Home Winemaking for KPCC The Freeway The fruits of our labors after pressing What began as 6 buckets of grapes [150 lbs] have been reduced to one bucket of pomace, about 2 gallons of rosé and about 7 gallons of red wine. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…. Cap of red wine must before pressing After 10 days of daily punching down the grapes , stirring the yeast and keeping the must cool as possible with ice, we are ready to press off the wine . Racking the rosé Our rosé is being racked off the solids visible as light deposits at the bottom of the carboy. We use gravity to transfer the wine into clean one gallon jugs for finishing. Most wine tasks are best done under shade but the sunshine makes for a better picture. Racking into first gallon carboy Some sediment may find its way into the transfer. That’s okay because we have more racking and fining in our wine’s future. Racking into a second carboy Having carboys of various sizes makes it easier to transfer wine and keeping it safe from excessive exposure to air once it settles down. An airlock This is an airlock. They were used with our white wine as it fermented. Airlocks allow gas to escape out of the carboy but doesn’t allow air to enter the carboy. All wines will use airlocks until they are bottled. “Free Run” wine
Let skins sit and drain before pressing? Here’s where you’ve seen it. Seen it before? Draining off some juice for making rosé Preventing malolactic fermentation in the rosé Why? Malolactic fermentation converts malic [think green apple] acid to lactic acid [think milk]. The resulting wine is softer and richer. Leaving it out by using an enzyme results in crisper and fruitier wine. It’s all about style choices. Hooking up hot water for cleaning everything Keeping everything is critically important. I turn up my water heater and hook up the garden hose to the drain valve so I will have hot water to wash and scrub down fermenters, buckets, carboys, the press, EVERYTHING! Ready for cleanup This 50 gallon fermenter serves as a washtub big enough for everything I use. There is the tubing and the rosé carboy waiting to washed with hot water. I don’t have to bring things into the kitchen thus insuring domestic tranquility. Labeled and ready for settling and racking All the carboys are labeled as to variety, date and other information. They will be moved into the wine room and after the particles settle to the bottom, we will rack and combine carboys where we can. But that’s for next time…