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Home Wine Making Some information about process and methods. Here, is an outline of the steps in wine making, what you should expect and what is required in materials and time. This process typically takes routine human intervention for about 11 days after which, frequent periodic maintenance is required. The maintenance will become less frequent throughout the year of barrel aging, to something on the order of maintenance once or twice a month. 
On day one you will pick or take delivery of grapes. 1000 to 1100 pounds
will fit in the industry standard bin, (either the Macroplastics
Macrobin 24-S or the Magna Plastics Magna 2000).
It takes approximately 1000 pounds of grapes to ultimately make one full-sized barrel of wine. 
Barrels contain 59 to 64 gallons depending on what country makes them.
They are stated in liters if from Europe. Chiefly wine barrels are made in
the US from 'american oak' of in France from 'french oak'. An exception
is a French company that ships French Oak barrel staves to Napa and they
build and toast the barrels in Napa. (This saves shipping big empty
barrels around the globe to California).
As an alternative to using a bin, some home wine makers will use Rubbermaid Brute Grey plastic trash cans to pick up their grapes. These 44 gallon heavy duty trash cans are identical to the White "Food Grade" ones but grey in color. The Brute plastic bins sell for approximately $35 at Home Depot and that's where most home wine makers purchase them. A 44 gallon Brute will hold 200 pounds of whole grapes.  Once you have the grapes you will need to crush them. We need to break
the skins of the grapes to allow the sugary interior to be exposed and
we want to pulp the grapes a bit so we have grape juice surrounding the
grapes. The pulped and crushed grapes become a semi-liquid fluid that
is called "must".
The crusher/destemmer we use has a hand crank and does an excellent job of crushing and removing stems. The grapes are squeezed between two knurled rollers that are 6 inches long. Below the rollers is a revolving paddle assembly that catches, and intertwines with the stem ultimately pulling the stem out the far end of the crusher. Stems add tannins to the wine making it more bitter and tart. Small amounts of small stems do make it through the crusher/stemmer into the must. These small stem pieces are known as "Jax" (or sometimes it's spelled as 'jacks'). The 'must' drops through the crusher into a waiting bin or bucket below it. The must is put in "fermenters". Home wine makers typically use the Rubbermaid Brute trash bin for fermenting in. The 44 gallon bin which holds 200 pounds of un-processed grapes, will hold 250 pounds of "must". After the crushing is finished you will have 4 bins of must. You take 2 quarts of the 'must' and heat it on a stove to near boiling, (but not boiling). We want to kill the field yeast on the grape skins and introduce our own, more stable yeast strain. Let the temperature drop in the heated 'must' to between 90 and 110 degrees and then add 10 grams of cultured commercial yeast and stir. (I typically use "Pasteur Red"). After introducing the yeast to the 'must' let stand at room temperature (covered) 6 to 12 hours. The must will culture to a bright pink 'mousse'. Pour the new culture evenly into the 4 Brute bins of must. This addition of cultured yeast laden 'must' is called "inoculation". Leave the innoculant on the top of the 'must' for about 8 hours. This will start to grow into the general must itself. After about 8 hours (or the next day) you need to mix the must and stir the yeasted top into the must itself. This is done using a "cap masher" With the cap masher you push the top of the 'must' down re-submerging it beneath the upper layer of skins, called a "cap". This upper grape skin surface, keeps the yeast culturing underneath it shielded from the upper atmosphere. Yeast culturing in a sugar liquid in open air, will convert the the digested sugar into oxygen, but keep it covered (with the 'cap') and the converted sugar instead becomes a gas that combines and creates alcohol. (chemistry has its uses) Once you pushed the cap down you need to measure alcohol density. This is done using a "Hydrometer". What we are doing is measuring the specific gravity of the fluid and the volumetric displacement measures the non-water based fluid which is alcohol. The hydrometer tells us sugar content (brix) to alcohol conversion. At this point we need to 'tend' the must for the next 7 to 12 days. Two or three times a day the 'cap' has to be pushed down below the fluid or juice line in the bin. Each morning, we need to take hydrometer readings of each bin to determine where in the process we are. At the beginning, we will have a Brix number of 24~26. Over a 7 to 12 day period the yeast will convert the sugar to alcohol. When the Brix number reaches down to between 0 and 5 we will "press" the must. Pressing is separating the fermented juice from the skins and seeds. If you press with a higher residual Brix number you will have a sweeter wine, if it's more toward 0 then it is a dryer wine. In the Brix scale a "0" still means there is 2% residual sugar in the liquid, so as dry as things are at 0 it still has some residual sweetness. The fermented 'must' is taken in 10 gallon pails to the "press". The fermented must is poured into the press and the free running juice is collected at the bottom. The now fermented juice is poured into a barrel, (the barrel). We buy our barrels at http://www.barrelblasting.com There are other places; Steve Komegi at ReCoop is another. A used barrel from those sources should cost between $125 and $200 Continue to gather and pour the must into the press. Pack it down as you go. All the must from one fermenter ought to fit inside a #40 press (25 gallon volumetric capacity). Collect and store the juice in the barrel. Once the fermenter is empty, put the press blocks in place and start to ratchet down on the 'must' to extract the residual juice from the solids. The pressing will take about an hour or more per fermenter. At the end of the 3rd fermenter of the 4 you will have a barrel that is 80% full, stop adding the juice to it. Though the primary fermentation is largely complete, the fermentation will continue in the barrel and it is quite active and foamy for the first few days. Cover the bung hole in the barrel with a damp cloth. This will allow the fermenting gas to leave and not let insects in. The juice from the fourth fermenter needs to be stored in smaller containers. 5 and 7 gallon glass jugs (carboys) are the standard for home wine makers. How much juice and how many carboys you need varies with each batch of grapes. Some grapes are more pulpy some more juicy. The most juice I've extracted from a 1/2 ton of grapes has been 101 gallons (2004 Pinot grapes). The least I've extracted was 72 gallons (2004 Zin grapes). Typically 80 is average. After 4 days fill the barrel completely from the carboys. The wine in the carboys is referred to "top off" because it is used to keep the barrel filled as the barrel aging continues. During the year of barrel aging you will need to add some or all the top-off to the barrel. The contents of the barrel has a certain 'through the barrel porosity' and concentration through evaporation. At the end of 12 to 14 months you need a bottler and a corker. The bottler is filled by siphoning the wine from the barrel. It has a auto-filling function. The corker is a device of manual labor. What you require most is commitment and being prepared to stop your life at the moment the wine needs attention. There are no exceptions, or the whole thing is ruined and your time has been wasted. To be a good wine maker requires continuity, dedication and consistency. We also offer some of our wine making equipment on a rental basis to other home wine makers. Please click here for more information. |