Grape Picking, Crushing and Pressing

[Dutch]

Today, Chris N, Chris A, Peter F and The Two deHaans picked some 400-500 # of grapes from Alan Rippelmeier [on Koressel]. Maybe only two hours of work.
We pressed all the whites and learned a few lessons:
1] Whole cluster presing needs MONDO pressure. Our 4,000 lb hydraulic will not make it when considering the square inch area of a 16" circle.
2] With some minimal hand-crushing [and de-stemming] we got about a yield of 1 gal for 16 lbs of grapes. Pretty good yield. This yielded about a 1 - 1 1/2 inch cake of dry material from the press for every 25# input.
3] We used a 5 gal paint screen as well as a large nylon bag for the press which really worked out well - sediment and trash VERY LIGHT!
*
The white grapes [Cayuga] are, plentiful, READY and were well formed and juicy.
The bulk of what we made today [pressed] were Cayuga white.
Niagra is ready.
Catawba just about ready.
Chams just about ready but not quite?
Concords almost gone.

[Don]

Sounds like you had a crushing good time.

[psfred]

I have about 7.5 gal of must from my 90 or so lbs of Cham -- should end up with at least 5 gal. I've not added my grapes yet, I ran out of steam a little after 9 pm. Will finish up and pitch tomorrow.

The juice from the whites looks really nice. I added in my Chardonnel and Seyval blanc grages, probably 5 lbs or so, so ended up with a full 5 gal of juice from 80 lbs or so of grapes.

Now to decide what else I want to make -- they do have Cynthiana that should be ready later in the week, and I want to try those before I plant some.

Also going to make an ale tomorrow after I can tomato sauce.

Peter

[Chris Alvey]

Chambourcin are sitting on skins right now and will be pitched today with montrachet yeast. I was delighted with 21.5 brix.

[Chris Norrick]

For future reference:

I ended up with four 5-gallon buckets full of Chambourcin.
This weighed in at 90 lbs (including bucket weight, Alan subtracts 2 lb/bucket when checking out)
This crushed down to 8.5 gallons of juice and skins @21.5 brix.

I'll update this after pressing on final juice yield of this batch.

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[sirgiovanni]

Awesome aint it! Thanks for sharing the pics. Love the harvest.

[psfred]

Update on Brix:

Cayuga white is 17.5, so I dosed it up with some sugar, expect around 20.

Chambourcin from the vinyard was 20, from a mix of that and my paltry harvest, mostly Cab, was 21.5. I left those alone, and will mix them when I go into the secondary.

Both look great -- the Cayuga is very light color, seems nice. The Cham is very dark red, should have excellent color. I'm only going to leave it on the skins til Wed, I think. My neighbor left his press in the shed so I can use it when I'm ready -- he's going to Germany on Wed or I think I could sucker him into some grapes, too

Peter

[Chris Norrick]

Two buckets of Chambourcin is bubbling away. Down to 17 brix on the refractometer at puchdown this evening (alcohol will screw with this reading).

[psfred]

I've had a couple "boilovers" already -- too many grapes in too small a pair of buckets, I think. I'm now up to 3, minus a quart or two of juice.

I plan to press out tomorrow, what do you think of that?

Peter

[Chris Alvey]

Sounds good to me. I almost had one volcano myself. It finally occurred to me yesterday that i am going to need 10 cases of bottles or more once we do mates pear wine

[psfred]

Pressed the Cham tonight, went really fast. Ended up with a full 6.5 gal carboy, believe it or not, and some left over that I dumped in my Foch in hopes of saving it this year (always turns out nasty).

I'm going to call tomorrow and see if the Cynthianas are OK, and if so will pick another batch. May not do quite so many this time, eh? I'm gonna go broke buying carboys at this rate.

Might also get some Catawbas, not my favorite but Lafe likes it, so why not?

I think my Christmas wish list is going to include a crusher/destemmer, though.

Peter

[sirgiovanni]

30 Gallons in the conical and in carboys aging, not a drop on tap.
You can never apparantly be prepared with enough carboys.

[Dutch]

12 gal cayuga chugging along, even have some of last year's cider along side

[psfred]

Picked the last of the Cynthianas today -- they really need a few more weeks on the vine, but they are drying out, so Allen has them all picked. I filled in my 90 lbs with Chambourcin, I don't want less than 5 gal in the secondary (although I expect probably 6). Lots more seed and skin for the pulp, so won't make as much.

There are still quite a few Chambourcin and Cayugas available. Catawba will be at least two weeks yet, very sour and fairly uneven. The Steubens should be ready sooner, but still aren't sweet enough yet.

I think I may have enough wine this year.....

Peter

[psfred]

Update on the wine:

Transferred the Cayuga to a carboy today, perfectly fills a 5 gal one. TA 0.68, tastes great except for the yeast -- looks like funky yellow milk at the moment. Starting to clear, so should be fine.

No TA yet on the Chambourcin, forgot to take one when I transferred.

TA on the Cynthiana/Chambourcin mix is 0.7%, at bit high but not a real problem. Brix is 23 on the bucket with the Cham in it, 21 on the pure Cynthiana. LOTS of tannin in the Cynthiana -- my fingers are stained brown! Tastes OK, rather tannic (duh!) but should be great in a couple years.

There were still some Cayugas left yesterday, if I had room and $$ I'd really be tempted to go get enough for another 5 gal, but I'm hoping to get a Gewurtz and a Chardonnay from Eire, PA later this fall, and I don't have room for more, specially after it's bottled!

Peter