Cold Soak

[scubaman2151]

I saw a small tidbit in the latest edition of WineMaker, pg. 25, about cold soaking. However I don't know what this is and was hoping to get some more information on it.


Scuba

 

[Wade E]

I believe this is what they refer to also as extended maceration where they soak the crushed grapes in cold water to get more color and tannins out of the skins and beng cold the grapes stay fresh so that they can still ferment on them afterwards. We can do this with grape skin kits also.

 

[grapeman]

The grapes are held at low temperature around 50 degrees or a bit lower to hold off any spoilage bacteria and slow initial fermentation. The grapes are destemmed and often not crushed. You destem with the crusher rollers spread to allow whole berry soak. They don't soak in water, they soak in their own juices. You can either use a cooling tank or use cold bombs(like a container filled with dry ice). When I harvest, the temps are pretty cold anyways so I just crush into my big blue tanks and let them sit there for a day or two before adding yeast. I add pectic enzyme and k-meta so it needs to sit a day or two anyways.

 

[Wade E]

There is your answer from a man that grows grapes and thats why I stated "I believe". Appleman, what does this do exactly if the grapes are not crushed? Kind of miss what the real purpose of this is if the grapes are not broken open.

 

[grapeman]

Wade even though they aren't broken open they still leak, especially at the point where they attach to the stems. This gives the wine a chance to start giving up color and other goodies without exposing excessive tannins from the skins and seeds. Some grapes benefit more than others from a cold soak. Some reds you actually can heat up instead. I'm not into all of these things yet, but will need to start implementing more of these processes to get the best wine out of the varieties I grow or hope to grow.

 

[Wade E]

Pretty soon you re going to need to fork out some money for equipment to deal with a lot more quantity so whens the tag sale?