I've agreed to assist a neighbor in making wine with his grapes. He has a dozen vines (~5 years old), mostly muscadine but two are Norton, with the fruit beginning to ripen. My neighbor has absolutely no experience with winemaking, and I have none in making wine from scratch with grapes -- I have made wine with pears, strawberries, and some other locally available fruits and done kits for several years. We've agreed that the neighbor will harvest ripe grapes, clean and crush them by hand in a large pot, and freeze in approx 5-lb bags. When he accumulates enough we'll start a batch, using Jack Keller's recipe for "Simple Grape Wine.".
I've got all the equipment we'll need except for a grape press. I've checked around my area, and haven't found any available to borrow or rent, and (at this time) don't wish to buy something that may be used only this once. I've used nylon mesh bags for pears, strawberries, etc., but doubt that those would withstand the pressure needed to extract the grape juice.
How can we economically contain the fruit for pressing, and apply enough pressure to extract most of the juice?
I've "pressed" grapes by hand. It's doable in a small batch - say 5 to 10 gallons. If the grapes are red, the fermentation will do a pretty thorough job of easing the chore by breaking down the cells. Use a coarse strainer to separate most of the wine, then put the solids in the mesh bag and wring it out.
This is a lot harder with white grapes, because you need to separate the juice _before_ fermentation, but it works pretty much the same. Crush the fruit as well as you can with your hands, popping all the berries. Pour through a strainer to separate the liquid and wring the solids out as thoroughly as you can. (A dose of pectic enzyme right after crushing, followed by a cold soak overnight prior to pressing helps with this.) Be sure to cold settle the juice thoroughly and rack it away from the heavy goop prior to inoculation or the wine will end up somewhat coarse tasting.
Alternatively, you could rent a small press or buy one cheap on e-Bay.
OK, I was thinking we might wind up "pressing" a small batch at a time in a bag; I don't expect to get super-efficient juice extraction on this initial batch.
Since 99% of the grapes I expect we will harvest will be muscadine, we will ferment on the skins.
There doesn't seem to be anything available to rent around here, and I'm not ready to purchase anything for one batch.
Bart, I guess you could do that, but it seems like a lot of effortthat could be combined in one sitting. Freezing the grapes will break them down a bit anyway, why not do it all at once and onle have to clean up once?
I posted directions (more or less) on how to make a press out of a surplus pail under 'tube for a basket press'; it's not pretty but it's free. Regards, Joe
....I use three pails stacked with no problems, they could be clean white drywall pails but I use 6 gallon food grade pails since I have them. It does not look like they should stand the pressure, but I press slow, it's never been an issue.
The base pail is the catch basin. I place about a 4" stand off in the pail and follow it with another pail with 1/8" holes in the base and about 4 to 6" up the sides as the press basket. Fill that with grapes and follow it with another pail as the pressure plate. It's not elegant but I get a dry press cake by stirring the cake as you would in a real press. You could drill a 1/2" to 3/4" hole in the side of thebase bucket and attach a hose to drain it directly into carboys if you feel like it's worth it.
If you want to build it as a press:
You could build a 4 x 4 box frame with a double 3/4" plywood base and top plate and use a bottle jack on top of this to apply the pressure. If you made it from doubled up scrap 2 x 4's" it would cost next to nothing. My pails are 18" high so if I did this the inner dimmension would be about 4.5 to 5 feet. The bottom pail is not needed, I use it to keep the splatter down. I usually do around 200 pounds of must per cycle in this press, I get around 12 to 14 gallons (US) of free run as I load it, a few more gallons of press wine from this. I would estimate it takes at least a 50# charge of grapes. If you used squatter buckets or built a wooden ram for the pressure plate you could keep the hieght down to about 3 feet.
I haven't used the jack idea. I used a 6 gallon pail of water which works out to about 50 pounds total, then I put a lid on it, add another 6 gallon pail on top and fill it with water.
Another option is to stand in the top bucket. Either way works, one is just faster. It's not something I would recommend, it's not to stable.
It might be possible to use ratcheting tie down staps to apply the pressure by wrapping them around the whole assembly, that eliminates a frame if it works.
This is pretty much what I did last year to press around 200# of grapes. Keep in mind I drain off the free run, so this does not take a 200 pound charge of grapes, its more like 50 pounds of skins to press.
'2' has 1/8 inch holes in the base and up several inches of the sides
'3' is the press 'platten'; if you put a lid on it you can stack others on it.
It's not pretty but it's free and I know it works, I've used it several times. I got the idea from Lums book, as usual I needed to press and was not ready so had to improvise.
Joe, Does it seem to matter that the pails are not cylindrical but slightly conical? At least I'm assuming that they are slightly conical like most buckets are, for instance a 23l pail of sterile must that juice kits come in. They're maybe an inch narrower at the bottom then the top.
Don, I thought it would be an issue too but have not had problems. I thought seeds and 'stuff' would get caught up in the sides of the pressing pail but it has not happened to me.
My pails are exactly what you are describing; 11 3/8" at the top and
10 3/8" at the base. These came with Regina juice, and were made by Ropak.
I have never pressed uncrushed grapes with it and would expect that to be a disaster, it's not a set up that can apply a lot of pressure. I have hand-crushed grenache and pressed immediately to make a blush and it worked out well. Joe
Where are you located? I know Muscadines are prevalent but not tooooo prevalent. I'm in Athens, GA and have everything you need if you want to. I also have a winemaking friend who bought a small press (8in. diameter?) off eBay that perhaps he'd sell. "Never been used"!
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