Bruce, I have made Ruby Cab a few times and the only thing I noticed was the acid was a bit higher than the others I made that year. Olmos crossed that one; it makes good wine. I crush by hand also and am not sure what happened on SG Brix's last lug, I can tell you the Merlot was much thicker skinned than Syrah this year, not that that means anything. The color on the Syrah was outstanding.
when you do a 12 recipeHi, all. With all my different batches starting to come ready to bottle, I freed up a few one gallon...
Oak and any dry red are made for each other as far as I am concerned.
I get more out out of my lugs of grapes as a heads up. I will rebuild my press some day but I still just use 3 pails, one with a ton of 1-8 inch holes as a press basket, one to catch the press fraction, one to press. It fits two lugs with ease and I get over 5 gallons from 72 pounds of grapes (which is not out of the ordinary for a real press). I got the idea from Lum's book when I broke a junk press at 7 PM on a Sunday... I used 6 gallon juice buckets. It's free and takes about 20 minutes to make. I place a quart jar in the base bucket to stand off the press bucket. You can use anything for wieght.
Joe
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