Wine making

[gemini5362]

One of the big problems with making distilled spirits is that people try to double and triple distill the material to get the alcohol content up. When you do that you run into trouble with the flash point of alcohol

 

[HomeBrew2]

One of the big problems with making distilled spirits is that people try to double and triple distill the material to get the alcohol content up. When you do that you run into trouble with the flash point of alcohol

Hence the need for many more warnings, public service announcements, and local health department campaings regarding clandestine alcohol production!

From what I've "heard", the first step, regarding flash point, is to make sure the connections of your lyne arm from your pot still to condenser are TIGHT and not in a position to be over the burner or, within a combustable vicinity thereto. That situation has been known to preempt further generational distillations

 

[Chuck52]

I would imagine it varies greatly with the variety, but does anyone have a general idea how many vines are needed to get enough grapes for home wine production? I'm talking about gallons here, not barrels. I've thought of adding some grapes to my varied fruits, and if I do that I'd try to get some that are at least possibly of use for wine making. Vineyards are measured in acres, but I'm thinking in terms of numbers of vines.

I think someone mentioned muscadines earlier. I grew up in the foothills of the Smokies and we could find wild muscadines. They have a unique flavor that lends itself to desert-type sweet wines, but a friend of mine made a really great dry muscadine wine. The middle of Missery is supposed to be too cold for muscadines, but as things seem to be getting warmer every year (despite the current aberrant cold snap), I might give them a try. The native grape usually planted for wine here is the Norton. I got some crushed Norton from a local winery and made my own wine a couple of years ago. Gawd it was bad. I really had to work at drinking it! However, I've now tried a number of commercial Norton wines and the only ones I like are Ports based on Nortons. I think I just don't like the flavor of Norton much.

Chuck

 

[HomeBrew2]

I was interested in your question enough to do a quick Yahoo search ...

Per Mount Palomar Winery,
" It takes about 2.6 lbs of fruit to make a bottle of wine. A typical vineyard might yield five tons per acre or about 3850 bottles of wine per acre.
Grapevines yield different quantities of fruit, depending upon the planting density of the vineyard. The more vines planted per acre, the less fruit per vine.
Many older California vineyards were planted with vines spaced widely at 8 feet apart in rows 12 feet apart. That 8X12 spacing resulted in 454 large vines per acre. "

Really doesn't seem to take many vines to produce the federal legal limit for a family per year.

 

[Chuck52]

Thanks, Homebrew. I actually have a field of 2-3 acres I have thought of planting in wine grapes, with the idea that a local winery might be interested in buying the grapes. At present, it is just a hayfield that someone else cuts, and I thought that might be a way to get a bit of cash out of it. However, an acre or three of grapes is probably a fairly labor intensive crop to deal with, though it is possible the winery might at least do the harvesting. I'll probably never actually do that, but I do think a few vines for my own use is a project I could tackle. Sounds like you can get several bottles from a single productive vine, so that ten or so vines would make a useful amount.

Of the local wines, I like the Vignoles best. They come in a nice tart semi-sweet style which I like, and also a very sweet desert style I can do without.

Chuck