I had a negative experience with my first experience of using rice hulls to try and increase press yields, and @winemaker81 commented in another thread that he found no such issue. So rather than derail either of those earlier threads I thought I'd ask: do you use rice hulls? What dose do you use, and what was your experience?
How much to add? - I figured as follows. Must solids are about 20-25% total weight, so in my case (1/3T grapes) that's 130-165lb in round numbers. I pressed out over 4 loads, so for each pressing that's 32-42lb. Recommended dose of rice hulls is 1/100 by weight, so that's 0.3-0.4lb per pressing. I added them in layers between loading buckets of grapes into the (#30 basket) press. Since it was my first time doing this, I may have overshot a little (maybe up to 0.5lb?) but I don't think any more than that. The resulting wine had a distinctive grassy taste (my wife called it 'hamster cage', though as far as I know neither of us has ever owned such a beast). That flavor was not present in my other press loads (which omitted the rice hulls) so it wasn't a feature of the base wine/fruit.
For the record, these were the rice hulls that I bought. And I originally miscalculated how much I would need, so if anyone has a suggested use for 4lb rice hulls I'm all ears!
How much to add? - I figured as follows. Must solids are about 20-25% total weight, so in my case (1/3T grapes) that's 130-165lb in round numbers. I pressed out over 4 loads, so for each pressing that's 32-42lb. Recommended dose of rice hulls is 1/100 by weight, so that's 0.3-0.4lb per pressing. I added them in layers between loading buckets of grapes into the (#30 basket) press. Since it was my first time doing this, I may have overshot a little (maybe up to 0.5lb?) but I don't think any more than that. The resulting wine had a distinctive grassy taste (my wife called it 'hamster cage', though as far as I know neither of us has ever owned such a beast). That flavor was not present in my other press loads (which omitted the rice hulls) so it wasn't a feature of the base wine/fruit.
For the record, these were the rice hulls that I bought. And I originally miscalculated how much I would need, so if anyone has a suggested use for 4lb rice hulls I'm all ears!