Yeastless fermentation

[flbama]

Going to jump in to home wine. I was wondering about yeast. My grandfather and father never used yeast as they let the juice ferment on its own. Any advantages to using a yeast packet?

 

[robie]

To ferment (inoculate), your father depended on the indigenous yeast, which was floating in the air. Many commercial wineries do the same; for instance, several Malbec producers in Argentina.

However, with trials, they know that the yeast will do the job properly.

You, on the other hand, may or may not know anything about the indigenous yeast in your area, so you could be taking a really big risk, if the yeast is not what you expect. In some experiments I have read about, the wine turned out so bad that it was not drinkable.

Using packaged yeast will let you know before you ever start what the yeast are expected to do.

Here's what I would do:
Experiment!
Start a small sample using indigenous yeast.
For the bulk of your wine, use a packaged yeast until you determine exactly the outcome of your indigenous experiment.

 

[AlFulchino]

9 out of ten of my wines are fermented via naturally occurring yeast

 

[robie]

9 out of ten of my wines are fermented via naturally occurring yeast

Yep, also lots of wine in Australia is fermented with naturally occurring yeast.

That's why I suggested he experiment. I have just heard such horror stories that I would start with a small batch experiment.



Al,
I'm really interested in all this.

Do you ever get a "bad" yeast that ruins your wine or are the localized yeast strains pretty consistent?

How did you find out the naturally occurring yeast would work for you?
I assume the naturally occurring yeast are what is already on the grapes, correct?

I'd love to have a nice vineyard like you and appleman, even a very small one would be OK. I'll be retiring frm my current job in a few, so we will see...

 

[AlFulchino]

as of yet, i have not had a wine turn out bad from using natural yeast...traditionally i had been doing zin, sangi, barbera among others....so the yeast was coming from the grapes...or my garage area

w my own vineyard...one year as a licensed winery.....the yeast is all naturally from the wine grapes themselves and the immediate are in the air....

what are you doing for a living right now?

 

[robie]

I am a software engineer, working on devices that have computers built into them. Encryption-related stuff mainly, right now. None of it secret.

 

[flbama]

SinceI went the "natural" route, should I wait a bit longer than the typical 7 days to move from primary to secondary as there wasn't as much yeast as somebody dropping in a packet of yeast?

 

[Randoneur]

Not sure what the experts would say, but I would just monitor S.G. and use that to determine when to move the wine. Some folks rack to secondary at 1.03, some at 1.02, some at end point. I usually let minedrop to1.03/1.02 range because I want lots of CO2 in the secondary headspace.

 

[AlFulchino]

yep...monitor the sg...thats the key

 

[Wade E]

I agree, never use your calender for making wine with the exception of a basis of when to check your S02 levels.