Some times wine making can become a chore. Yesterday we decided to rack and place wine in secondaries. We had t buckets of apple and one of muscadine we started fermenting last wkend. Squeezing the pulp out and getting rid of al the apple peels and grape hulls can get pretty tedious. A fruit press would be a very big help, but since I dont own one, heres how I did it.
I took and extra empty plastic bucket and stretched a cheese cloth across the top. I then slowly poured the must thru the cheese cloth to catch any of the large pieces. I let it drip dry for a few minutes and the took the corners of the cheese cloth and twisted them together. I then placed the cloth with all the hullls, peeling, seeds and whatever whole fruit that was left, down into the now empty fermenting bucket and pushed down on the cloth using my spread open hands to press the remaining juice from the fruit. I think a clean board or maybe a small metal pot, would have worked better than my hands, but that ideal just came to me as I was writing this, so maybe next time. Anyways. I would press whatever juice i could out of the pulp and pour it into the other bucket with the strained juice and repeat the procedure until the amount of juice extracted didnt seem worth the effort it took to get it. Straining thru a cheese cloth will leave a lot of pulp in the juice, but I feel this is perfect for making the wine. This is the point I measure and add my sugar to the must. No sugars where added to the fermenting fruit when it was first put in the fermenting bucket 7 days ago. Since I had three different wine blends going at the same time, I had to keep cleaning buckets and changeing out cheese cloths, and I kind of made a mess at the sink. DW kept cutting her eyes in my direction and after 35 years, I pretty much knew what she was thinking.
Knowing I had a big mess to clean up. I figured I might as well rack off some of the other wines I have going under the sink. The first candidate was the pure honey mead we have had working since mid June. This is the first time this wine has been racked and there was a ton of dark mother's yeast in the bottom of the jars. Since we use 1gal glass jug as carbouys, I decided to rack all (3gal),the wine into one large container so to make a even blend. Using the clear plastic sphion hose I racked and filtered the wine thru a cotton cloth into the container. I kept the hose just off the bottom of the glass jugs so as to not suck up any of the dead yeast and what little that did get sucked up was captured by the cotton cloth. I then washed and sterilized the glass carbouys and refilled with the now almost clear mead. I will rack again in a few months. Of course i couldnt help but have a small taste, which led to another, then another, and another, anyways, you get the picture. LOL This mead is turing out super and I am thinking about getting another gallon of honey and starting another batch really soon. Got to free up some carbouys first.
I decided not to rack anything else since most of what I had brewing was started pretty recently. I will be racking and bottleing some grape wine I started back in early May pretty soon, I have 2 gal of peach that is almost clear and the blackberry will be next.
I took and extra empty plastic bucket and stretched a cheese cloth across the top. I then slowly poured the must thru the cheese cloth to catch any of the large pieces. I let it drip dry for a few minutes and the took the corners of the cheese cloth and twisted them together. I then placed the cloth with all the hullls, peeling, seeds and whatever whole fruit that was left, down into the now empty fermenting bucket and pushed down on the cloth using my spread open hands to press the remaining juice from the fruit. I think a clean board or maybe a small metal pot, would have worked better than my hands, but that ideal just came to me as I was writing this, so maybe next time. Anyways. I would press whatever juice i could out of the pulp and pour it into the other bucket with the strained juice and repeat the procedure until the amount of juice extracted didnt seem worth the effort it took to get it. Straining thru a cheese cloth will leave a lot of pulp in the juice, but I feel this is perfect for making the wine. This is the point I measure and add my sugar to the must. No sugars where added to the fermenting fruit when it was first put in the fermenting bucket 7 days ago. Since I had three different wine blends going at the same time, I had to keep cleaning buckets and changeing out cheese cloths, and I kind of made a mess at the sink. DW kept cutting her eyes in my direction and after 35 years, I pretty much knew what she was thinking.
Knowing I had a big mess to clean up. I figured I might as well rack off some of the other wines I have going under the sink. The first candidate was the pure honey mead we have had working since mid June. This is the first time this wine has been racked and there was a ton of dark mother's yeast in the bottom of the jars. Since we use 1gal glass jug as carbouys, I decided to rack all (3gal),the wine into one large container so to make a even blend. Using the clear plastic sphion hose I racked and filtered the wine thru a cotton cloth into the container. I kept the hose just off the bottom of the glass jugs so as to not suck up any of the dead yeast and what little that did get sucked up was captured by the cotton cloth. I then washed and sterilized the glass carbouys and refilled with the now almost clear mead. I will rack again in a few months. Of course i couldnt help but have a small taste, which led to another, then another, and another, anyways, you get the picture. LOL This mead is turing out super and I am thinking about getting another gallon of honey and starting another batch really soon. Got to free up some carbouys first.
I decided not to rack anything else since most of what I had brewing was started pretty recently. I will be racking and bottleing some grape wine I started back in early May pretty soon, I have 2 gal of peach that is almost clear and the blackberry will be next.
