Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Wine Season and New Wine Calculators Released

Home wine makers are wrapping up the season with late harvests coming in throughout the Northwest. This weekend is going to be the last chance for Oregon Pinot Noir. The California harvest is of course long over by now. Recent wine making activity has inspired me to write a couple new calculators related to wine making with more on the way.

New Wine Calculators:

• Brix and Specific Gravity Conversion Calculator– Converts Brix to Specific Gravity and vice versa. The Brix scale is commonly used in wine making. Specific Gravity is commonly used in home brewing. Some hydrometers have only one or the other, which is where this calculator comes in.

  Brix and Specific Gravity are used to tell how much sugar is in solution. In wine making the freshly crushed juice is being measured (commonly known as the ‘must’). The Brix scale is very close to the Plato and Balling scales.

• Chaptalization Calculator – Chaptalization is the process of adding sugar to must (grape juice) to boost the final alcohol level. This is often done in poor growing years where the grapes did not mature to the desired Brix level. The amount of sugar to add is dependent on how much wine is being made, and how big of an increase in Brix is needed.

I currently have 160 pounds of Pinot Noir fermenting. I split the must into two 24 gallon fermentors after doing a two day cold soak. The left one has RC-212 yeast, and the right one has Assmanshauser. After the crush they will be blended and put through Malolactic fermentation. The house smells really, really good!

The above image shows the two fermentors all setup waiting for the cold soak to finish. The 1 gallon container on the side is a starter for the Assmanshauser yeast.

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Wine Making Overview

If you are into making wine, and live in a northern climate, now is the time to start lining up your local grapes. Grapes all over Oregon and Washington will ripen in the next 4-6 weeks. Check local message boards, your local home brew store, or craig’s list. I have found my local wine maker’s club is the best source for group purchases.

Last year I made an Oregon Pinot Noir that turned out really good. This year I’m going to try for Oregon Pinot Noir again, and Tempranillo a red Spanish grape.

About Wine Grapes:

All wine grapes have clear juice. White wine is crushed and pressed before fermentation. Red wines however are crushed, but fermented on the skin. Breaking the skin releases the tannin’s and imparts the red color and more robust flavors.

How making red wine is different from making beer:

1. Wine grapes can’t be stored effectively like grain. Wine makers get essentially one shot per season. Kits are an alternative, but don’t provide the same aroma since they are pasteurized. Personally I skipped them and went straight to fresh local grapes. The key to a good wine is fresh high quality grapes.

2. The grapes need to be picked, crushed, and brought home. $1/pound is a good starting price. Last year, these two buckets were enough to hold 115 pounds of crushed grapes. This resulted in 41 bottles, about 8 gallons of finished wine.

3. Unlike brewing beer, with wine there is no boil. What goes into the fermenter is not sanitized. This includes an unavoidable bit of mold, dead spiders, the odd rotten grape, wild yeasts, etc. You do your best not to get those in there, but it happens. The next step takes care of this.

4. A sulfite solution is added to the crushed grapes (more properly called ‘must’) to kill off unwanted microbes. This sits for 24 hours, and then the yeast is pitched. Some wine makers do a cold soak for a number of days before pitching to try to extract more flavor.

5. Yeast selection is key, in researching Pinot Noir, I selected Assmanshauser and had great results.

6. Primary fermentation is done ‘open air’. A large bin makes a good fermentor. To keep bugs out I put a towel over the bin. The board keeps the towel in place.

7. Temperature control during fermentation is important. The fermentor is outfitted with a heating strip to keep it in range. I was shooting for 85F. I probably exceeded that, since fermentation generates a lot of heat. Ideally you want a temperature controller with the probe stuck in the middle of the fermenter. Every wine maker has a different practice. Some wine makers go for a slower fermentation to soak up more flavors.

8. As the must ferments, it forms a crown that must be punched down twice a day. Oxygen is beneficial at this stage.

9. For red wine, after primary fermentation is done, the grapes are pressed, and the young wine is transferred to the secondary. Some wine makers go for an extended maturation, which allows more of the tannins to soak into the wine before pressing. For Pinot Noir, without an extended maturation, the wine will be fruity and light, but not as robust.

10. It takes a long time, minimum 6 months, maximum 2-3 years before your wine will be ready. Full bodied reds take the longest. My wine was drinkable in 7 months, but I should have let it sit another couple of months in the carboy.

11. Control of acid levels and sulfites is critical to good wine making. Test kits are expensive. The ability to interpret the test results and adjust the wine is what true mastery in wine making is all about. Many books have been written on this subject and it can take many years to get good. Wine makers are also a bit like cats and have their own way of doing things. Since I am new to it, I take a hands off approach and let the process happen naturally. Perhaps I was just lucky on the first try, but I think I had excellent grapes and made a good yeast selection.

12. An inoculation of Malolatic yeast is recommended for some wines to smooth out the flavor. Nature may take care of this for you too, perhaps after the wine has been bottled! Malo releases CO2, as you can see in this image:

13. The wine is racked several times. The carboys need to be topped off with a similar wine, since head space is very bad for aging wine. As the wine ages, the sulfite level drops. To protect the wine from spoiling, a sulfite level around 60 ppm is recommended, and needs to be maintained. Be careful though, over sulfited wine will be terrible.

14. Barrels can be used instead of carboys. I see this as an advanced practice. Barrels are expensive. You have to really know what you are doing for a barrel to add value to the wine. To me, over oaked wine tastes terrible.

There are important differences when it comes to making white wine, but I have not tried that.

For more information:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/2010/10/16/a-beer-brewer-tries-making-wine/
https://www.brewersfriend.com/2011/07/09/basket-press-for-fruit-based-brews/

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Basket Press for Fruit Based Brews

Fermenting crushed berries, grapes, and fruits can be a fun diversion from making beer. Home brewers who make beer already have all the equipment, except for a basket press. I tasted an amazing pear, blueberry, raspberry cider at a home brew club meeting last year. This inspired me to get more into fruity meads and wine. I tired making wine last fall. It is now in the bottle and going fast. It was totally worth it! Apples, Cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, apricots, peaches… the list goes on, could all be experimented with.

The Basket Press:

Once again, you will need a new piece of equipment to make this work. I looked into the Do-It-Yourself solutions. A good basket press would take a lot of time to build, more time than I wanted to spend. Personally, I decided to buy a professionally made press. The pressure from the screw, alignment, and reliability were reasons I decided not to build my own. A small size is perfect for the small amounts I am working with.

(Action shot of the wine press.)

When shopping for a basket press, check out the Yakima Press Company.

Yakima Press Company sells high quality basket presses. If you are interested in pressing more than a few gallons, you will probably want a bigger press. All their products are 100% made in the USA.

Outline of the process to make Fruit Wine, Hard Cider, Sweet Mead:

1. Pick and wash your fruit. Get good quality fruit, it will shine through in the end result! Wine grapes are normally not washed, as it is too time consuming, and not necessary due to addition of sulfites later on. You’ll need a lot of fruit to get 1 gallon of juice. For example, with apples one bushel is about 42 pounds, and gives 2-3 gallons of juice. You can top this off with water and add sugar or honey to compensate. You don’t have to go with 100% juice to get a good result.

2. Crush the fruit to release the juices. Wine grapes are done with a de-stemmer / crusher. Raspberries and blueberries can be done easily by hand. Fruits like apples and pears can be chopped and then put through a food processor.

3. Run fruit through basket press. The harder you press, the more tannins and other harsh flavors will come through. I sampled for flavor as the crush went just to tell where I was at. When it gets hard to turn the press, that’s probably a good sign it is time to stop. Beware, this step is sticky and messy but tastes good.

Note: Red wine is an exception. With red wine pressing comes after fermentation, as the skins are what give red wine its color.

4. Add 1 campden tablet per gallon of juice. Let sit for 24 hours. This step kills off all the wild yeasts and other bad guys and creates a stable environment for the brewing yeast to take off.

Campden is the same thing as  potassium or sodium metabisulfite. An equivalent solution can be created on your own (1 campden table in 1 gallon of water gives 67 ppm sulfur dioxide). Be careful not to over sulfite the batch!

Note: Again with wine from grapes the story is a little different. Sulfites are added right after the crush, targeting 60 ppm.

5. Measure gravity and volume. At this point, adjust with water and sugar or honey as desired so your target volume and alcohol level will be reached. This is going to vary widely depending on the recipe.

6. Transfer to carboy and pitch yeast. Yeast nutrient is a good idea. Dry mead yeast is very dry and will strip out all the sweetness. I’d recommend a sweet mead yeast on the first go.

7. Rack after primary fermentation is complete – could take up to a month. Expect to get a lot of trub, aka lees on the bottom of the carboy. Top off secondary with water or last year’s product. You may want to add more sulfites at this point to protect your new brew. The sulfites that were originally added are pretty much eliminated during primary fermentation.

8. Rack again and repeat every week or so until desired clarity is reached.

9. Bottle and age as desired.

10. Enjoy!

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A Beer Brewer Tries Making Wine

I’m going to take a shot at making wine this year. The books I have been reading say to pick good grapes, at the right time, and let nature take its course. I’m not planning on adjusting with sugar or acid, but I will takes notes on the original brix, fermentation length etc.

Getting Grapes:

September-October is grape harvest time. This year is late in Oregon.

Unfortunately for the home wine maker, getting access to good grapes can be a challenge. A local club was ordering grapes from California. I’ve been getting decent results searching craigslist and have a few options lined up. The local home brew stores also have bulletin boards with postings.

If the local grapes don’t come through the other option is to buy a kit. They yield more consistent results, but it is sort of like using malt extract in beer. I have read the aroma is flat from the kit because of the pasteurization process. There can also be a ‘kit flavor’ that some people detect as a flaw. I have grape starts out back and they will be bearing fruit in a few years. I want to get good at the whole process end to end.

Cost Breakdown:

A 6 gallon batch of wine requires approximately 100 pounds of grapes (the range varies pretty widely and that is a conservative estimate).

In the end I hope to get 30 bottles of wine (2.5 cases).

Pinot Noir grapes from a reputable grower off mature vines are running $1.00/pound. With yeast (Assmannshausen), Malolatic yeast (Wyeast), corks, and campden tables, the total for the batch is ~$120. That means I’m looking at $4.00 per bottle – not that economical compared to 2 buck chuck. However, a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir goes for at least $10 and usually more. It will be 18 months before I know how this panned out.

Extra Equipment Needed:

If you are already brewing beer, there is not much extra equipment to deal with. The grapes will be crushed and de-stemmed at the vineyard. I’m using a 7.5 gallon bucket I already have for the primary fermentor. A fruit/wine press is on the way (I’ll be talking more about this in an upcoming article). The only additional item I needed was a warming device (FermWarp, $40) which wraps around the fermentor and keeps the temperature around 85F where the wine yeast perform optimally.

I already had a corker from a batch of mead I packaged in wine bottles.

More on the subject of wine to come (new category added). Brewer’s Friend has beer at heart and is mostly about beer and will stay that way! Wine is like a cousin, not a muse.

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