Racking the wine

 We made two demijohns of wine about 28 gallons shown here above.  We use a plastic tube to draw the "clear" wine from the crud at the bottom of the demijohn.  The empty demijohn below collects the clear wine.  The crud as I keep calling it is actually more accurately called gross lees and is the yeast that has done it's job of converting the sugar to alcohol.  We are racking now, about 3-4 days after pressing the grapes, because keeping the wine in contact with the gross lees is detrimental to the wine.

This is a view inside the demijohn at the crud collected at the bottom..

This is the crud I'm pouring into the sink, it looked like bad motor oil.

  

 

 

The wine itself tastes great

But you really want to get it away from this stuff

Yukk

Grape Mash pressing weekend....Grape mash

Grape mash being pressed

Bucket by bucket the mash is put into the press...

The wine is put into a demijohn

We ratchet the press to squeeze the wine out of the grapes

Well from 11 cases of grapes we got 2 demijohns full of wine.  Approximately, 28 gallons or so...

On Wednesday, I expect to do the first racking.  I'll explain racking on Wednesday.

Grape Mash Update Wednesday.......

The vast majority of fermentation is over, we are down to about 1% or less.

 The temperature of the Mash is down to 70 degrees.  The mash smells very much like wine at this point.

I will continue to punch down the mash untill Sunday when we Press the grapes.  Check back Monday for a post on the pressing process....

Grape Mash Update Tuesday......

Ok.  Right now my house smells like a winery, which is good.  Fermentation was very active.  Outdoor temperatures have been in the 60's in the day and high 40's in the evening.

 The temperature of the must was 84 deg. today.  Fermentation generating more heat.

The alcohol reading was 4% today which means that we are more than halfway through the fermentation process.  Right now we are planning on pressing these grapes on Sunday.  The fermentation should be done long before Sunday at this rate.  We will continue to punch down the skins through Sunday in order to enhance the contact with the skins so that we develop good color in this red wine.