Wine Making for Beer Guys

So as we finished bottling the last few drops of our brew, we were off to another fermentation project. Not of the hops variety, but of the grape variety. Yes, yes, yes...it's not beer, but wine. Hey, it's still fermentation and it's got alcohol too, so why not!

We decided to make the Chilean Malbec.

Malbec Leaf

Here's a little more info about this grape variety for you (from Wiki):

Malbec Grapes

The Malbec grape is a thin-skinned grape and needs more sun and heat than either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot to mature. It ripens mid-season and can bring very deep color, ample tannin, and a particular plum-like flavor component to add complexity to blends. Sometimes, especially in its traditional growing regions, it is not trellised and cultivated as bush vines (the goblet system). Here it is sometimes kept to a relatively low yield of about 6 tons per hectare. The wines are rich, dark and juicy.

So, at Cask and Kettle, we got a box of concentrated malbec juice, which we first diluted with crisp, clean water. Here are a few pictures of people taking turns mixing and adding yeast:

 

Here the wine is checked for the correct specific gravity before it is stored for fermenting.

The wine sits in the fermenter for 3 weeks before the next step, which is the clarification step. The wine was transferred to a glass carboy. The specific gravity was rechecked at 0.994 (normal is < 0.996). At the same time, the alcohol was checked at 13%.

At this point for clarification, potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite are diluted in water before they are mixed into the wine for a few minutes.

Potassium sorbate is added to wine to prevent the yeast from reproducing. So any existing yeast can still continue to ferment any residual sugars. Once they die, there will be no new yeast. The potassium metabifulfite, when added, produces sulfur dioxide gas that prevents most microorganisms from growing and acts as an antioxidant to protect the color and the delicate flavors of the wine. The last part is mixing in the chitosan, which is used to precipitate out any solids in the wine. 

After mixing in all of the chemicals, the airlock is replaced and the wine is allowed to sit in the carboy for another 3 weeks to clarify before the bottling phase.

Stay tuned next time for wine bottling.