On to MLF in the Winepod

Well, folks, we are now in a phase called Malolactic Fermentation; the cool kids call it MLF. It is admittedly a pretty boring phase for a wine maker, but a necessary step in the making of quality wine, particularly red wines. When the yeast has done its job and converted all the sugar in the grape must to alcohol, it is safe to inoculate for MLF.  

This involves adding some bacteria (yum!) to convert the harsh acids naturally present in grapes (malic acids) to softer lactic acds. We have the temperature set on our Winepod between 74 and 76 degrees and we are letting the bacteria do its thing. At this stage it is important not to let too much air in to the Winepod which can cause oxidation. We gently punchdown once per day and then sparge the surface area of the grape must with nitrogen to prevent oxidation.  

The wine is looking darker (a sign that MLF has finished is uniformly dark grape pips, or seeds) and it smells like, well, wine!  The taste is very acidic and somewhat tannic at this point but we have some ways to go before it is ready for the spotlight.  We are going to let the grapes sit for some extra time on the skins, called extended maceration, to develop some flavor and richness.

Stay tuned...

Adventures of the Winepod Continue...

Sunday:

Our fermentation has been kicking and it looks like it is about a day ahead at this point. We have been running warm since the get go (but within limits) and our brix took a solid turn down to 14 degrees. We have been punching down consistently and have added nutrients to keep the yeast gobbling away at the sugar and to keep fermentation on track. We raised the temp limits to 85F-90F as instructed for brix levels between 5 and 15. Our tastes indicate that we were moving along nicely. No off odors as best as we can tell and we are starting to notice the smell of alcohol. Acidity seems to be where we wanted it and overall color is looking good. We are still concerned that we will end up with a wine that is carrying a little more alcohol than we wanted, but we will just have to wait and see.

Monday:

A day later and we are over 88 degrees and down to 9 brix. As a side note, we have been vigilant about pulling out any MOG (material other than grapes; stems, leaves, etc.) that are readily apparent to us as we punch down the cap. We pulled a sample. The color is considerably deeper (looks like a Cab!) and the alcohol smell is more apparent. Otherwise, the nose is a little tight right now. The wine still tastes sweet but good and the acidity is more noticeable.

Tuesday:

When I did a punchdown this morning, the cap was not as high as it had been during previous punchdowns. The temperature was also up around 89 and the brix was at 5 degrees. I had remembered reading that when the brix was below 5 degrees it was time to lower the Temp setpoints. However, what to do at 5 brix? Made a quick call to Taylor to get his take and we decided to lower the set points to 75 and 80 versus all the way down to 72 and 75. We were going to be away all day at a wine tasting (yes, I know!!) so we were afraid to leave the temp where it was in case the brix was to fall under 5 degrees while we were out. We returned this evening to a Temp of 81 and 0 brix. We performed a punchdown and then reset the Temp to 72 to 75 degrees. After that the brix was reading from 3 to, currently 1. It looks like tomorrow we will test for residual sugar and see where we are at.

Wednesday

We are now at 75 degrees and -2 brix (officially alcohol!) so it is time to do a residual sugar test to see if the brix measurement on the Winepod is accurate. Off to another wine tasting, so will report on that later.

Cheers!

Routine Punchdown

I woke up this morning and was uneasy about the temperature of the Winepod, which had reached 78.7, above the upper limit of 78 Taylor had set yesterday. We are having trouble with our temperature control, which is 'auto on' but doesn't seem to start the cooling process or turn on the alarm without us tinkering with it. Seeing the temperature was higher than expected (although our brix finally moved -- to 23) I lifted the lid and WHOA, the grapes were all the way to the top of the Winepod. This was unsettling to me and all I could think about was that jingle "they plump when you cook em'!"

I was pretty sure I should lower the temperature but I quickly got Taylor on the horn to huddle about what to do next. He helped me through changing the Set Temp Limits again (72/77) and we turned the Auto Temp Control on and off until it started cooling. Who knows how we did it but something apparently worked. Taylor suggested I punchdown to deal with that problem of the grapes looking like they were ready to escape. The grapes were so high that I lost a few over the top (not too many as I was going slow and steady) but the punchdown tool slid to the bottom of the Winepod quite easily. I mixed everything back up and by then the Temp had already lowered to 77 and the brix had dropped to 21.

My hands looked like I had been involved in a stabbing but otherwise everything seems back on track. I will wait for Taylor to later today to taste and make note of the aromas and flavors...

Well, the must is way up to the top of the Winepod again but Taylor was able to siphon out a sample for us. Once you get past the CO2, the aromas are still yeasty, berry, and some green olive. The taste is sweet berry and soft on the palate with only a small hint of that acidity we are going for. We did not detect any off odors at all.

In other news, we did some research and we have decided to punchdown a few times a day. Cheers!

WinePod Punchdown Day One

We were happy to discover that, when we pulled the lid off the Winepod tday, a cap had formed -- so we actually had something to punchdown on our first punchdown day! We could smell the sweet fruit and alcohol as soon as the lid had been removed. The cap resembled what I can only describe as pretty pink and purple worms congregating at the top of the Winepod. We checked the temperature (around 73 degrees) and the brix (still a hearty 26 - whoa!) and then prepared to integrate the cap into the must.

Punchdown was relatively easy, although it was difficult to tell at times when -- or if -- we had reached the bottom of the must with the punchdown tool. I tried not to take out my aggression, resulting from a two-touchdown defiicit for Syracuse in the Syracuse v. Penn State football game, and push down ever so gently on the cap. Taylor (aka Winemonkey) took over to finish the job, both of us proceeding as instructed in the punchdown video.

Punchdown took all of five minutes and then we were ready to sample our wine during its early fermentation phase. The hay we smelled a few days ago has fallen to the back for the most part and today we smelled a little bread from the yeast but also fresh, darker fruit, and hints of olives. We both took a small sip and agreed that the juice is still young and sweet, but less sweet due to the growing presence of alcohol. Taylor adjusted the lower set Temp to 72 from 70 as wine maker John Kelly did during his first punchdown day.

Now we are ready for the daily punchdowns until we reach 20 brix. The question remains....will we ever get down to 20 brix?!?!

PS: What this high brix level means is that we are destined to be making a high alcohol wine. Not our intention but we will see what happens.

Making Wine with the WinePod: Fermentation

Fermentation Day 1!

So, earlier today we revised our upper temp limit to 70 as we allowed the must to gently creep up in temperature to be closer to what we were looking for when we wanted to add the yeast. The yeast is going to turn our grape must into alcohol/wine.

We realize the Winepod has a heater element, but we figured it would be better to let nature do its job. There was no hint of a natural fermentation so we were comfortable letting the temp rise on its own.

Jen and I ran out for another bottle of Fiji water (which is what we used yesterday to add the acid) so that we could be sure that the water was the same and that there was no chlorine in the water, which is no good for the wine. After heating up 200ml, we cooled the water down to 102 (putting it somewhere between wine maker John Kelly's 104 and the the WinePod software recommendation of 98.6).

Once the water was at 102 we added in 2 packs (20g total) of GoFerm Yeast Extract to help the yeast along. Ten minutes of fairly anxious waiting and we then popped in not one but two packs of UvaFerm 43 (16g total). This is more than the WinePod software recommends, but we had to trust John on this end as it is one of the most crucial points in the process and we did not want to risk a stuck fermentation. This is when things don't get moving in the whole process of turning grape juice into wine. Additionally, John's notes indicated that there was very little yeast 'finger print' with this strain so we felt comfortable adding in the extra.

We reset our temp limits to 70-78 and pulled out 50ml of must for proofing with our handy wine thief and set it aside. The must smelled sweet and perfumey, very clean with no off odors. Jen noted fresh blackberry and some sort of flower note and I noted some hay/greener flavors which is typical at this point. Honestly, it is entirely reminscient of the aromas in a winery during crush.

After another 10 minutes of letting the yeast settle, we mixed everything together and transferred the (sanitized) Pyrex measuring cup to acclimate with the must before pitching in. Surprisingly, our must is very juice heavy and we were concerned that the measuring cup might tip over into the must before it had time to cool down. So we walked on eggshells around the Winepod and after 15 minutes we prepared to proof the yeast mixture with the must we previously set aside along with a pinch of sugar like John described in his notes. Most probably this is a combination of both the WinePod and John Kelly's methods, but one with which we were most comfortable. The initial proof comfirmed the yeast was active and ready to go. The proofing also dropped our yeast mixture temp down to 79.8 and we pitched the mixture in.

Now we cross our fingers and hope for the best!

Bubble, Bubble, Toil, and Trouble!

Prefermentation Phase in the WinePod:

Today, after worrying about our temperature for a spell -- it seemed a little too warm but was finally deemed "normal" -- we decided on our additions to the must.

Our first decision was to add slightly more TA (tartaric acid) than recommended based on some of our favorite California Cabs (okay, okay, so we are acid freaks by nature!). We mixed the TA with some quality bottled water and into the Winepod it went! After a good mixing to a chorus of "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble", we were on to the next step.

Moving forward we made an executive decision to skip the the oak, grape, and grape/oak tannin additives. We gave the thumbs up to the Lallzyme enzyme, which helps to deepen color, as well as the Booster Rouge and Opti-Red which promote weight and texture on the palate.

After these packets were thoroughly mixed in to the must, we checked the aromas (smells like young grape juice!) and flavors. Everything seems right on and, although certainly not ready for a nice, juicy steak, our Cabernet is surely on the way to stardom.

Also, due to our temperature problems from earlier where we never got our must down below 55, we did a quick temperature limit update after reading Westwood wine maker John Kelly's process. With the imminent addition of the yeast and John's experience, we felt that turning the alarm off and letting the must settle in to a higher temperature was not going to hurt anything. We lifted our lower set point to 61 degrees and the moved the upper to 68 degrees. (John went 62-72)

Next stop Fermentation!

Making Wine With the WinePod!

Winemonkey and I are now officially wine makers! We are making wine using the latest technology in home wine making - the WinePod. As part of a project called Club Ferment, we will be using Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from the same California vineyard to make wine in the Winepod along with about 25 other wine makers across the country. We all start the process on the same day and will follow along with the other wine makers' progress through the internet.

Yesterday, 9-10-09, we received the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes for our first Winepod wine making adventure. The grapes were in great condition, especially considering they were shipped frozen from Californ-I-A!

The first step was to calibrate the brix sensor (fancy talk for adjusting the device that measures the sugar content of the grapes) and then we were on to sanitizing everything and anything that will touch the precious juice. This reportedly takes 20 minutes but, let me tell you, it was a long and labored process -- particularly considering the Winepod is in my home office and not in a winery with water supplies, hoses, etc.

We then opened the grape pails and did a little hand sorting which entails picking out leaves, stems, and under ripe grapes -- there weren't that many -- to prevent off flavors and insure the best quality end product. It was then time to pour the grapes into our trusty Winepod. We added a small amount of sulphur along the way to prevent from spoilage, secured the lid on the 'pod, and set the temperature between 50 and 55 degrees.

Now....we wait. Fermentation today so stay tuned for more Winepod wine making excitement!