Since our last fermentation took longer and because the Syrah is still going I was thinking we had a problem. So, time to test the wine with a hydrometer:
 |
| Residual Sugar: 0 |
So now it is time to think about Malolactic fermentation.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tempranillo done
Yesterday, Sunday, I noticed that the cap was not forming as much on the Tempranillo as on the two bins of Syrah. This morning that became very apparent. Most likely this was due to one of two things, either the fermentation was done or the fermentation was stuck.
Since our last fermentation took longer and because the Syrah is still going I was thinking we had a problem. So, time to test the wine with a hydrometer:
Surprise, it's actually done. Nothing wrong.
So now it is time to think about Malolactic fermentation.
I tested the Syrah, just to see how we are coming along. And the Syrah still has a long ways to go. It is sitting at 10% sugar still.
Since our last fermentation took longer and because the Syrah is still going I was thinking we had a problem. So, time to test the wine with a hydrometer:
So now it is time to think about Malolactic fermentation.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Time to punch the cap
As of Wednesday morning our cap was officially forming. The cap is basically the berries floating to the top of the must. They then start to get hard and prevent air from reaching the fermenting wine. That would be bad. So what you do is you punch down the cap every eight hours.
So at 8 am, 4 pm and Midnight I punch down the cap and in the process stir the must so the small particles (called the lees) that settle out in the last eight hours are mixed back into the fermenting wine. Every little bit of nutrients for the yeast to work on is good. Thus I give it a very vigorous stir using an industrial sized stainless steel potato masher.
On Tuesday I added some more powder to the wine. This time it was a powder called Fermaid K. It is a yeast nutrient that helps the yeast foster a fast and efficient growth. This powder almost looks like clay. To add it to the must, I took a wine glass and filled it up with juice from each of the fermenting containers. Then I mixed the proper amount of Fermain into the wine glass, swirled it all around so it disolved and then poured it back into the must during the cap punch-down process. Pretty easy process.
The house and especially the basement smell very much like a winery right now. Paty is thrilled with this process as you can imagine. So I am assuming that all these fragrances mean the fermentation is taking off.
All this talk about wine and yeasts and inoculations you would think that yeast would be front of my mind. In a non wine anecdote, I made homemade pizzas tonight for dinner. Lately I have been using the bread maker to make the dough from scratch. I like the consistency I can get with the dough when I am in charge of the ingredients. Plus I can add anything I want to the dough; Oregano, Garlic Powder, Fresh Basil, anything. Well let me tell you that if you use the bread maker to make pizza dough and you forget to add the yeast, it doesn't work out that well. I realized that I forgot the yeast as I was adding pizza #2 to the oven. By that time I was committed. And while it looked like pizza, the dough was not good. Very flat. Morale of the story, you can make pizza dough without yeast but it will be bad. And no, the dough did not pick up any random wild stains of natural yeast like would have happened if we did the same thing for the wine.
So at 8 am, 4 pm and Midnight I punch down the cap and in the process stir the must so the small particles (called the lees) that settle out in the last eight hours are mixed back into the fermenting wine. Every little bit of nutrients for the yeast to work on is good. Thus I give it a very vigorous stir using an industrial sized stainless steel potato masher.
On Tuesday I added some more powder to the wine. This time it was a powder called Fermaid K. It is a yeast nutrient that helps the yeast foster a fast and efficient growth. This powder almost looks like clay. To add it to the must, I took a wine glass and filled it up with juice from each of the fermenting containers. Then I mixed the proper amount of Fermain into the wine glass, swirled it all around so it disolved and then poured it back into the must during the cap punch-down process. Pretty easy process.
The house and especially the basement smell very much like a winery right now. Paty is thrilled with this process as you can imagine. So I am assuming that all these fragrances mean the fermentation is taking off.
All this talk about wine and yeasts and inoculations you would think that yeast would be front of my mind. In a non wine anecdote, I made homemade pizzas tonight for dinner. Lately I have been using the bread maker to make the dough from scratch. I like the consistency I can get with the dough when I am in charge of the ingredients. Plus I can add anything I want to the dough; Oregano, Garlic Powder, Fresh Basil, anything. Well let me tell you that if you use the bread maker to make pizza dough and you forget to add the yeast, it doesn't work out that well. I realized that I forgot the yeast as I was adding pizza #2 to the oven. By that time I was committed. And while it looked like pizza, the dough was not good. Very flat. Morale of the story, you can make pizza dough without yeast but it will be bad. And no, the dough did not pick up any random wild stains of natural yeast like would have happened if we did the same thing for the wine.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Day 2, Inonculation
Mark down 6:10 pm Monday October 24th as the time that grape juice became wine.
Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but we just added the yeast. I had to move the wine from the garage to my man room. I don't think the back can take much more of that, thus I had to recruit Paty to help move the second big fermentation bin in. She was thrilled to be a part of the process and is looking forward to helping more and more. Here's the fermentation station:
The fermentation station now features a newly acquired space heater to heat the room to the proper fermentation level. Last year I basically heated the entire house via our forced air electric furnace in order to raise the temp in this remote room by 5 degrees. Bad idea.
Earlier today we added more powders to the juice in the form of Peptic Enzyme. This is added to help the skins break down in the must and give the yeast more of the good stuff to chew on as it ferments. We probably should have done this yesterday at the Cellar Homebrew, but we forgot.
One of the most annoying processes of our last two wine experiments was inoculating the dried yeast. Basically this consisted of adding yeast to some warm water mixed with more powders to make a live culture that we would then add to the wine. While we did not mess this up, we sure thought we did. Especially for the Chardonnay. Not again this year as we discovered liquid yeast:
These packets have the yeast in a solution inside small bag inside of the main bag, in order to activate the 'Over 70 Million Yeast Cells' and start the yeast going what a person does is smack the bag to burst the inner bag and shake everything up so the solutions mix.
For the Tempranillo we used one packet of Chateau Red yeast blend. For the Syrah, we used two different yeasts. One bin got two packets of Chateau Red and the other bin received two packets of Bordeaux yeast. Ostensibly the two batches are handled exactly the same, so it will be interesting to taste the difference in the finished product from the yeasts.
All for now, the fermentation should start in 1-3 days. Part of the privilege of making wine involves punching down the cap every eight hours for a while. So I will be doing that. Maybe I can get out the good camera for some good shots that do not involve chronicling this entire process by an old iPhone.
Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but we just added the yeast. I had to move the wine from the garage to my man room. I don't think the back can take much more of that, thus I had to recruit Paty to help move the second big fermentation bin in. She was thrilled to be a part of the process and is looking forward to helping more and more. Here's the fermentation station:
 |
| Garbage bags under cardboard protect the carpet from stray drops. |
Earlier today we added more powders to the juice in the form of Peptic Enzyme. This is added to help the skins break down in the must and give the yeast more of the good stuff to chew on as it ferments. We probably should have done this yesterday at the Cellar Homebrew, but we forgot.
One of the most annoying processes of our last two wine experiments was inoculating the dried yeast. Basically this consisted of adding yeast to some warm water mixed with more powders to make a live culture that we would then add to the wine. While we did not mess this up, we sure thought we did. Especially for the Chardonnay. Not again this year as we discovered liquid yeast:
 |
| Ignore the illy can, winemaking involves a lot of Espresso. |
 |
| Action Photo. |
All for now, the fermentation should start in 1-3 days. Part of the privilege of making wine involves punching down the cap every eight hours for a while. So I will be doing that. Maybe I can get out the good camera for some good shots that do not involve chronicling this entire process by an old iPhone.
2011 Crush
So Nate and I took the plunge and bought grapes that eventually we hope will be wine. As noted on the previous post, this blog will chronicle our foray into making grapes into wine. The first post will deal mostly with the crush and how almost 300 pounds of wine grapes came into our possession. Enjoy:
We procured a wee bit more grapes than we expected, this being due in part to the fact that the grapes were 50% of our anticipated price. Harvest 2011 cost us $1/lb or $30 per box:
We received 7 30# boxes of Syrah and in addition picked up 2 boxes of Tempranillo. The Tempranillo was a spur of the moment acquisition. The 30# boxes were coming in around 32-33#s of fruit each. The fruit came from Doc Stewart Vineyard, appellation Wahluke Slope, near Mattawa via Gilbert Vineyards. Initially we were going to pick it up at the vineyard, but they had a truck coming over the pass to a distribution point in Woodinville on Sunday October 23rd. For the princely sum of $8 we could pick up our grapes in Woodinville instead of Mattawa. Done deal. The fruit was picked in the early morning of October 23rd.
Crush 2011, happened at 1 pm on October 23rd. We rented the crusher/destemmer from Cellar Homebrew in shoreline and used the equipment on site. This is a very messy process so being able to do it on site with everything set up and easily cleaned was great. The rental fee was $20.
Basically you put the grapes in the hopper on top, being very careful to pick out any MOG (MOG = Material Other then Grape), and then spin that handle on the right. The machine crushes the grapes and removes at least 90% of the stems. Being a small batch operation we picked through the crush as it was coming down the chute to the food grade plastic fermenting bin (basically a new garbage can) so virtually every little stem was removed along with any MOG that persisted through the initial sort.
The two large fermenters in front are the Syrah, the small fermenter in the back is the Tempranillo. We estimated 12.25 gallons of Syrah in each bin and 7 gallons of Tempranillo must. Thus each 30-32# box of fruit yields 3.5 gallons of must.
The Tempranillo came in at 23 Brix, while the Syrah came in at 21.5 Brix. This is not very ripe, a product of a cold summer and fall apparently. So we treated the grapes on site. Basically added sugar to the must. We added a 1 cup to the Tempranillo and 2 cups to each of the Syrah batches. We also treated the must with some more powder (SO2) that kills any natural yeast or bacteria. I've quickly learned that making wine involves adding a lot of different powders in various volumes.
We then transported the wine back to the interim storage point, my garage, to let the SO2 do it's work for 24 hours. Cover the fermenting vats with a towel so they can still breath and keep cold in the garage. More tomorrow as we add yeast and most likely, more powders.
We procured a wee bit more grapes than we expected, this being due in part to the fact that the grapes were 50% of our anticipated price. Harvest 2011 cost us $1/lb or $30 per box:
We received 7 30# boxes of Syrah and in addition picked up 2 boxes of Tempranillo. The Tempranillo was a spur of the moment acquisition. The 30# boxes were coming in around 32-33#s of fruit each. The fruit came from Doc Stewart Vineyard, appellation Wahluke Slope, near Mattawa via Gilbert Vineyards. Initially we were going to pick it up at the vineyard, but they had a truck coming over the pass to a distribution point in Woodinville on Sunday October 23rd. For the princely sum of $8 we could pick up our grapes in Woodinville instead of Mattawa. Done deal. The fruit was picked in the early morning of October 23rd.
Crush 2011, happened at 1 pm on October 23rd. We rented the crusher/destemmer from Cellar Homebrew in shoreline and used the equipment on site. This is a very messy process so being able to do it on site with everything set up and easily cleaned was great. The rental fee was $20.
Basically you put the grapes in the hopper on top, being very careful to pick out any MOG (MOG = Material Other then Grape), and then spin that handle on the right. The machine crushes the grapes and removes at least 90% of the stems. Being a small batch operation we picked through the crush as it was coming down the chute to the food grade plastic fermenting bin (basically a new garbage can) so virtually every little stem was removed along with any MOG that persisted through the initial sort.
The two large fermenters in front are the Syrah, the small fermenter in the back is the Tempranillo. We estimated 12.25 gallons of Syrah in each bin and 7 gallons of Tempranillo must. Thus each 30-32# box of fruit yields 3.5 gallons of must.
The Tempranillo came in at 23 Brix, while the Syrah came in at 21.5 Brix. This is not very ripe, a product of a cold summer and fall apparently. So we treated the grapes on site. Basically added sugar to the must. We added a 1 cup to the Tempranillo and 2 cups to each of the Syrah batches. We also treated the must with some more powder (SO2) that kills any natural yeast or bacteria. I've quickly learned that making wine involves adding a lot of different powders in various volumes.
We then transported the wine back to the interim storage point, my garage, to let the SO2 do it's work for 24 hours. Cover the fermenting vats with a towel so they can still breath and keep cold in the garage. More tomorrow as we add yeast and most likely, more powders.
Winemakeing
As many of you may or may not know, and by many I am probably talking to the two people who still have this site in some sort of reader as I have not added any content lately, I have started making wine. Thus for the near future I'll start documenting some of the adventures of Chris and Nate making wine in this space.
Some of you do not know Nate, he is my buddy that I go to the Husky Basketball with and now make wine with.
This fall will be our first foray into buying grapes and making wine with those. Previously we have bought frozen juice and must from Brehm Vineyard's.
Last fall we made a Chardonnay that was bottled around November of 2010. And this spring, also from Brehm, we made a Merlot and Cab Franc 50/50 blend that is currently aging in 5 gallon and 1 gallon glass carboys. The Chardonnay was attempted mainly to learn. And the red was purchased because that was readily available and we did not know how much actual wine we would get from two 5 gallon pails of frozen must. The answer was approximately 6.5 gallons, 6 of which made it to aging.
This post will be short, because I already have photos and content to write up concerning:
Chris and Nate's first crush!
Some of you do not know Nate, he is my buddy that I go to the Husky Basketball with and now make wine with.
This fall will be our first foray into buying grapes and making wine with those. Previously we have bought frozen juice and must from Brehm Vineyard's.
Last fall we made a Chardonnay that was bottled around November of 2010. And this spring, also from Brehm, we made a Merlot and Cab Franc 50/50 blend that is currently aging in 5 gallon and 1 gallon glass carboys. The Chardonnay was attempted mainly to learn. And the red was purchased because that was readily available and we did not know how much actual wine we would get from two 5 gallon pails of frozen must. The answer was approximately 6.5 gallons, 6 of which made it to aging.
This post will be short, because I already have photos and content to write up concerning:
Chris and Nate's first crush!
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