Day 8 - 15°

Balling is now down to 15° I really need to start thinking about the 50 gallons of wine that remains unbottled in the wine hut.  Most importantly, I need to get the wine out of my barrel to make room for this year's wine. Anyone have empty wine bottles they can part with?

Day 7 - 18° and counting

Today, the balling was around 18&deg. I could be pressing next week depending on the weather. If you remember, the original balling was 25° This simply means that my wine yeast have eaten around 1/3 of the sugar in my grape juice and have converted it to alcohol. Pressing is imminent.

Day 5 - Fermentation progressing - 21°

Not much to report today. At this point, there are really only two things I need to do on a daily basis: punch down the cap as much as possible and measure the balling. Today's reading measured at 21°

For those of you who don't know what "punch the cap" means, it means submerging the solids back into the liquid portion of the must . Must is essentially grape juice (eventually wine), skins, seeds, and any other solid matter. When wine ferments, the yeast releases carbon dioxide causing the solids to rise to the top.

Day 3 - Fermentation ignited

Fermentation always seems to start off slow but then comes on strong. If you exclusively use your hydrometer to monitor fermentation, you'll be tricked those first few days. There is not much downward movement in the balling (a measure of the concentration of solids, mainly sugar) reading until after a few days. You know when fermentation begins when the cap becomes more solid and when you punch down, a purple froth bubbles up from underneath the cap.

1. Me starting to get my hands dirty.









2. Starting to punch a hole in the cap.










3. The cap oozing the purple fermentation fizz.











Brix still reads 23°. The difference in the readings from yesterday have mostly been corrected. All I did was move the smaller primary fermenters away from the garage.

Day 2 - Adding the wine yeast and yeast nutrient

The wine has been sitting for about 24 hours in my garage and is ready for fermentation. The natural yeast have already started doing their job. The picture below shows that fermentation has just begun and the CO2 from the yeast has begun to push the solid portion of the must up causing the cap to form. At this point, it is not much of a cap but it is clearly a sign that fermentation has started. In time, this will become a solid of mass of skins, seeds, and stems that cannot be so easily submerged into the juice.


For the geeks out there who want to hear what natural fermentation sounds like, listen to the video below. I recorded it on my iphone so turn up the volume. Listen for the little pop, crackle, snap sounds.




I took the Brix readings tonight and came up with 23° and 25°. All of my primary fermenters read 23° except the two smaller, round fermenters. See the readings on my hydrometer below.
I attribute the higher Brix reading on my smaller fermenters to the fact that they were smaller volumes and were next to the garage door. Both the smaller volume and vicinity to the my garage door probably lowered the temperature slowing fermentation.












The wine yeast and yeast nutrient has been added. Just need to wait to see when fermentation will begin in earnest.

Day 1 - Grapes in from Amador County

This year's wine making is underway. In previous years, we've purchased our grapes from the fine folks at Oak Barrel. I am forever grateful for all of the help Homer and the crew at Oak Barrel.

This year, we tried something different. We sourced our grapes from an friend of my father-in-law who owns 40 acres of wine grapes in Amador County. Both my father and mother-in-law did the heavy lifting and picked all of the 600 lbs of grapes yesterday. They were held in refrigerated storage and delivered today, crushed and ready to start fermenting.

Here are my glorious primary fermentation vessels--essentially food grade trash cans in the middle of my garage.




As you might have guessed given the appellation of origin, the grapes this year are Zinfandel. The sugar came in around 25°, which translates to about 14% potential alcohol. For a Zindandel from Amador County, this is not a terribly high percentage of alcohol. In previous years, I've had Brix readings over 26°. Not being a fan of hot, Zindandel fruit bombs, my historical approach is to press the must between 5° and 10° Brix. The lower Brix this year may challenge my belief of pressing early.

The wine hut is damaged

Damn. My wine hut, essentially a sub-structure in my garage, was damaged by the rain. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of barrel tasting from the wine hut, my wine hut is essentially my cheap-o "wine cellar" with a $50.00 air conditioning unit and lined with R-37 insulation. It stays at a comfortable 68° in our balmy autumn with little need for my impressive air conditioning unit.


The water damage to my wine hut has permeated deep into the high quality 1/4" dry-wall and now smells like Houston minus the toxic bacon smell. The obvious presence of mildew on the walls can't be good for wine making.