Questions for the Wine Makers

So after much debate and thought I decided Im going to get into making a little wine. Of course Ive done a bunch of reading up on the web and what not. Got a basic principle of how everything works and what all I need. I was working up in Greenville, SC this week and on my way home I stopped up at a place called Grapes and Grains and bought $120 worth of stuff. I have 21 quarts of muscadines in the freezer im going to make my first batch with.

Heres a basic list of what I got

7.9 Gallon bucket and Lid (Good gosh the price is ridiculous)
Air Locks
Wine Thief
Several Nylon Bags
Auto Siphon Kit with hose
Hydrometer
Yeast (Two 71b-1122 and Two ec-1118)
Sparkloid Powder
Potassium Metabisulfite (Powder)
Yeast energizer
Pectic Enzyme
Potassium Sorbate
Yeast Nutrient

Im still planning on picking up some camden tablets to use instead of the power but i got a 1lb bag for $6 and figured I could use it to sanitize all my bottles, buckets, carboys, and etc... Now is there anything else im going to need right off hand besides some carboys and wine bottles? Im thinking about starting off with just some 1/2 gallon glass bottles and some 1 gallon glass bottles to store the wine in for the moment until I can round up some bottles and something to cork them with. I have two 5 gallon plastic water carboys that I know im not suppose to use to rack in but i think they will be fine to use temporarily until I can order some better bottles off the web.

Now I know yall are saying what the heck is all the chemicals for and for my second batch I am going to try some stuff thats called Dragon Blood which is a spin off of Skeeter Pee that has a tripple berry blend in it.
Here is the link http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f68/dragon-blood-15-days-31996/ Have any of yall tried this?

Now to my questions on the first batch are...
1. Which yeast would be better to use?
Im guessing im going to finish mashing up the muscadines in the bucket and then fill the rest of the bucket up with water to the 6 gallon mark and add my sugar to get to a certain starting specific gravity (That number im not sure of?). Im also not sure of what the ending specific gravity I would be looking for either. Im looking for a sweet tasting wine with somewhere around 12% alcohol. I dont want it to taste like syrup but I dont want it to be dry and bitter. Im more of a Boones farm type of guy when it comes to wine. After letting it ferment for 5 or so days or when ever the specific gravity at what ever ending point im shooting for I will then rack it into a carboy and start the clearing process racking it several times. Now is there any chemical I need to add besides the yeast?

Im guessing I will need to add some camden tablets as well as the chemical that stops the yeast from refermenting when I back sweeten it with sugar before bottling. Im guessing I will add 6 camden tablets after the grapes/water/sugar letting that sit for 12 hours then pitch the yeast in stirring/aggitating it every day. After fermintation is complete I will siphon it off into a carboy and slowly let it clear re-racking it several times. After it clears then I will back sweeten it with sugar and possibly add that chemical to make sure no more fermintatin occurs.

Sorry for the randomness of this post, I know its a little jumpy in its content but on the bright side im pretty excited about making a little wine. Thanks in advanced for yalls help.

I'm curious too.

GD78...

Man you purchased up a load of supplies ...

I use bleach to clean all my equipment... just make sure you rinse very good...

I don't put anything in my muscadines... except for wine yeast and sugar...

All those other chemicals may be necessary for some folks, but I don't use them and so far my wine has turned out fine.

I use a stone jug and a 7 gal plastic bucket to primary ferment in ...

I use the 5 gal plastic water bottles with out any problem ... just make sure you get the correct size stopper for the airlock.

I use wine bottles I get from a restaurant... making sure to wash/bleach them out good ...

I use Zorks to cork with .... nothing needed except your hand ... I do put them in boiling water to clean before using... make sure to get the water out before using... I've only lost one bottle due to a bad seal from the Zorks...

Make sure you have enough headspace in your primary...it could get messy if the airlock gets stopped up. Just sayin'...

Well I thawed out the grapes last night and today. Finished crushing them up and poured them in the freshly sanitized primary fermentation bucket. I wound up with 4.25 gallons pf juice and grapes when it was all said and done. They were still pretty cold so I'm going to pitch the yeast in the morning. Now for my game plan and tell me if it sounds like it will work.

I'm going to let it ferment in the primary for 3-4 days stirring it twice a day. Then I'm going to strain the must into the 5 gallon Carboy adding enough sugar water to get the specific gravity to 1.09 or so. Then after that I will re-rack it several times until it ferments out to .990 (I think that's what I want but don't hold me to it) where I will add the chemical to stop fermentation and back sweeten with sugar to taste. Probably let it sit in the Carboy a little while longer to make sure it's not fermenting and let it clear some more. Then finally I will bottle it temporarily till its all drank.

It won't hurt to go a few days more in the primary ... that will get more color, flavor and more resveratrol out of the hulls ...

Sounds good...

BriarPatch99 said:

It won't hurt to go a few days more in the primary ... that will get more color, flavor and more resveratrol out of the hulls ...

Sounds good...

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What do you think? Leave it in the primary for a week?

I ferment dry in the primary. Wine making is very forgiving and gets better with time so dont be in any hurry

Havinfun said:

I ferment dry in the primary. Wine making is very forgiving and gets better with time so dont be in any hurry

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Well the problem is the must has a specific gravity of 1.06 as of right now so I would have to go ahead and add in the sugar water to get the right volume and specific gravity to make sure the end result is 5 gallons of wine with about 12-13% alcohol. From my little bit of reading the wine needs atleast 11-12% alc to be able to be stored without refrigeration. I would have went ahead and added the sugar water and everything to get up to the right specific gravity but the problem was that I couldn't tell how much volume of liquid I had with all the grape hulls and what not. Plus I was a little scared to fill the bucket up too much since this is my first time and I didn't want to come home to a disaster in the kitchen.

Well I'm not so sure that the must is fermenting. I haven't seen any signs that's for sure! I'm not sure if the acid level is too high or I didn't hydrate the yeast right. I boiled the water let it sit a few minutes and poured the lavin ec-1118 yeast in mixed it and let it sit for 12 minutes then poured it in the must. I'm guessing the must was about 65 degrees. The yeast was put in about 15 hours after I put in 1/8 tsp of the potassium metabisulfite and a little pectic enzyme. I read earlier that I should have waited on the pectic enzyme a little but either way I wouldn't think it would mess up the fermentation one way or the other. Any suggestions on what to do? I've got more yeast and I thought about going ahead and mixing in the sugar water to get the sg up to 1.1 or so and pitching some more yeast but this time mix in the must to the yeast to get it started and slowly keep adding more and more must till I got up to a good bit fermenting then pouring the whole thing in. Any suggestions would be awesome.

I double checked the 3 piece air lock and made sure it was filled up to the right point. I made sure when I put it back that the bulb thing was on the bottom. When I checked it a minute ago it. Has rosé to the top but I still haven't physically seen any bubbling.

I normally go 7 days in primary... has not been any problems so far ...

Am I reading this right that you have an air lock on your primary?

http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-101/

Many packets of wine yeast instruct the user to re-hydrate the wine yeast in warm water for a few minutes before using it. Re-hydration is just a fancy word for moistening the wine yeast.

When following these directions perfectly there are no problems, but quite often we run into situations where the winemaker's water temperature that was used for re-hydration was just a little too warm or the wine yeast was left in the water for too long.

The recommended temperature on the packets of wine yeast we have seen is 95 to 105 degrees F. for about 15 minutes. Believe me when I say these directions give little room for error. For every minute the wine yeast stays a 105 degrees a small portion of the yeast cells are being destroyed. If the water is just a little hotter, say 115 degrees, then the yeast cells are being destroyed at an alarming rate.

So what this means to the home wine maker is that if they rehydrate their wine yeast at too warm of a temperature, or if they keep the wine yeast in the warm water for a longer period of time then recommended, the cell count may become too low to support a proper fermentation.

When preparing the water for re-hydration we recommend always verifying the water's temperature with a wine making thermometer before adding the wine yeast, as well as tracking the amount of time the wine yeast is to be in the water.

Secondly, we also recommend that you shoot for a temperature no higher than 90 degrees And keeping the wine yeast in this water for no longer than 10 minutes. The 90 degree temperature for 10 minutes is plenty to complete the re-hydration process and will result in the destruction of less yeast cells.

To be more frank, if the re-hydration process was skipped entirely it would not be of great detriment to the wine. The yeast would simply take a little longer to start fermenting. Basically this means instead of seeing the first signs of activity in 2 to 4 hour, without re-hydration it might take 4 to 8 hours.

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About half way down the page is a section about fermenting stages ... there is some good reading there ....

The primary fermentation is also called an aerobic fermentation because the fermentation vessel is allowed to be opened to the air. This air plays an important roll in the multiplication of the yeast cells.Here's how important. The little packets of yeast that is generally called for in a five gallon wine recipe will typically be multiplied up to 100 to 200 times during the few days of primary/aerobic fermentation. Without air this multiplying stage is hindered. That is why it is important that you do not use an air-lock during the first few days of a fermentation and allow the fermentation to be open to air.

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Then farther down it reads ...

The Secondary Fermentation is when the remaining 30 percent of of fermentation activity will occur. Unlike the typical four to seven days the primary fermentation takes, the secondary fermentation will usually last anywhere from one to two weeks depending on the amount of nutrient and sugars still available.

So as you can start to see, the secondary fermentation is much slower with less activity at any given time. You will also notice the activity becoming slower and slower with each passing day.

The secondary fermentation is an anaerobic fermentation which means that air exposure is to be kept to a minimum. This can easily be done by attaching an air-lock to the fermentation vessel.

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Well, yes I do have an air lock on it just stirring vigorously twice a day. Sounds like I should be leaving it open I guess but on the bright side it has started the fermintation atleast so hopefully I will be alright. I believe I may have had the water a little too hot. I've got to get me a thermometer for sure.

I used packrats recipe. Didnt have to buy anything special(already had a 5 gallon water jug) . Used natural yeast, and wine tastes great. Good luck.

bnew17 said:

I used packrats recipe. Didnt have to buy anything special(already had a 5 gallon water jug) . Used natural yeast, and wine tastes great. Good luck.

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It seems to be going pretty good. I racked it into the secondary and added some more sugar along with some water to top it off. I also started a batch of the dragons blood last night. Going to pitch the yeast this evening and see how it goes. Should be pretty good I hope.

Not sure if anybody else has mentioned it or not,but do NOT use tap water. And you'll also wanna let it fermit for longer than 5-10 days. I'd say more like 30-60 days would be alot better.

Nastytater said:

Not sure if anybody else has mentioned it or not,but do NOT use tap water. And you'll also wanna let it fermit for longer than 5-10 days. I'd say more like 30-60 days would be alot better.

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Well I shall not lie, I used well water from my sink. Hopefully it will turn out alright. And its still fermenting, I just basically raked it off the grapes into a carboy and put an airlock on it.

I use well water ... not city treated water in mine ... I have used bottled water also ... I can tell no difference between the two.