Here's a pressing question?

[redmust]

Has anybody thought of or tried using a press on the grape skin bagsafter the primary?
When I did my first Red Mountin Cab a couple weeks ago I squeezed the bajeebers out of it but wondered if a press wouldn't be nice for that and maybe get some more goody....


I know some of you do quite a few kits and I'm thinking most have skins.

 

[grapeman]

I don't think you would gain that much from it Sonny. The goodies are given up during the fermentation and just the act of squeezing it good will retrieve all the juice or wine from it.


And no, not most kits have skins, but they are becoming more common espescially in the higher end kits.

 

[Wade E]

It would be a lot of work unless you have one of those little tint presses, just the cleanup on a standard press would make this adventure not worthy. One of those cute little table top presses would work ok for this but you can pretty much handle this with your hands.

 

[JimCook]

I have a 1-gallon 'fruit' press and have used it to press the muslin bags of skins and I personally didn't notice that significant of a difference between the liquid I could get out with my hands compared to the press. Note that the press definitely got more liquid out, but if you're looking at a tablespoon or so difference on six gallons, it's not necessarily worth the prep and clean-up and like Wade said, it wouldn't do much with anything more than a gallon press. Even in my little press, the small amount of skins provided in a grape pack (~1L pre-pressing) barely lets the press work when compared to what comes from a batch of wine from grapes (16+ L *after* pressing).


- Jim