[Almost Enough]

Does anybody do it?

I think I'm about to embark on my first quest with wine making. I'm all stoked from a recent trip through Napa, CA and enjoying some wine tasting.

I have access to brewing kit, but not a press, so I am drawing up some plans to make my own press using a car jack and some 4x4s.

Does anybody have any experience, some wisdom, or some encouragement? I'd love to hear it.

[roscoestring]

My grandmother made wine when I was very young and while I can't remember everything that she did and all the exact measurements this is basically what she did:

She would take the juice from a fruit - grapes, peaches, watermelon, plums, etc. - which was squeezed out by hand in a large pan. The juice was put into a large container with a wide top. I remember extremely large amounts or sugar was added and then the container was covered with a cotten cloth with a rubberband around the top and it was left to sit in the corner of her kitchen. Every so often (I can remember if it was daily or weekly or what) she would remove the cloth, skim the top off, and add more sugar. Then she would recover it and let it sit some more. She always made wine in the summertime. It's really hot in the summer in Georgia and I'm sure that was part of the process. The part that I don't remember is the amount of sugar, the time between skimmings, and how long the entire process took. But the stuff she made was really good. It didn't taste like wine that you'd buy at a store.

I also worked with a fellow once that did basically the same thing except that he used grape Kool Ade instead of the fruit juice. I never tasted his though so I can comment on the quality. But it did smell good.

[Almost Enough]

So, I started picking, de-stemming, crushing, and pressing grapes from my church this week. Photos included. No wine this time. Hopefully next year. I'll give more of a run down on the process later, if anyone is interested. It's a blast working with grapes and seeing the payout at the end.

[S.B.Nichols]

I've brewed my own beer...thought about wine, but I'm not really a fan (though, I don't really like beer either). Brewing is a pretty fun little hobby...addictive, and I'm not talking about the alcohol.

[Almost Enough]

Originally Posted by S.B.Nichols

I've brewed my own beer...thought about wine, but I'm not really a fan (though, I don't really like beer either). Brewing is a pretty fun little hobby...addictive, and I'm not talking about the alcohol.

I'm excited to try beer and wine brewing. My guitarist has done it on a small scale, and loved it. I work across the street from a home brewing store, so I have to watch them in envy as they do all their home-brewing festivals on the sidewalk outside my window.

I'm pretty much teaching myself how to do all of this right now. The guy that helped me build the press is an older retired gentleman that backpacked through Europe and the Middle East in the 70s, and worked as a laborer on the wine fields. He mostly did picking, but got to watch the process as they were making the wine. I drew up the plans for this press, and he threw them out the window and eyeballed everything and we came up with this. The press part is actually an old car jack from a Ford Model T that his father passed down to him when he passed.

So far I spent about a total of 12 man hours and have 10 quarts of unfiltered grape juice to show for it. I'm only about a quarter to a third of the way done with the press-able grapes.