Tonight's big lesson

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saddlebronze

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Well, you learn as you go along. On the first batch of Caberlot, there was a grape pack and the mesh sleeve and I used it. Now I made the Cellar Craft Zin and it said you could use the sleeve or just pitch the grape skins in the fermenter. Big mistake, while it looks and smells lovely and actually looks like a real batch of red wine, getting those suckers out of there is a pain. First the siphon would not siphon on account of the grape sludge at the bottom of the pail and then I had to press all that stuff through a strainer. Use the sleeve! Oh well.
 
Yep, thats one mistake you won't make again. I bought some cheesecloth just for use on some kits that came with raisins but no bag. Worked out great!
 
Hahaha well I guess I learned the hard way too! Still in primary...I
So I know what to expect.
 
I started out just throwing the grape packs into the wine loose, but soon went to the bag. It is a much better method IMO. I put pectic enzyme in the bag with the skins, squeeze them every day a couple of times during primary and really give them a good squeeze at first racking. I have spigots on my primaries and the loose skins used to clog up the spigot and cause a lot of problems.

If you do have them in loose, be sure not to stir them on the day of racking. Leave them floating on top of the wine. Just scoop them off the top with a stratiner and squeeze as much juice out of them as possible. Then siphon the wine or remove it through the spigot, depending on your set up.
 
A day or so before racking, scoop off as many as you can. Squeeze back into the wine all the juice in the skins. Sanitize your hands and just squeeze with them.
 
So I learned that I will put the grape pack in the cheese cloth that comes with the kit next time. Very messy clean up! Hope it makes for good wine though :)
 
I am still racking the slop out of the batch where I did not use the bag. Guess I will practice "safe wine" from now on.
 
Yeah, with grapes skin kits its totally worth it to use the bag!! When making wine from grapes you just dump it all in the press and it all goes to the vessel from there but when you have this much juice and just that little pack use the bag and you can squeeze it good and your done. You get plenty of exposure so dont worry about that. I Ferment to dry with the grape pack in there the whole time to get good tannin and color extraction.
 
Some of the fun in making your own wine is learning from the mistakes you make. Everytime I make a mistake, I just learned something!!!
 

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