Concord Grape Wine 2014

Once again I found myself at my inlaws house and their grapes were ripe.  They offered to help me pick if I wanted them for wine again so I figured, why not.  I wasn't expecting to do this again and it was later in the season that the previous year.  I feel like last year I picked the grapes a little early and this year a little late.  We also did not seem to have as much rain this season.  the grapes were smaller and sweeter.

Here are some tips I have come up with for picking.  Try to make sure you de stem the grapes and rinse them right away.  they will get moldy after a while if you let them sit and you won't be albe to use as many of them as you wanted.  Pick, rinse and mash the grapes all in the same day if you can (this is a lot of work).  I waited and did not end up being able ot use as may of the grapes as I hoped.  Also check them frequently if you can to make sure you pick them at the right time.

I picked mine and sorted thorough and ended up with almost 2 gallons of grapes (after mashing them).  Prior to this it was more.  I don't have a press, I mash them by hand in my primary fermenter.  This year to make up the extra I used frozen red grape juice concentrate (2 containers mixed) rather than sugar water.  I came out a little over 3 gallons which reduced to a little under 3 gallons when I racked off the grapes and sediment.  I also added 4 lb of sugar, stirred very well and ended up with a starting gravity of 1.100.

After mashing, I added 1 campden tablet (crushed) per gallon.  Then I took some of the must out, added some yeast nutrient, and took my yeast that had been soaking in warm water and pitched it  in.  I mixed this up a little over 24 hours and then at the 24 hour mark I pitched that start into the fermenter.  For 1 week I shook it up at least once a day to keep the yeast suspended and the grapes from forming a cap.  Than I racked it.  I've seen this before when I use champagne yeast, it is so carbonated that it has trouble with the siphon.  It works but it's really slow and I have to re-start it a few times.

http://instagram.com/p/vXarz0AsRr/

You can see a little of what I mean there.

An Active Autumn...

I realize it has been a long time since I have posted any new information, but the kitchen brewery has not gone the way of the dodo.  More then brew the kitchen has been canning vegetables and fruits lately, but the fall harvest is catching up.  I've been meaning to try combination of a coffee stout recipe with an oatmeal stout, and I've had an idea for a watermelon wine on my mind as well.  Then there is a pumpkin mead recipe I've been hanging on to for a while.  All this while last weekend at my inlaws house the grapes are ready:

So as of right now, I have some strawberry watermelon must sitting with some campden (sp?) tablets.  I plan on starting that, then getting these grapes ready to go and finally the pumpkin mead.  All hopefully in time for me to get to the Stout, hopefully in time for Christmas.  I may need another carboy and a bigger wine rack to store this stuff.  Once again I'm looking at the debate of plastic vs glass.  The reason I debate is because there is a price difference.  I think the price of the glass is worth it.  

  Many people are going with plastic carboys lately because of the price and the issue of the glass breaking (safety, etc).  I still don't like the idea of something I will consume touching plastic all that time even if it is "food grade".  I've heard micro biologists say it's a bad idea from a bacteria perspective (no one says that about glass).  And from a chemical and environmental perspective I like glass much better.  Read some here for more information: Plastic, not so Fantastic

What's your take on the debate?  

Fermentation Updates

As of right now there is nothing new brewing in the kitchen.  I have my dandelion wine from 2013 bottled, and there are four bottles left of about 14.  Many of them were Christmas gifts and I have to say that this was much better than my first attempt at dandelion wine.   I am considering going from 3 to 5 gallons this Spring.

The concord grape wine is bulk aging in a carboy and is very clear and it has a sour taste which is not unlike the grapes.  The concord grapes are more of a table grape than a wine grape, but still it is not bad wine.  I did have to add sugars to the recipe and I am thinking of back sweetening it with some concord grape juice. I would love to hear from anyone with some ideas on that.

Then there is the pumpkin wine which I tried in a 1 gallon batch.  You can see it here:

   

There is definitely a pumpkin taste to the wine and it is a little on the sweet side.  If that is not to your taste I'm sure you could cut back on the sugars in the recipe I used.  I'm thinking of switching it to a pumpkin mead recipe I have found if I do another pumpkin wine this fall.  It's still aging and I'm waiting to create some pumpkin bottles to bottle it.  My wife really likes this idea:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Wine-bottle-jack-o-lanterns/  and it does look nice.  I think the wine could use some more aging so creating some of these and saving them for this Autumn will be nice.  

Concord grape Wine

Kitchen Brewery started out (in my mind) as a beer blog, but I've been following the fruit. When the dandelions came up I made dandelion wine. My mother in law happens to have some grapes growing in her yard and we decided to make wine from them this year. I went into this brew with almost no idea about how to make wine from grapes. My plan was to mash them up, hope there was enough juice, and pitch some yeast.

I went to the homebrew shop, got some corks, sanatizer, a corker, and asked what kind of yeast would be good with concord grapes. They told me people have bad results with concord grapes because they don't have enough sugar and they have a musty flavor. For the flavor they said champagne yeast was good because it neutralizes off flavors. I got my equipment and then asked around about it on the home made wine making community on google+ and found a recipe thanks to Benjamin Hansen. I also looked around and found this from Jack Keller: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques10.asp

 I used the first recipe which is much like the one I got on google+ and it makes up for the low sugar in concord grapes. I also leaned that red wines need to age 2 years in the bottle. I am sure this is why I hear stories about people who say wines from wild grapes taste bad. Beer brewers just are not used to waiting so long. I know I'm going to have a hard time with it.

Rinsing the grapes 

 I followed the recipe and found that concord grapes really do need the added sugar.  My gravity reading before pitching the yeast was 1.100 and to prevent any intrusions the fermentor is being guarded closely.
 :-)