Help me use these grapes please!

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PaddyX21

Help me use these grapes please!

Post by PaddyX21 » Wed Nov 13, 2013 8:01 pm

My father has given me 3st (approx 22kg) of grapes from his well established vine. In the last 25 years they have just rotted away every year, and I'd love to actually make use of them this year.

I have AG beer brewing kit, but not being much of a wine lover then I've never considered brewing a wine.

How much will 22kgs make?
Am I just crushing up the grapes, adding sugar if needed, and then fermenting with a wine yeast? What else do I need to consider?

All help and advice is much appreciated!

Nikster

Re: Help me use these grapes please!

Post by Nikster » Wed Nov 13, 2013 8:59 pm

Not sure how much juice you'll get from that but I got six bottles out of half a FV worth and out of that I had to add over a kilo and half of sugars to get the abv up to just under 15%. Wilkins wine yeast coped really well. I pretty much did everything against the grain, blended the grapes, boiled the juice etc.

You wouldn't find my juice in a supermarket but I think it's great, and basically did it in a rush as was donated some grapes, brewed it the same day. So depending what you're aiming for you can botch it like me or go to town like everyone else.

Short of filtering / clearing and what not, it's pretty simple.

boingy

Re: Help me use these grapes please!

Post by boingy » Wed Nov 13, 2013 10:25 pm

I've never done it, and it depends on the grape variety, but you should be able to make about 3 gallons of "proper" wine with that lot without adding sugar. Suggest you might need to seek out a wine forum for better advice though!

fatbloke

Re: Help me use these grapes please!

Post by fatbloke » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:13 am

Ask over at winesathome forums

Oh and don't forget, they'll need to be destemmed first so you don't get the vegetal type flavour.....

PaddyX21

Re: Help me use these grapes please!

Post by PaddyX21 » Fri Aug 08, 2014 1:54 pm

Bottled this last weekend - ended up with 15 bottles, or just under.
It's...well, wine. It tastes of wine, smells of wine and looks ok too.
It's still a bit acidic, but it is maturing steadily.

Had crystalline deposits at the bottom of the demi-johns - some kind of acid maybe?

PaddyX21

Re: Help me use these grapes please!

Post by PaddyX21 » Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:03 am

Year on - it's still wine, just not very nice wine!
It's still acidic, not vinegar, just lots of citric'y acid flavour.
Mixes with lemonade okay, but that wasn't the idea!!

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