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a few FUBros expressed interest at my wine making so i decided for this batch to show some photos. if you're not particularly interested then this post will be long with lots of annoying photos.

sorry.

while hunting some annoying boars (with a glock) on a friend's farmland in rural central texas, we happened upon these grapes growing wildly along a fence. we googled them and found out they are called Mustang grapes, a particularly interesting fruit for a dry red. we decided to grab our stuff and head back when they were in season, which was today. we grabbed about 3 of these buckets, totaling about 60lbs worth.


because a destemming machine is pretty expensive, we decided to destem each grape manually, which proved to be a daunting task. also, note that we are wearing gloves because the skins of these grapes can become caustic and irritate your skin, similar to poison ivy.


another destemming shot. you'll want something to help you pass the time. 65lbs took us the entire BORING world cup final and all of anchorman. about 3 1/2 hours. we also had to pick out the unripened grapes because they will add an undesirable bitterness to the final product.


no other way to release the juices than the feets!


action shot! this is the fun part imo


we added about 14lbs of sugar and close to 25 gallons of water to offset the extreme pH of the pure juice. there is usually a formula for this but we were playing it by ear. we're more interested in a very dry robust finish so we dropped a few lbs of sugar out of the recipe


there's me holding the "gandalf stick" which stirs the fruit/sugar/water while we add some bacterial growth friendly nutrients. that stick has been used in hundreds of batches and was passed down to me from my dad. before each batch we spray it with a chemical that is inhospitable to high pH bacteria which helps in the yeast process.


now we wait 24 hours until the skins form a cap, helping the fermentation process. after that we add the yeast, keep it cool for 7 days, then next weekend we'll begin the initial pressing. 7 days after that will be the second pressing, then it will be ready for casking. it should take about 3 years for this batch to ferment.

How many times have you made wine before?

I made some once but it was 5-6 years ago so my brain is very rusty (took a chemistry of winemaking class when I was 17 and made a batch of Cabernet Sauvignon, ty Quebec). Also, I made it from concentrate and not actual grapes so it was easy mode.

Pretty much all I can remember from my experience is make sure everything is clean when touching/transferring the wine. Add yeast and then wait, don't expose it to too much oxygen, every once in a while rack the wine (siphon it in to another fermenter) to remove the lees (dead yeast and stuff), then wait some more. Pretty much just a lot of waiting.

What are you fermenting it in? How do you know it will take that long to ferment? From what I remember, the fermentation is done after the specific gravity doesn't change for several consecutive days. For me, that was 20 days. The whole process from start to bottling was 34 days, does it continuing aging when the fermentation is complete? Is this too many questions, are you able to answer any of them!?

I'm not a big wine drinker, but I was pretty pleased with the batch I made. You could tell it was from concentrate when tasting it of course, but it tasted better than any $10-15 bottle of wine that I tried, which that price range is all from concentrate in Quebec. If I remember right it was around $55-60 for the wine kit and I made around two dozen bottles so it was pretty awesome, I still even have one or two left.

I've been considering making a batch of beer, but it seems a bit more involved with having to boil stuff and whatnot, I might poke around and see if there's any interesting wine stuff and try my hand at another batch of wine.

i cant rightly count how many times ive been involved in the picking/pressing aspect because my dad was always making me do it, but this is probably my 8th or 9th batch that i'll see from start to finish. ill do my best to answer your questions in consecutive order!

the initial fermentation process (with the skin cap) is just done in an oversized garbage can (the one you can see me standing in). that part of the process actually needs oxygen to help start the process. after 7 days of that, we press it, then ferment it again, then the last pressing. when the final pressing is complete we transfer the wine into casks, which are very chode'ish wide glass bottles with a top that can be corked. the length of fermentation depends on the volatility and the versatility of the fruit. grape "juice" from concentrate, like you bought is very mild and fairly malleable as far as taste goes. these fruit had an extremely high acid content so it will take a pretty long time for the fermentation to offset the pH. additionally, it depends on what kind of taste you're after. we had never produced a dry red before, so we're interested to see where it takes us. and yes, as long as the wine is not exposed to oxygen it will continue to ferment forever, never maintaining the same taste for very long. also, internet research helped us a lot since we'd never heard of this particular grape. the recipe suggested 3 years so we'll shoot for that. obviously throughout that time we'll be taste-testing and checking the variance of the gravity.

to hold the interest of the layperson, most of those concentrate based wine kits offer fairly mild fruit so that the fermentation process isn't as long. our batch is based in about 20 gallons of juice so hopefully we're looking at about 10 cases of wine at 12 bottles a case, so roughly 120 bottles total. we got pretty lucky finding those grapes, because a single 30lb crate of grapes from a vineyard can cost up to 1500 dollars each. unless you can ninja some grapes i would stick with the concentrate, even though it takes all the fun out.

i myself, have never done a home brewing kit but i know folks that have and they raved about it. they didn't mention anything about it being particularly difficult, i've been interested in doing it myself.

Tumpy would be interested in this. Point him here if you haven't yet.

Iterative Crebains - Retired

Very interestint write up. My grandfather has made wine from several different fruits including grapes. The first thing he said when my mother discovered grape vines on the back of her property was that she should make some wine. Hope the batch turns out well. Drunken raid night inc July 2013.

9 level 90s and 10 85s, Damn I need another hobby.

Can't wait to see how it comes out!

yep

that

yep...

that is what she said

I don't like Mayonnaise. I think he's a complete asshole and the worst possible moderator for these forums. I'm allowed to say this because nothing is censored here.

idk, tumpy suggested a white wine with your steak... jk ill let him know.

if you're serious I'm punching this guy irl.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
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i received this information from an extremely bizarre facebook picture of Beyoter, so i can't be sure.