Pressing and Racking Red Wine
Home Winemaking for
KPCC The Freeway
The fruits of our labors after pressing
What began as 6 buckets of grapes [150 lbs] have been reduced to one
bucket of pomace, about 2 gallons of rosé and about 7 gallons of red
wine. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves….
Cap of red wine must before pressing
After 10 days of daily punching down the grapes , stirring the yeast and
keeping the must cool as possible with ice, we are ready to press off the
wine .
Racking the rosé
Our rosé is being racked off the solids visible as light deposits at the bottom of
the carboy. We use gravity to transfer the wine into clean one gallon jugs for
finishing. Most wine tasks are best done under shade but the sunshine makes
for a better picture.
Racking into first gallon carboy
Some sediment may find its way into the transfer. That’s okay because
we have more racking and fining in our wine’s future.
Racking into a second carboy
Having carboys of various sizes makes it easier to transfer wine and
keeping it safe from excessive exposure to air once it settles down.
An airlock
This is an airlock. They were used with our white wine as it fermented.
Airlocks allow gas to escape out of the carboy but doesn’t allow air to
enter the carboy. All wines will use airlocks until they are bottled.
“Free Run” wine
Let skins sit and drain before pressing?
Seen it before?
Here’s where you’ve seen it.
Draining off some juice for making rosé
Preventing malolactic fermentation in the rosé
Why? Malolactic fermentation converts malic [think green apple] acid to lactic
acid [think milk]. The resulting wine is softer and richer. Leaving it out by using
an enzyme results in crisper and fruitier wine. It’s all about style choices.
Hooking up hot water for cleaning everything
Keeping everything is critically important. I turn up my water heater and hook
up the garden hose to the drain valve so I will have hot water to wash and
scrub down fermenters, buckets, carboys, the press, EVERYTHING!
Ready for cleanup
This 50 gallon fermenter serves as a washtub big enough for everything I use.
There is the tubing and the rosé carboy waiting to washed with hot water. I
don’t have to bring things into the kitchen thus insuring domestic tranquility.
Labeled and ready for settling and racking
All the carboys are labeled as to variety, date and other information. They will
be moved into the wine room and after the particles settle to the bottom, we
will rack and combine carboys where we can. But that’s for next time…