Mustang Grape Pyment

[Jericurl]

This summer I was able to find mustang grapes at my local fruit stand.
I ended up buying @ 20 lbs of them.
I froze them for about a month then ran them through my steam juicer.

They yielded two gallons of juice. The color was very, very dark when I put them into the freezer, but by the time they thawed it turned much lighter.

According to Jack Keller's website, mustang grape juice should be diluted at either 1:3 parts or 1:2 parts. I suspect this is both because of the concentration as well as the amount of acid in the grapes.

I chose to go with 1:2 parts, which be 2 gallons of juice, with 4 gallons of water. That would leave me with 6 gallons of wine. I was a little concerned because I knew I didn't have enough honey in the house to accommodate a batch that size, but I could always run down to the feed store tomorrow and grab another quart.

I added my honey to the juice, then began adding in my water. By the time I got to 5 gallons I decided to stop. The color is already much lighter than I wanted. A small taste leaves me a little thin on flavor, good but definitely won't be the big robust wine I was after.

SG is at 1.08, which will give me @ 11% ABV once finished. I probably don't want to go higher than this considering the lighter flavor.

I do have a couple of options here, just to fill out the profile a bit.
I'll see if I can find any bananas in the freezer to add to my primary, as well as get some oak powder in there.

 

[jblaschke]

Okay, no way those are mustang grapes. You've got yourself some big, fat muscadines there! They look like one of the improved varieties as well. Mustang grapes are smaller and blacker. Like muscadines, they're a slip-skin grape, but the pulp is translucent white. Mustangs are also very low in sugar whilst very high in acid. Here's the test--if you pop a mustang in your mouth and aren't compelled to spit it out immediately, it's not a mustang. Mustang juice has been known to cause chemical burns on the hands of people who handle the juice without gloves. Seriously.

You might want to rethink the recipe you're following. Muscadines make great wine, but they're handled differently from mustang grapes: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques15.asp

 

[jblaschke]

Some folks use mustang and muscadine interchangeably, but they're two very distinct species of grapes. The reason why your flavor is so thin is that you've diluted way more than necessary for muscadines to compensate for the non-existent mustang acid. Keller's recipe for muscadine wine indicates they're nearly as acidic as mustangs, but those are wild vines. Improved, domesticated muscadines have much lower acidity and sugar content approaching 18-20% in some cultivars. Good red muscadine wine can have a nutty, almost port-like quality to it. I think you can still get a good pyment out of this, but you'll have to reconsider you strategy going forward.

 

[Jericurl]

Thank you for the information. Thinking these are mustang grapes vs muscadine has also caused quite a debate on Facebook as well.

I know these were wild gathered by my fruit lady's grandchildren. One of them was covered in a rash that they attributed to gathering the grapes. These kids are pretty forage savvy so I believe them when they say they got the rash from the grapes as they are very familiar with poison ivy.

On the other hand, this area is rather notorious for calling things by the wrong name, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if these are muscadines, though I didn't know they grew in this area.
All the pictures I'm seeing show them looking similar, even in size on some sites. but I have people who forage regularly who are stating nope, those are muscadine, not mustang.

I tasted one...it was rather acidic and musty but I didn't think it was awful. Manthing thought they were horrible, spit one out then went and brushed his teeth.

I didn't really see what the inside of the grapes looked like since I just froze them then threw them straight into the steam juicer.

I do think they were diluted a little too much though, but I figure, at the end of it all I'll still have mead.

 

[Jericurl]

Unfortunately, fermentation on this has already started, but I'm saving the information from everyone.

Going forward, I'll have better info for next years batch.