Fermentation Withdraws. Black Seedless Grapes

[Kemo]

Today I found some black seedless grapes at Market Street for only 99 cents a pound! Naturally I had to get some. Tasting the grapes i can tell thats there's gonna be LOTS of tannins. My plan is to freeze then do a 1 gallon dry batch pure steam juice with 11 pounds of grapes, and I know i want oak. After juice extraction i plan to let pectic sit for a day.

I have NEVER done a grapes from scratch before and I'm full of questions????
-How do i get rid of some of the tannins?
-How much oak do i start with and which kind? i have Hungarian house toast cubes and American heavy toast chips and medium toast powder.
-After I steam juice should i ferment on the skins!?!
-Im guessing the ph needs to be around 3.5-3.6 and TA at around .6??
-How much nutrient/ energizer?
-Any other comments? I cant find anything else on the web about other people doing these grapes

Thanks for the help.

 

[intoxicating]

I haven't done any grape wine from scratch, but several other fruits. Wouldn't lots of tannin be a good thing? The way you "get rid of" them is to age the wine. I did a wild plum port style several years in a row, and the first two years the tannins had quite a bite. By the third year, it was SMOOOTH! Won silver in winemakers magazine contest. Just make sure the acid and SG and flavor intensity of the fruit is enough to balance.

I think the skins would be a judgment call. You leave it on the skins to get more tannin, and color. If the juice tastes like it has plenty of tannin, and you like the color, then the steamer took all you needed from the fruit and you are done with the skins.

Come on, some one sound off with the numbers for pH and TA!

 

[Rocky]

Kemo,



When you say "black seedless grapes" I assume you are talking about a type of "table grape" rather than a "wine grape." You may be disappointed in the results.
I have made wine "from scratch" with Zinfandel, Alicante, Delaware and Muscat grapes. I have never tried a table grape, but that is not to say it can't be done.
I suggest that you contact one of the guys on the forum, like Appleman for example via "private messenger" and ask for his guidance.

 

[Wade E]

Table grapes are not the same as wine grapes and the results will be very thin with a low starting sg and unbalanced acid level. In my opinion Id get some wine grapes which will be available in a few weeks from Chile but if you really want to do this then go ahead. You wont have to worry about too high of tannin levels with this. As far as oak its usually 2 ozs per 6 gallons but this wine will be lighter in flavor so you might want to reduce tat amount. You could ferment on the skins to try and get a little more color and tannins since like I said it will be thin in this area and you might even want to add some tannins in. Nutrient is 1 tsp per gallon and energizer is 1/2 tsp per gallon. I would stray from American oak with these grapes and go with French or Hungarian.

 

[Kemo]

Kemo,



When you say "black seedless grapes" I assume you are talking about a type of "table grape" rather than a "wine grape." You may be disappointed in the results.
I have made wine "from scratch" with Zinfandel, Alicante, Delaware and Muscat grapes. I have never tried a table grape, but that is not to say it can't be done.
I suggest that you contact one of the guys on the forum, like Appleman for example via "private messenger" and ask for his guidance.

Ya it didnt turn out with a lot of flavor at all but ill let it sit on a tiny bit of oak and check it again in like three months.

The Final sg was at 1.090 starting TA at .5 and starting Ph was at 3.75. so i added acid until the ph dropped to 3.6. over all I wouldn do this again but only time will tell

 

[Rocky]

Kemo, did you really mean that the "final SG was at 1.090?" Seems kind of high.






Do some bench testing. You might try getting a few boxes of raisins, rinse them and then stew them in enough water to cover them. Then, add the raisins and the juice from them to the wine and let it be for about 1-2 weeks. Taste it then. The flavor shouldimprove. To bench test it, try a gallon or so. I would stew a cup of raisins in water and add it to the gallon. Just a suggestion, but do not throw it away.

 

[Kemo]

Sorry haha no that was the initial sg. But will the raisins do anything without being fermented?

 

[Rocky]

The raisins will give back some of the grape taste. They will also give the wine more "mouth feel," that is, more body. Just try it on a small volume and if it improves the wine, scale it up. If you are not happy with the wine now, you have little to lose.

 

[Kemo]

Thats very true, although i didnt initially think that it would do anything if it wasnt fermented. However like u said there's nothing to loose. How much do you recommend?

 

[Rocky]

It is hard to tell how much to use. I would start with a half box of raisins for 1-1.5 gallons of wine. Rinse the raisins, put them in a pot and cover with water. Apply the heat and cover them. Stew them at low temperature until the raisins plump up. Remove from the heat and take a potato masher and mash down the raisins to break them up. I would put all of this (raisins and water) in with about a gallon to a gallon and a half of wine in a small primary fermentator with an airlock. Let it stay for a week to 10 days, remove the raisinsand taste it. If you think this is working, you can adjust the amount of raisins up or down as you see fit.

 

[Kemo]

Sounds good i will probably try it out this weekend. Thanks for the help Rocky.