9/22/21
J offered me some grapes from his backyard, he had a huge bumper crop of concord grapes with plenty to spare. So I headed over and picked a "bunch" and brought them home.
First I separated the grapes from the stems, discarding any excessively green or dried out grapes. I put the nice grapes, a little at a time, into a spaghetti pot and smashed them with my hands. Then I squeezed it through a mesh strainer bag. The fresh-squeezed juice yielded 1.052 specific gravity, so ~6.7% alcohol potential. I put this first press into the 1-gallon jug with some Red Star Premiere Blanc yeast and an airlock. I didn’t really sanitize anything, because it is all somewhat freshly cleaned from previous uses.
10/1/21
The fermentation stopped after a little over one week. I poured the wine into a keg through a strainer/funnel combo, chilled, and carbonated it. It tastes kinda awesome. M says: “it tastes like sparkling grape juice”.
10/2/21
I poured a tall pint glass of the stuff and really enjoyed it. It's kind of like a wonderful light grape juice crossed with a tasty slightly sour beer. It's not particularly wine-like. More like a grape cider if that makes any sense. Or a grape beer. Mmmm!
