USING A WINE PRESS

The How's, When's & Why's

Summer is here, and fruits are plentiful. Time to get your wine
making act into full swing... that is, if you haven't done so
already!

I thought this would be a good time to talk about wine presses
and the role they play in home wine making. So often we get
people asking questions about wine presses.... home winemakers
wanting to know how to use one; which one they should buy, and so
on. Hopefully, this article will clear up some of these issues.


- Do I Really Need A Wine Press?

The first that thing that might be going through your mind after
seeing this article is, "Wine press! Do I need a press just to
make a little wine at home?" And, the answer is, "certainly not."

In fact very few people who make their own wine at home have a
press. You can make wine by using the vast selection of packaged
wine making juices that are available today--no pulp involved.
Or, you can make wine using a few pounds of berries--very little
pulp involved. Neither require using a wine press.

But with that being said, there are many types of fruits that
could be handled much more easily and efficiently with the aid of
a wine press. The first fruit obviously coming to mind is the
ever-present wine grape.

If you are actually making wine from freshly-crushed wine grapes,
whether it be Merlot grapes from California or Concord grapes
from your own backyard, you may want to consider looking at
getting a wine press. The volume of grapes required to make each
gallon of wine almost dictates it--typically 12 to 16 pounds.
That's a lot of pulp!

With wilder grapes such as Scuppernong or Fox grape, water is
used to dilute the stronger flavor and acidity that these grapes
have. So, not quite as much pulp is involved--usually 25-50
pounds--to end up with 5 gallons of wine. However, having a press
even in these situations would still be of benefit in the sense
that it would allow you to extract more juice and flavor from the
grape's fiber, but this is a matter of production efficiency
rather than a matter of wine quality.

The same is true with other fruit wines such as blackberries,
strawberries, currants and others. These are all fruits that are
diluted with water and sugar to bring them into balance. But
again, flavor extraction can be improved by the incorporation of
a wine press into the process.

You may simply be making a lot of wine from berries. For every 5
gallons of berry-type wine you make, you will need anywhere from
12 to 20 pounds of fruit. If you are making 40-50, maybe even a
100 gallons of berry wine of some type, you may want to invest in
a wine press, just to make the process of handling the pulp
quicker and easier.


- Choosing The Right Wine Press

There are two basic styles of wine presses that are available to
the home winemaker. The first being the ratchet design and the
second being the cider design. Both are equally effective in
squeezing the juice from the pulp.

Ratchet Design:
This particular type of wine press is normally associated with
larger batches of homemade wine. Someone making 20 gallons or
more at a time might want to consider this type of press.

What makes the style of this press unique is that it has a
ratcheting head that works its way down a threaded, stationary
shaft that is secured at the base of the press. This ratcheting
allows you to easily apply the pressure necessary to separate the
juice from the pulp.

The ratchet press will usually have a two-piece break-away basket
design which will allow you to remove the spent pulp more quickly
between pressings--again, facilitating anyone who intends to do
many pressings per batch.


Cider Design:
This style of press is usually smaller and more appropriate for
someone who is making 5 to 10 gallons at a time. It will press
any kind of crushed fruit, not just apples. And, just like the
ratchet press, this press has a center-threaded shaft, but it is
the shaft that is being spun to apply the pressure, not a
pressing head.

This type of press can apply just as much pressure as the ratchet
press, however for someone who intends to do 10, 15 or even more
pressings per batch it can become cumbersome. But, if you are
making smaller batches this will not be much of an issue since
you will only be doing 3 or 4 press runs per 5 gallon batch.

To view all of the presses we offer, go to the following link
listed on our web site:

Wine Presses


- Using A Wine Press

As mentioned earlier, a wine press can be incorporated into the
production of any type of wine. However, how and when the wine
press is used can vary slightly from one style of wine to the
next.


When Should I Press The Grapes?
Contrary to many novice beliefs, the wine grape is not always
pressed at the very beginning of the wine making process. When
making wine from red grapes, the grapes are usually pressed only
after they have been crushed and fermented for a period of
time--usually 4 to 7 days.

The amount of time the must is fermented on the crushed pulp will
determine the resulting wine's color, body and flavor intensity.
The pulp, and more specifically the skin of the grape is where
most all of its color and body lies.

For the first 3 or 4 days of fermentation on the pulp, it is both
color and body elements that are being extracted from the pulp
and into the juice. After this time not much more color
extraction is noticed, but a continual increase in flavor
and--more particularly--body will be noticed.

Commercially made wines such as Zinfandel display an excellent
example of what pulp fermentation can do to change a wine's
character. The Zinfandel grape is actually a red grape. Yet, with
this single, red grape the wine industry is able to produce a Red
Zinfandel, Zinfandel Blush and a White Zinfandel. Three different
wines all coming from the very same grape. The difference being
the amount of time the crushed grape skins stayed in contact with
the juice.

White wines--or wines made from white grapes--are normally both
crushed and pressed at the very beginning of the winemaking
process. The goal for most winemakers when making a white grape
wine is to keep its character light, fruity and crisp. By
eliminating the pulp from the fermentation process completely
these characters will be more present within the wine.

However having said this, there are some exceptions. Heavier
white grape wines will at times be fermented on the pulp for a
short period of time. Some examples of these types of wines would
be Chardonnay, Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc--white wines with
very full body. These pulp fermentations usually are not done any
longer than 3 days and most often less than 1 day.

It should also be noted that fermenting a white wine on the skins
will intensify the yellow color of the wine, at times bringing it
close to a straw color. So, if you do not prefer this type of
color, you should stay away from fermenting white grape on the
pulp.


When Should I Press Other Fruits?:
Well, this would depend on the fruit and the character you are
trying to bring out in the wine. The ideas are the same as
described above with the red and white grapes; you just need to
apply these ideas to the fruit you are dealing with.

For example, when making wine with apples, pears, gooseberries,
grapefruit and such, you will probably want to eliminate the
fiber and skin of the fruit in the very beginning. If you are
making wine from darker fruits such as blackberries, raspberries,
elderberries and such, you could ferment on the pulp for up to 8
or 9 days to produce a very heavy, bold wine. Or, you could
ferment on the pulp for just 1 day to produce a lighter-bodied,
blush wine with more fruity, crisp characters.

The choice is yours... this is part of what makes winemaking so
fun and interesting. It is the adventure of being able to play
around with all these little subtleties that allow you to make a
wine that is special to you and something you can call your own.


How To Do A Pressing?
Pressing the grapes and other fruits is a fairly straightforward
operation. Regardless of the type of press you are using, you
start off by dumping the crushed fruit into the press basket.

The first thing that will occur when you do this is juice will
start collecting and coming out of a spouted portion of the
press's collector. So, have a bucket or fermenting vessel already
in place before dumping in the crushed fruit to handle this
immediate flow of juice. The juice that comes off on its own
before actually pressing the pulp is known as the "free-run"
juice.

You may find it more practical to drain the free-run away from
the pulp even before dumping it into the press basket. This can
easily be done by first putting the freshly crushed fruit in a
fermenter or other vessel with a faucet at the bottom. Then use
the faucet to drain the free-run away from the pulp. Then dump
only the remain pulp portion into the press basket.

The free-run is often set aside by wineries and finished up
separately and sometimes even bottled and sold separately.
However, with the smaller batches that the typical home winemaker
deals with, this may not necessarily be practical.

The free-run produces a softer, fruitier wine with slightly less
color and considerably less body than then any press-run wine. It
also matures more quickly. Wines made only from press-run juice
tend to be richer, more earthy in character. Their body is fuller
and their aroma less fruity but with a more herbal or organic
impression.

In fact as the pressing plate becomes tighter and tighter on the
pulp, the more intense these characters become incorporated into
the juice. Each additional ounce of juice that is squeezed out
becomes stronger and stronger even to the point of becoming too
bitter. Which means that--yes--you can over press the pulp.

This is also a reason why you should consider keeping, at
minimum, a portion of the free-run with the press-run--to offset
any over pressing that occurs. Or, you can make the free-run and
press-run juices into wine separately. And then at bottling time,
blend them back together in a proportion that you determine by
taste. While this is definitely more work and probably not to
practical with smaller batches, it does give you full control of
the body of the resulting wine.


- A Few Words About Crushing The Fruit

There are no hard-and-fast rules about how the fruits should be
crushed other than to say they should not be over-crushed. This
rules out the use of food processors to blend or puree the fruit.
Doing so will not only give you a very bitter wine with only
marginal fruity flavors, but it will also give you a must that
will take much longer to settle out once the fermentation has
completed.

If you are making wine with berries you can often crush them
sufficiently with just your hands or possibly a potato masher.
You could also use the butt end of a 2X4 to crush them against
the bottom of a pail. This is assuming of coarse the the 2X4 has
been cleaned and sanitized first. Whatever means you can come up
with that seems practical for you, go for it.

Just remember that the only goal here is to break open the skin
of the fruit, anything more than this is just more work. With
larger fruit such as peaches, grapefruits, apricots--cut them up
first, pit if necessary, and then crush.

If you are dealing with larger batches of wine, 50 gallons and
more, you may want to consider investing in a fruit crusher. A
fruit crusher is a hopper that leads the fruit through two
rollers which do the crushing.

The fruit crusher we offer also has rotating knives within the
hopper as well, making it more suitable for larger, orchard
fruits as well as berries and grapes.

To learn more about the fruit crushers we offer, go to the
following link listed on our web site:

Fruit Crushers
 

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E. C. Kraus

Home Wine & Beer Making Supplies

Address: 733 S. Northern Blvd. - P. O. Box 7850 - Independence, MO  64053

Phone:(816) 254-7448  Fax:(816) 254-7051  Toll Free: (800) 353-1906

Email: customerservice@eckraus.com

Copyright (c) 2004, Kraus Sales, L. L. C. All rights reserved. This article may be passed

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