Concord from grapes

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

reefman

Senior member
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
958
Reaction score
163
I just scored a 1/2 bushel of concord grapes. (I have no idea how many pounds this is)
I've been searching for some Muscadines, but ran across this concord.

Does anyone have a good, detailed recipe for concord? I've never made wine from grapes until now,:sh and I don't want to mess it up.
Thanks.
 
A bushel of grapes is about 60#. All you have to do is weigh them on a bathroom scale to know how much you have.

Mash them up, best you can--a potato masher works fine. Figure 10# of grapes per gallon--then you'll know how much of your chemical additions to make. Put them in a vat and add 1 tsp per gallon of pectic enzyme along with enough meta for your poundage. Let it sit 24 hrs, then pitch the culture. Add no water. Split your nutrient into 2 or 3 batches and pitch thruout the ferment.

You probably can't test the acid, so you'll probably have to go with the PH you have. Give them a warm ferment 75-80 degrees if you want a deep red concord. A cool ferment if you want more of a rose.
 
Sit down, rinse the grapes off. Pick the grapes off the stems, discard any bad ones and the stems. Crush them up, I used a potatoe masher and a big tupperware container. Not near as bad as picking them off the stems. Put grape mash into fermenter bag(s). Stick in primary, add k-meta, wait 12 hrs or so and add pectic enzime. Wait another 12 hours or so, check, adjust acid, add 1/2 nutrient and energizer. Check S.G. bring it up to at least 1.085 or so. Pitch yeast either dry or as a starter or just hydrated. When s.g. ferments down to 1.060 or so, add rest of nutrient and energizer. Give it a stir a couple of times a day. Pull the skins out and press after 4 or 5 days. Rack to primary after you get to 1.010 or so. After it finishes, rack off the lees. Make sure you taste it, probably needs just a bit of sugar to sweeten. K-meta when racking after finished. Also k-meta every 3 mo. or so while aging. Mine has been sitting in the carboys for a little over a year. Gonna bottle one of these days. Will probably stabalize and sweeten just a bit before bottling. Arne.
 
I'm not sure how THAT happened---I'm a little sleepy this morning.

Speaking of that, I forgot to say that when you mash the grapes, all you're trying to do is split the skins so the pectic enzyme can work on the pulp. Don't make "apple sauce" out of them and don't break the seeds or that will add bitterness. Any other questions? Don't be afraid to ask because I didn't hit alot of details. Thanks Arne for being a little more detailed than I was. Spent too much time with Diablo, last nite.
 
Thanks folks, I appreciate the info. I was guessing I had around 15 to 20 lbs, so far I've De-stemmed, added pot. met. (last night), then so far today, I added yeast nutrient, some invert sugar, took a Sp G reading, and still need to add more.
Mashed with the potato masher,
So later today I'll add the rest of the sugar, measure the pH, and add the peptic enzyme.
 
Last edited:
another quick question?
What should my pH be? It's reading 4.98 right now, and I'm concerned my meter is out of calibration...that sounds high!
 
Calibrate your meter, that is high. Ph should be around 3.4 - 3.65
 
You should get the pectic enzyme in there on the first day---you want to start breaking down the pulp before PH readings. Don't forget good nutrient management. Split the dose into 3 batches and pitch thruout the ferment. PH on concord should be what Julie said. We like a PH of 3.4 It would be pretty hard to get a PH that high unless the grapes are over ripe and your soil is very sweet.
 
By the way--concords are very low in tannin, so you may want to add some to the primary. It will give the wine more stability and prevent the color from plating out in the bottle.
 
Ok, so I am thrilled this was posted, as I picked a lot of concord grapes yesterday. Thanks for the info...however I have read a lot of posts and if I have this right, k-meta is the same as campden tablets. But, which is better? I have the campden tablets, so for now that is what I will probably use, but just kind of wanted to know the difference. Also how important is the ph? I've looked and found a ph tester for $35 and have found them or $1300! Anyone have one they really like that is not too expensive? So you are not adding any additional water or sugar in the beginning. Just going to back sweeten later if so desired. Also if adding tannin, how much per gallon? I'm really newbe, so thanks for the help.
 
Last edited:
Ok, so I am thrilled this was posted, as I picked a lot of concord grapes yesterday. Thanks for the info...however I have read a lot of posts and if I have this right, k-meta is the same as campden tablets. But, which is better? I have the campden tablets, so for now that is what I will probably use, but just kind of wanted to know the difference. Also how important is the ph? I've looked and found a ph tester for $35 and have found them or $1300! Anyone have one they really like that is not too expensive? So you are not adding any additional water or sugar in the beginning. Just going to back sweeten later if so desired. Also if adding tannin, how much per gallon? I'm really newbe, so thanks for the help.

Yep, k-meta and campden, basically the same thing. The k-meta is much easier to use, don't have to mess around with the crushing thing.Since k-meta, the wifes spoons tend to stay in the kitchen. Before they were migrating to the wine bench. Campden tabs in the spoon and another on top. crush time.
I can't help you much with the ph meter. Don't have one, probably should think about one sometime. Just do my acid testing by taste.
When I made concord, I just used the pure juice. Tested the s.g. and brought it up to 1.090 or so with sugar. I have not bottled it yet, it is just sitting in the carboys. Sometimes I think it needs backsweetening and sometimes it is fine dry. Havn't decided yet.
The tannin I use, I just add according to the directions on the bottle. Hope I answered most everything. Arne.
 
You can use powdered meta or the campden tabs---1/4 tsp of powder is equal to 60 PPM of sulfite. A campden tab is 50 PPM. So once you have the grapes crushed, use 1 campden tab per gallon of expected wine, and add 1 tsp per gallon of pectic enzyme to the grapes at the same time. Concords should be treated more like fruit than grapes. They need the pectic enzyme to break down the big pulp that they have.

PH is important on all your ferments. And acid adjustments need to be made before you begin the ferment because must is more forgiving than wine is and you get a better balanced wine,also. Some fruits and grapes have so much acid that if you don't get them adjusted up front, you'll never be able to adjust them in the post ferment. And PH is important to know so that you know how much free SO2 you'll need in the wine later on for protection. So if you're a new winemaker, you should start off with good practices--you'll have more successes and won't get frustrated by having wines that need fixing.

Every winemaker needs a PH meter. It's hard for me to say which one you should buy. We have a professional model that costs alot of money. We worked in a facility where we did our own water treatment for our plant--so when they upgraded their test equipment, they knew we made wine so they gave us the handheld PH meter. So you'll have to ask people on this forum which meter they like the best. Concords are usually a little acidic, so use calcium carbonate to bring the PH up to about 3.4 PH.

Add no water. To figure out how much wine the grapes will make, figure that 10# of grapes is equal to 1 gallon of wine. Then you know how much of your chemical additions to use. Add enough sugar to get the brix you want for the desired potential alcohol content. We set the brix to about 22 which equals 12.5 or 12.6% alcohol content. Be sure to ferment to dry--an SG of .099

Tannin additions are somewhat of an art because it depends on the ripeness of the fruit and what tannins are already present. But concord is low on tannin and adding some will help give structure and stability of color to the wine. Add about 1/3 tsp. per gallon. Add it to the primary when you do the first punchdown of the cap--any earlier and it can inactivate the pectic enzyme.

What culture are you using? We use Montrachet. Be sure to split your nutrient batch into 2 or 3 doses and pitch it thruout the ferment. You should manage your nutrient this way, no matter which culture you use. But Montrachet is known for producing H2S when it is deprived of nutrient, so proper nutrient support is crucial when using this culture.

More questions? Let me know.
 
Thank you Turok, you have really helped. I have decided to freeze the grapes for now, I want to look into a PH meter, I'll search the forums to see if I can find a thread on the subject. In the future I'll probably go to K-meta, but for now I have campden tablets. The yeast nutrient I have is Fermax yeast nutrient...is this what you meant by "what culture are you using?" In Arne's post about the process of making concord grape wine, he says "add 1/2 nutrient and the energizer" Do I need both?. Also in Arne's post he says after racking to carboy to add K-meta (campden tablets) every 3 months. So in the beginning I should add 1 tablet per gallon on wine, but how much do I add later down the line? The same amount, 1 tablet per gallon? I have Pasteur Red yeast. I have yet to clean all the grapes of those nasty little stems, but so far I have 36 lbs of cleaned grapes in the freezer. I will probably get that much again. Thanks so much for all your help. I had gotten several books from the library about wine making, but either I did not retain what I read, or the books were just not as detailed as the information I have received from the web site.
 
Update:
I added sugar to 1.085, added tannin as suggested, and pitched the yeast 24 hours later. After 48 hours, there is no sign of fermentation at all. (used EC-1118, BBD 1-2015). Also ordered a new probe for the pH meter....could not get it to calibrate properly.
I'm going to try a few things when I get home tonight, and check again in the morning.
 
By asking you about culture, I was asking about the type of yeast you were going to use. You really don't need energizer for concords--use the nutrient and split the dose into 2 or 3 batches. Important to keep nutrients going to the yeast thruout the ferment.

On the campden tabs---add 1 tab per gallon on the first day--and you'll let this sit, along with the pectic enzyme for 24 hours. Then stir things up well, and take PH readings--adjust as needed--then set the btix. Be sure to have calcium carbonate on hand--you should also have acid blend on hand too.

You'll rack off the primary when the fermentation is done. Then you let the wine sit and build up the lees. When you rack those off the first time, then add more sulfite. By that time, most of the sulfite you used in the primary will be bound. And bound SO2 won't protect the wine. Only free SO2 offers protection. If you have a wine with a PH of 3.4, then you need about 30 PPM of free SO2 for protection. But 1 campden per gallon is too much. That's 50 PPM of sulfite. After that first rack, then you'll let the wine sit and a couple months down the road you may need to rack again. You want to end up with just a light dusting of lees on the bottom and you should leave the wine age on that. Concord takes at least 9 months of aging to firm flavors, become clear, and the CO2 to come out of it. And you need to do SO2 testing to know where you're at. But most new winemakers don't test because cheap titration methods are inaccurate and digital testers are expensive. So if you add a small amount of meta--I would use the powder for this---you can add 1/8 tsp per gallon every 3 or 4 months until bottling time.

Reefman---Wonder whats going on? 1118 ferments anything. Did you sulfite the grapes for the first 24 hrs.? Did you use some yeast nutrient?
 
yes, did all that. It's fermenting, I just didn't see any foam, because it's hidden by the cap, I see some bubbles every time I push the cap down. SpG is going down too, so it's fermenting. Added another shot of nutrient this AM.
will get another reading tomorrow.
Wow, 9 months is a long time. Kits have me spoiled. I have even used Hotpack juice from Walkers and didn't have to wait 9 months!
 
It takes time for all the tartaric crystals to fall out and flavor to firm up, plus have the wine degass. I don't like bottling anything before the 9 month mark. Sometimes you bottle at 6 months and are surprised by remaining CO2. At 9 months, you're sure there won't be a problem. Actually, concord can take a full year to 1 1/2 yrs. to really have the flavor come totally forward. 9 months is early.
 
I'm going to have to start practicing patience. Thanks for the info Turock.

Will the tartaric crystals drop out on their own, or do I need to cold stabilize? I did that with my Niagara batch last year.

Also, I checked SpG this mornign, I'm at 1.020.
When do you rack to secondary?
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top