The wine is fermenting

Our Frontenac grapes did not like our early growing season at all and they set very few grapes. A friend however had a bumper crop of an unknown variety….the vines were at the place he bought already….so I was able to pick enough to get a nice batch of wine started. These grapes are seedless so they are not wild or Concords, but they were sweet and made lots of juice. Right now we have about 4 1/2 gallons in the primary fermenter and after removing the crushed grape residue before transferring the wine to the secondary fermenter we’ll have maybe four gallons. By the time I get to the bottling stage I figure I’ll have about 3 1/2 gallons to bottle.

I just pushed the must back down in the wine and gave it a good stir and the wine is a super burgundy looking wine. The old fermentation lock is hopping non-stop so I’m assuming this will be a very good wine. Ma apparently has much of it ear-marked for her Sangria.

Pretty good use of a bonus crop! Did you use a commercial yeast or just go with whatever was on the grape skins? How long do you plan to let it sit in primary? Secondary? I’ve never made wine from grapes but have done plenty of beer, mead, and non-grape variants.

I used a wine yeast for red wine in this. Natural yeast on grapes is real sketchy stuff and generally doesn’t do well.

It’ll be in the primary another four days, then to the secondary for at least a month/six weeks. From the secondary I’ll siphon it into gallon jugs to clear even more and then bottle after about a month.

I’m doing cranberry wine shortly. I’ll use fresh cranberries by grinding them, then freezing for a few days and then simmering them in distilled water. The freezing releases a ton of the juice.

I am planning on two gallons and since there’ll be a conflict with the secondary I’ll siphon the wine directly from the primary to the gallon jugs for a couple months, then siphon from the first gallon jugs into a second set of gallon jugs for another couple months. If it needs some sweetening at bottling time I can add some simple syrup and stabilizer at that time.

If you get a chance Brian, take Ma down river to the El Mara winery just south of Fountain City, Wisconsin on WI35. This is where I bought a Cranberry wine they made and its outstanding. Its between Fountain City and Trempealeau.

“If you get a chance Brian, take Ma down river to,,,”
Brian, who’s Brian?

Tom, you’ll be ok once you lay down after you get your meds.

Haha, I’m not a BK impostor. Just another enthusiast. It’s the beer refreshing!

Its that darned Hamm’s logo. Sorry Steve. The info doesn’t change though.

And Denny….I did another 4 hour IV infusion of a relatively new antibiotic on Monday. Darned expensive so I hope it works as the docs want it to. Today I was fitted with a wound vacuum pump…..weird looking get up I have strapped to my leg.

Man O Man Tom, what an ordeal you are going through!

Denny, they changed the pump out last Friday and I’ll get another change tomorrow. In two days of having the first pump on the wound grew 2mm of new flesh. The width/height of the wound has shrunk a bit too. Things are looking up. The pump straps right to my upper calf and my jeans leg covers it so its really no bother at all. I give it a pump once a day to re-new the vacuum but other than that I hardly know its there. As long as its working, I’m fine with it.

We got our mile walk in just now so I’ll be moving the wine from the primary fermenter to the secondary this afternoon. I pulled and drained the grape must yesterday and the wine is still fermenting some without it. While I had the primary opened up and skimmed clean I took a small taste and I’m pretty sure its about 16% right now. May not get any stronger. Sure has a nice taste and the aroma is wonderful. Real happy with this batch thus far.