July 30, 2011.
We figured that the grapes we harvested would worth more if we made wine out of them rather than selling them raw. We would also gain intangible benefit, i.e. the knowledge on the characteristic of our grapes and the wine they produce for future references. We went ahead and invested on equipments and gadgets enough to be able to produce our own wine this year and the years ahead. We decided to make red wine, mixing Blanc Dubois and Black Spanish grapes together.
The first process was to crush and de-stem the grapes. The stems could give harsh flavor to the wine, so we'd like to get rid of them as much as possible. Primary fermentation process would follow afterwards by adding yeast into the grape juice and pulp. Here's the process explained in pictures.
The start of grapes cleaning/washing line.
First, the grapes were rinsed to get rid of soil/grass/leaves in the first bucket,
then move into second bucket to be washed with grape cleansing liquid
(a small % of citric acid in it) to kill all the agents that could
impede the fermentation process. Last, they're rinsed in clean water.
This is one of the equipments that we obtained this year, a manual crusher and de-stemmer machine which will separate the grape berries from their stems.
A bucket of washed grapes is ready for crushing and de-stemming.
Throwing the grapes into the crusher and de-stemmer.
By a single cranking of wheels, the grape cluster were crushed and de-stemmed at the same time. Grape berries would then fall through the perforated cylinder while the stems pushed to the other end of the machine.
The stems of the grapes are discharged at the other end of the machine
and collected in a different bucket.
The crushed grapes and juice is being sorted out
by hand to get rid of the stems that the machine missed.
The sugar content of the grapes was taken by gadget called
refractometer and it was around 18˚Brix.
About 60 gallon / 227 liter of grape juice and pulp
was collected at the end of the process.
Yeast then added to the juice and pulp for the first fermentation.
The skin / pulp was included in the first fermentation
to give that red color to the wine since we're making red wine.
Skin/pulp would be discarded when making white wine.
These are the 3 kinds of yeast that we try and use for the primary fermentation, one kind for each container. The yeast would feed on the sugar in the grapes and produce alcohol.
To learn more about winemaking process, go to WINEMAKING on Wikipedia.
© Burke's Garden Blog, 2011.
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