them first then pressed and the yield was considerably more juice vs last year basket press.