Cool! Science experiment!!
Did some research… seems pellicle won’t affect much… I may hook up my shop vacuum and suck that stuff off the top tho… rack it, and prepare for bottling…
Just a dumb move to forget the wine! Dag nabbit!
Sneezles61
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Some of my favorites wines have a Brett component. I bet it will be delicious
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Geez, where is this summer going! I put my wine in a keg. Still has a powerful/strong grape flavor. I’ll buy some white wine I can add to soften it a bit….
My grapes will be plentiful should nothing drastic happen before picking time… I wonder about mixing some sweet water of the same gravity of the grape must and diluting… input?
Sneezles61
Grapes are starting to turn color now… are yers?
Sneezles61
the wild grapes are ripening I can smell them in the air when walking my yard. Yellow jackets can as well
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Dang, my Muscadine x Concord grapes are
at the house we sold in 2019. Hope the brand new owners are enjoying them….
(Of possible interest, we sold that house for $385,000, it just sold again for $701,000 in July!!)
That is just unbelievable!! Seems you just moved into yer new home a few days ago…
Sneezles61
I know, right? I was ready to beat my realtor with a truncheon!
Just kidding, A reflection of the super heated real estate market that is just finally starting to fizzle a bit!
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Grapes are picked… I’m clearing out the garage and getting ready to start juicing the grapes… I have a “juice mate”. I’m curious how you extract the juice?…
Sneezles61
EDIT: well, that gizmo is in the trash….
EDIT: I’ve got the grapes liberated from the stems… now to crush them… I have the apple squisher gizmo I made a few years back… I’ll employ that tomorrow… I hope it doesn’t end up as the “juice mate” did…. /:
How i do it is line a bucket with a paint strainer then put the grapes in and squish em up with your hands. Throw in a crushed camden tablet. After 24 hrs punch down and add yeast. Punch down every day for 5 days then pull the bag and sqeeze out the juice. Rack to a carboy if you need to top up use some grape juice or a bottle of wine. Then carry on as usual
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I’ve been thinking this over… See, last years wine has a powerful flavor… I’ve read that liberating the juice from the skins and seeds yields less tannins… which is less complex flavor… now, not be knowing If that’s correct, I’m going to extract juice and… well, I think the fox out back here may enjoy the remnants….
If it’s still strong, I’m going to mix sugar water to equal gravity and blend…
Sneezles61
EDIT: well… I fought juicing grapes with my home made squisher… I found that if I took the containment cylinder out of the equation, and just squished the grapes in a course brew bag, it worked well… I e got about 1.5 - 2 gallons must to play with…
I cannot tell you of my squish was efficient or not… but what was left for the fox looked like a cake…
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My cousin had a fox in his back yard that ate grapes that had fallen on the ground. The thing took an afternoon nap under his arbor, even ignoring him when he came out. Best he can figure is the fox was hammer drunk. 
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Well, gee whizz…. I went looking about how to separate grapes from stems…
Well guess what, seems there is a growing movement that ferment uses the whole cluster! Next years … (can’t use X-beerment)…
Sneezles61
Yes I don’t remove the stems but you need so to leave some skins to get complexity. Especially with red. You can juice then ad some skins back in but now your talking work. The other option is less time on the skins which is what the big boys do. This is where the vintners skill comes in otherwise your just fermenting juice which is fine to. Gotta play just like brewing and find a sweet spot. I gotta tell you im working reisling kit that i received as a bonus not sure I’ll do another just can’t get it right
Do you suppose Riesling is like what a pale lager is to brew? No room to hide anything?
I tasted my juice before hitting it with camden , it’s still strong… it seems like the concentrated stuff you’d get at the grocery store… if I don’t get to it today, it’ll dilute it tomorrow…
Sneezles61
there are alot of commercial rieslings that are awful. I like them super dry unfortunately the majority are sweet which to me is just wrong. Anyway I used the yeast that came with the kit and it was to sweet so I pitched some Champagne yeast and it dried it out some but still kind of bland so I racked in some apple cider since some good ones ive had had a hint of apple. unlike most whites riesling needs to age. but back to your grapes how can you judge the flavor before its fermented and aged?
The only clue I have is what I’ve tasted and a few finished products I’ve made…
I don’t appreciate a sweet wine… or cider. If it’s too dry you can add… sweet… well, the sink might be thirsty!
I did talk to a gentleman from a winery a couple hours south of us, in the St. Croix valley… they do mainly Marquette grapes… but then let it age for over a year and blend with some green grape wine(I don’t recall the name… Edelwiess?).
I did pitch yeast today. The must was watered down with 1.10 sugar and water and I figured(roughly) that I added a gallon to two gallons… did add a bit more water to get to the base of the neck… 1.08… pitched 1118… don’t recall the name… I’ll get it tomorrow…
Sneezles61
most of the wines you see in stores are blends which you could consider. Personally I think you are wrong trying to make adjustments pre fermentation. Hey you can always blend with store bought after. No shame in that
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I’ve made kits before, they taste more like juice…
Let’s see were this ends up at… Perhaps I’ll throw one yer way…
Sneezles61
EDIT: well the big ferment is done… is was messy… still bubbling right along…
