The Crushing / DeStemming - Step 1 Pinot Noir Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3 - Home Fresh grapes, just in from the Joaquin Valley of California where our selection came from. We purchased about 1/2 Ton of fresh fruit, including 4 varieties: Pinot Noir (outlined for this tutorial) Chardonnay, Barbara, & Zinfandel. Shown above 1 - Lug of grapes 36 Lbs. For the Pinot Noir tutorial we purchased 7 Lugs or about 252 Lbs. This amount of grapes should yield about 17 to 20 gallons of juice when all is said and done. As we checked through lugs of grapes we were actually doing a quality check on the fruit we purchased. We discarded any dried or rotten looking grapes. For the most part 98% of the fruit looked really good. Yes there will always be a few leaves and couple of dried out grapes here and there. Pictured above Rob & Al dump Pinot grapes into the manual crusher. The purpose is to break the skins open and allow free run juice to flow out. Additionally the grapes are broken to also release the tannins and beautiful deep color of the grapes, much needed to produce a Ruby Red wine after filtration. While we crush through the crusher-destemmer the process is made much easier, as this manual machine will separate the crushed grapes into a larger bucket and the stems are dropped into another bucket. this will make quick work of the 1/2 Ton of grapes we need to process. The time involved just to crush & de stem this amount with two men is about 4 hours. Above Al is conducting several tests, first we check the SG or (specific gravity), also Al will check the Ph and the Acid levels. After the tests are finished we will add in some chemicals to get our grapes ready for fermentation. To get our grapes started the first thing we will do is add some sulphite, this will kill off the wild yeast that grows on the skins of the grapes. By eliminating the wild yeast from fermenting our grapes and causing unwanted / unknown results, we are now in the drivers seat. We will then add in Pectic Enzyme a chemical that will cause the skins to reduce down and give us more juice, it is also known to aid in the clearing process. Our SG & Brix (sugar level) looked very good about 24 Brix. The Ph also looked very good at 3.25. We did need to add in some Acid Blend to bring up to the correct level, maybe about 2 Tsp. Next we added in a Yeast Nutrient which will jump start the yeast and provide a healthy environment for our yeast. Finally we add in the Yeast and cover the primary fermenter with a plastic sheeting. Over the next 5 days the must will be uncovered about 4 times a day and the cap (floating grape skins) will need to be punched down repeatedly. We don't want the cap to raise to the surface and dry out. By punching down the cap we also release tannins and color into the juice.