48 What Amount Of Grapes Should Be Used?
Description
This article is from the WineMaking FAQ, by malak@CAM.ORG (Don Buchan) with numerous contributions by others.
48 What Amount Of Grapes Should Be Used?
{Someone is being generous enough to give me some wine grapes and I
need to know what amount I need to make five gallons.}
It is suggested that 100 lbs. (45.36 kg) of red grapes (ie., grapes to
be pressed after fermentation) and 125 lbs. (56.70 kg) of white grapes
(pressing at or near time of crush) for 5 gallons of finished wine in
the bottle. These quantities usually produce two or three bottles more
than five gallons, but you then will be sure to have enough to stay in
a five gallon carboy throughout the process even with a bit of spillage
and sloppy racking. These recommendations assume that you are using a
conventional stemmer-crusher and something like a basket press.
It depends upon the kind of grape, the vintage (annual variance in
cluster size and juiciness), how hard you press the must, if you barrel
or not (if so for how long), etc.
A rough number is 32 pounds of red wine grapes per 12 bottle case of
finished wine.
* with red wines, you can figure that 1 Ton (2000 lbs.) produces 200
gallons of crush for primary fermentation.
* 200 gallons of crush presses out to be about 160 to 170 gallons of
raw wine.
* 1 year's worth of barreling, racking, and evaporative losses (through
barrel staves) results in about 90% of this making it to the bottling
line (i.e., about 150 gallons per ton).
* there are 5 X 750 ml bottles per gallon, or 2.4 gallons per 12 bottle
case.
* so, 62.5 cases per ton of red wine grapes is the planning figure I
get.
* 2000 pounds divided by 62.5 cases = 32 pounds per case of red.
White wines will require more pounds of grapes per case of wine, about
42 pounds per case.
* with white wines, you can figure that 1 Ton (2000 lbs.) produces 125
gallons of crush for primary fermentation (if you avoid pressing too
hard -- i.e. over 1 atm of pressure).
* all else is roughly the same (racking, barreling, evap. loss, etc.)
ending with about 112 gallons at the bottling line, or about 47 cases.
* so, 47 cases per ton of white wine grapes is the planning figure I
get.
* 2000 pounds divided by 47 cases = 42 pounds per case of white wine.
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