WineXpert Just a little experiment with my first kit

New to wine making but not to tinkering with things. My intent here is to take my Argentine Malbec w/Skins kit and break it up into (4) batches so I can test out the differences between yeast and tannins. I am a beginner and may do things that you would otherwise advise against but that's OK.

The kit



Now to mark some primary vessels



And time to split the juice

View attachment 21391

Now split the oak shavings and dump them





And do the same with the skins



My yeast selection



Using Go Ferm for the rehydration of the RP15



Added the vial to some must so I can split between two vessels for each kind of yeast.



(2) with WLP750 and (2) with RP15



And letting them hang out to do their thing. OG 1.099



Next steps:

When it's time to add tannins, I will take FT Rouge and FT Rouge Soft and split between the vessels so I have a batch of WLP750 with FT Rouge, WLP750 with FT Rouge Soft, RP15 with FT Rouge, and RP15 with FT Rouge Soft.

For secondary, I will have a gallon of each of the fermentations and then take the remainder and do some blends.








.

Sounds like an interesting approach. I am interested as to how it progresses. Keep us up to date on your progress and be sure to keep accurate records of each batch. Good luck.

I will. I have no idea what will happen here. Just thought it would be fun to do it.

Seems you've done some research/homework and have the mechanics down pat. Just don't forget that dose of PATIENCE to bring it all together!

It's been about 24 hours and the yeast have moved out of the lag phase so I added 2g of respective tannin to each bucket and aerated.

Wow, seems like a pretty complex experiment for your first attempt. Have fun.


Sent from my iPad using Wine Making

Maybe so but I brew beer and understand the impact of different yeast and other additives so I thought it would be cool to do this.

The WLP750 is showing signs of a heavier fermentation over the RP15 so far. Both with the FT Rouge Soft, however the same holds true for the FT Rouge. It comes down to the yeast. Will give it a gravity check tonight with aeration.

(L) WLP750 (R) RP15

A couple lessons:

-Don't forget to go to the LHBS to garb Ferm-O! I only had 17 grams left.

-Watch that temp! It was 78F which isn't out of the range for the yeast but a little higher than I wanted.

Tonight I aerated and added around 55 mg/l YAN to each batch via Ferm-K and Ferm-O. Not what I wanted but it's what I had left.

Both RP-15 batches were down to 17 Brix and the WLP-750 batches were at 18 Brix.

Both seemed to be going well. I will stop at the LHBS tomorrow to grab some O so I can get it in there when I give it a whirl tomorrow night. I am thinking this thing will be close to 1/2 sugar break by then so I should be good.

Won't be adding anything tonight other than an airlock. All down to 12 Brix as of tonight.

Getting there.

Jimyson said:

Maybe so but I brew beer and understand the impact of different yeast and other additives so I thought it would be cool to do this.

Click to expand...

Just read through this thread and could tell you where a fellow homebrewer. I just can't relax and keep that airlock off in the beginning. I'll eventually learn.

Keep the posts up, this is a very interesting thread. Curious how well the WLP yeast does since not too many seem to favor on this site.

Will do, Craig.

It's definitely different doing an open fermentation. Takes some getting used to but if it helps the yeast and doesn't negatively impact the product, then I'm all for it.

At this point, performance between the yeast seems the same. However, I am more interested in taste. That's likely where the differences will show. I'm almost feeling like the taste differences will be marginal and the RP15 will be the winner because of cost and availability. There's something about the liquid yeast, especially White Labs, that I love. So we'll see.

So I racked to secondary tonight. It currently sits at 1.003. FG goal is .995. Not sure if it will get there but we'll give it a week or so and check it.

I ended up getting about 5.5 gallons because of a screw up on my half. I actually need to get a half gallon bottle and transfer from one of the gallon jugs to it so I can minimize headspace. The end result is a gallon of each and then a gallon and a half of the mix. This mix will just be to drink and will not be reproducible as there was no real measurement.

So far, so good. Both yeasts are running side by side through most of the fermentation in regards to gravity. My initial taste test is that the RP15 has a bolder and heavier feel to it compared to the 750 which seems a bit more tart and lighter. It's clearly too early to determine how these will age but figured I would at least add that here.

Next step complete! Last night, I racked them over to new jugs that each had some kmeta and 6 oz of oak cubes. Everything tastes fantastic and I am patiently waiting for some of that oak to impart its flavor.

Things attenuated just fine.

Jimyson said:

Next step complete! Last night, I racked them over to new jugs that each had some kmeta and 6 oz of oak cubes. Everything tastes fantastic and I am patiently waiting for some of that oak to impart its flavor.

Things attenuated just fine.
View attachment 22300

Click to expand...

What app is this???

ceeaton said:

Just read through this thread and could tell you where a fellow homebrewer. I just can't relax and keep that airlock off in the beginning. I'll eventually learn.

Keep the posts up, this is a very interesting thread. Curious how well the WLP yeast does since not too many seem to favor on this site.

Click to expand...

Airlock on or off during primary fermentation is still up for debate. Some supposed experts say lock it down, other supposed experts say leave it open. You stir plenty of oxygen into the mix on day one, plus several times thereafter if you're opening to stir up the skins, or push down the cap once a day.. We've had excellent results, tested through blind tastings with commercial competition, without ever leaving primary open beyond the first several hours, plus the occasional stir and/or punch down for a handful of days after pitching yeast...

Brian55 said:

Airlock on or off during primary fermentation is still up for debate. Some supposed experts say lock it down, other supposed experts say leave it open. You stir plenty of oxygen into the mix on day one, plus several times thereafter if you're opening to stir up the skins, or push down the cap once a day.. We've had excellent results, tested through blind tastings with commercial competition, without ever leaving primary open beyond the first several hours, plus the occasional stir and/or punch down for a handful of days after pitching yeast...

Click to expand...

I did make a Merlot bucket plus 3 lugs of grapes and fermented it in a 20 gallon brute trashcan. Had a lid but it had plenty of room for the outside environment to get into the fermenting Merlot. Batch so far has turned out as expected, maybe even better. Also had a Pinot Grigio bucket that I am just racking today (nice slow 14 day ferment @ 65*F), that I drilled and added a fermentation lock to. Only opened to get SG readings.

So I guess I'm willing to say that it works either way. Are there pros and cons, some. Do they really matter? Probably not. So I guess I'll do it the way I feel more comfortable with and let everyone else do the same for their batches!

How did your batches turn out?