Muscat, you have my full attention right now

Well, it's kind of interesting to me.  What happened?  The temperatures from one year to the next were just about identical, but the fermentation rates were as different as they could possibly be.  Same yeast  and same grape - but possibly a good deal more yeast in 2010, though not more than manufacturer's recommendation.  And 2009 was in 2 half filled glass carboys while 2010 was in a single 2/3 filled 100 liter Graf poly fermenter with a good fitting lid and bubbler. 

Will have to comb the hand-written notes for more 2009 detail.  I know we combined the half carboys on day 8 and I have a posted note that says we were "approaching" dry then.  Really?

2010 Muscat day 5, jugged

At 9:30 this evening we were at -0.2 Brix and decided it was time to get the must into topped-off carboys. The 100 liter tank 2/3 full was more than Lori and I could lift t a workbench, so we pailed the must out to fill a first carboy, then lifted it and used the spigot to fill a 2nd 5 gal., then a 3 gal, and then a 1 gal.

So, wildly early and 15 gallons of must. Very opaque. I'm hoping n the long run we have 1 or 12 gallons of finished wine. We'll see.

We'll want to build a hose that attached to the Graf poly's very wide diameter spigot - will make using it to fill future carboys much less airy.

A few notes on the cellar setup for the 2010 Muscat

The setup we've been using this year so far is very comfortable. I'd made solid 2x2 foot lids for the red wine primary fermenters, and I'm using these as my working bench for the Muscat.  Digital thermometer with probe, regular and short scale hydrometers, wine thief, hygrometer (just for yucks), camera, notebook, small pail of meta'd water, measuring spoons, paper towels, rag.  In the bus tray, too, is a baggie with ice packs in it - this is how I've been putting the packs into the must.

Down the front end of the cellar is where we've kept the 100 liter Graf poly - by the cellar hatch where we passed the juice down from the press (which was outdoors when we used it for the Muscat and is there to the right in this picture.

Very easy to keep clean this way.  Everything comes to the poly in the bus tray to work, then the bus gets carried back to the slop sink for clean-up.  Been working twice a day this way, 30 to 45 minutes each time.

2010 Muscat day 5, approaching zero

5:30 AM:
Room 72 F, must 73 F & 0.2 Brix.
Still a good deal of CO2 coming up, and enough to stun an ox if the ox put his nose in it like I did.  Will need to move to filled carboys this evening.

Same milky yellow opaque coloring as last year - just about the same color of the rubber O ring that came with the Graf poly. 

2010 Muscat day 4

Morning:
Still active and hot.  See readings.  Switched to short scale hydrometer (+5 to -5) that we bought in the off-season, which which is giving us a much easier reading here in the sudden early end game.

Evening:
Down to 1.5 Brix.
There are a fare number of grape skins, dessicated and floating now, that made it in from the pressing.  Not a cap in the red wine sense, but maybe 50 or 100 grapes.  I skimmed them out.  Next year need to be more careful and strain all the juice going into the fermenter.

2010 Muscat, day 3, best laid plans

Up at 5 and fretting over what might be happening in the cellar.  Here's the deal:

• Room: 71 F;
• Must: 74 F, 8 Brix

Skank!

I'm sure it's all fine, but it's just about opposite what I was hoping for.  Didn't get the very slow start of fermentation that we got last year, so I wasn't ready with enough cooling when things went wacky, and then there seemed to not be enough cooling in the world.  (If I squeeze my eyes shut the bright white flashes look like stainless steel glycol cooled tanks!)

Fermentation is calming with the lower sugar and higher alcohol (probably up to 6 or 7 %), but still pretty vigorous.  Took off the fans but put a couple of ice packs in.

And am already setting on the changes for next year.  A longer sit for the whole grapes before pressing, with pectic enzyme; much less cultured yeast at inoculation, and maybe even trying to cool the must before adding the yeast - going to need help figuring out how to keep it cool.

2010 Muscat, day 2, fermentation is running way too hot

Fermentation is running away and I'm not able to stop it.  Have been adding ice in bags and icepacks through the afternoon but at this point it looks like we'll have fermented down about 9 Brix in a little more than 24 hours and I can't budge the temp down out of the 70's.  Lori's put a big fan on it, and I've reversed the cellar exhaust fan to bring in some of the cooler night air.

For comparison, last year it took 48 hours for the Muscat to really start fermenting and process off one Brix, going from 21 to 20.  (After that it went quickly - going to 10 Brix 36 hours later.)

Should I mark this up to gear lust?  The 100 liter poly doesn't fit in any tub I have that I might create a cold bath in.  I also wonder whether the poly with it's lid and bubbler just does not dissipate as much heat as the carboys I did the primary in last year.  Woe!!  Woah!!

Muscat yield, pectic enzyme?

Yield might be a little better this year than last, but it's still close to only half our red yields.  Lori's going through some back issues of Wine Maker Mag and has found an article on Muscat where they hold they add pectic enzyme to the destemmed grapes and let it sit for 8 hours before pressing.

(Author: Alexis Hartung Issue: Dec 07/Jan 08 Online Date: Thursday, 29 November 2007.)

2010 readings chart

Here's a link to a 2010 chart of our daily wine measurements - temp, Brix, occasional acid, etc.  Entries will lag a day or so, I'm guessing.  I've also added the link to our sidebar re 2010 timing.

2010 Muscat Alexndria day 1. It begins.

The group decided to go ahead and make another Muscat Alexandria from Central Valley grapes this year while waiting for Beckstoffer or Lanza or other reds to be harvested and shipped through M&M.

(Our neighbor, Michael Hearst, snapped this while we were culling bad grapes in the destemmer hopper)

So, yesterday morning at about 8:30 Steve & Mike headed to Terminal Market and picked up 8 42# lugs of Pagnini Muscat Treasure - same grapes as last year, but double the quantity and much more expensive than last year - $40.  (I have last year's Muscat recorded at $34.  A result of this year's late harvest?  Are we getting grapes from small early shipments?)  Brought a refractometer with us, and the grapes looked to be just above 21 Brix - about the same as the sugar content of last year's Muscat (started on Sep. 27, 2009).

I couldn't stop myself from also buying the 100 liter Poly Graf fermenter Lori and I have been eying over the last month.That has to be the end of this year's gear lust.  No?

A quick unload of the grapes at the house, Mike went off to get Pam & Carmello, Peter arrives, S & Pe and L start setting up the works.  We decide to do everything we can out of doors this year, so the new destemmer and the press both wind up in front of the house, and only the Poly Graf goes downstairs.  We get to use the hoses to our hearts' delights (thank you, Jimmy, for the plumbing work).

The work takes on a nice flow - lugs get opened and dumped into the destemmer hopper, 2, 3 or 4 of us pick them over and chat, the destemmer gets fired up, the grapes get transferred to the press where someone futzes with them a bit while the next lug gets loaded into the hopper for picking over.  As free run or press juice reaches a couple of gallons under the press it gets carried downstairs to the fermenter.

The grapes were delicious.  (Some of them wound up on our late lunch cutting board.)  I think condition was better than last year overall, but some of the lugs where better than others.  Raisins and broken grapes, a leaf here and there, a fair number of browned broken grapes.

The destemmer worked incredibly well, which is maybe counterproductive for pressing this white but you can see that it's going to save us hours of work on our reds.  I think destemming was way over 90% and much of the fruit was whole.

Pressing was just as disappointing as last year in terms of yield.  I think we got about 60 liters from the 8 lugs.  After we pressed the first four lugs we got into the habit of a couple of us crushing the grapes by hand in the press basket, and I think this made a significant difference.  We also crushed each full basket twice - redistributing the grapes and starting again.  We also added about 4 inches of blocks to our collection to get a little more oomph.

At some point Mello stopped enjoying himself, Mike took him and Pam home, we started the cleanup (Peter and Lori were heroic), Mike returned, we got the press stowed downstairs and the destemmer out back.  Unless we have real bad whether, the destemmer will get used out front again when we do the reds, but the press will likely be used downstairs, next to the primary fermenters for the reds.

Late afternoon now - Accuvin TA test put the acid at about 7.5, where we want it to be - and the must measured at something like 21 or 21.5 Brix in the hydrometer.  I added about 1/4 tsp. KS02 per 10 gallons - so about 3/4 tsp. in total, to get us to about 50 ppm.  This is part of my fixation in 2010 that we pay more attention to oxidation and try to retain more of the fruit character and stop being the only home wine makers in the world who don't add brother sulfur at this point.

We prepped the yeast (Red Star Montrachet - really wanted to use a white-specific yeast, but didn't get it together in time to do so and this is the only yeast Lapide carries year after year):  used three 5 gram packages, which is what the manufacturer would recommend.  Thinking about it now as I'm writing, I think it would have been better to use a good deal less and let the fermentation start a good deal more slowly.  Next year.

Popped open one of the last three bottles of the 2009 Muscat with lunch.  Then popped open a second.  It's possible that only Peter and I drank the second one, after which I added the yeast to the must and Peter fell asleep on our couch.  Then a wash-up and change of clothes and it was 5 PM - a full day of very sticky white wine making.

At 11:30 PM tested temperature in the ferm, and it was low 70's and the yeast action seemed to have taken hold all across the very broad surface of the tank.  Will start icing it down this morning.

Backyard Brix

Birds and bees have been rollicking in the back yard Concord grapes.  Decided to put one on the refractometer, for yucks.  +20 Brix.  Potential alcohol of just under 11%.  Might be fun to try to gather enough to let go with the wild yeasts that are on them.  (Except no one likes the taste of on Concord wine.  Maybe mulled?)

Corrado? Another possible grape supplier

Ran into big David from up the block.  They just crushed yesterday morning - 26 crates - down on 4th Ave.  Got a direct delivery there from Corrado out of Clifton New Jersey, 30 bucks.  Said they have all sorts of varietals out of CA and that the quality of the grapes was much better than what they got last year from Terminal Market in BKLYN.  (Don't know if they bought from Lapide or Pagano last year.  Do know that in any given year we've had grapes of one variety look great and another be badly molded on the same day.)  Anyway, David is high on Corrado, thinks they move a lot of grapes, knows they deliver t the home cheaply.  I'll call them.  If they have Paso Robles or WA grapes we might be back to a weekend delivery schedule and no drop-ship pickups.

Web presence is not helpful.  Don't think they advertise in Wine Maker Mag. 
Corrado's Wine and Beer Making
600 Getty Ave, Clifton, NJ 07011-2161 (973) 340-0848 ()

corradosmarket.com

Quick test of the destemmer

Wanted to make sure the big thang works before crush day, so clipped a quarter bucket of the concord grapes over the patio and fired the sucker up.  It is not quiet.  It works.  I think.

Destemmed for sure, but it's hard to say if the grapes were treated gently.  They were in bad shape going in, and were in worse shape coming out. 

Also built a rolling cart from the skid it arrived on so we can move it around the cellar during the winter.  (Pics later this morning.)

Paso Robles at M&M

Lori's been hungering for grapes from Paso Robles.  It's becoming a little more clear that M&M will have these grapes from Paso Robles:

1. Cab. S.
2. Merlot
3. Petit Verdot

Also looks like the only Gewurztraminer is as juice - bummer to Mike.

Destemmer arrives, weekend at Shinn, and, oh yeah, total unsought for validation

The destemmer and stand arrived Friday the 10th from St. Pats.  We've got it assembled out back and under tarps, and hope to use it out doors on crush day.

Then it was off to Shinn for the weekend (including a vertical Merlot tasting, their first - 2002 - through 2007, plus the reserves).  Friday late afternoon we were talking to Barbara Shinn and I pointed to the destemmer on their crushpad and I said that we'd just had a new one delivered earlier in the day.  Barbara launched into questions about it and a mini-lecture, the point of which was DON'T CRUSH!  Just destem.  Be gentle.  Wella, wella, music to Lori's ears and all the validation we need.

Yeast / Grape pairing manual

I'm ordering supplies and came across More Wine's yeast / grape pairing manual.  Good ref.