Bushel of grapes is how many lbs

[brewskiez]

I'm using a jack Keller recipe for mustang grape wine he has some 1 gallon recipes that call for 6-8 lbs a gallon but for 5 gallons it says 1/2 bushel which I seen is about 20 lbs de stemmed is that right?

 

[meatcleaver]

Google says 48 lbs / bushel with stems.. 60 lbs per w/o

 

[brewskiez]

Google will say anywhere from 40-60 I need a solid answer

 

[k1ngl1ves]

If a gallon calls for 6-8 lbs, then 5 gallons should call for 30-40 lbs.


It's a hobby. Don't get too crazy. Shoot for 35 lbs and call it a day.

 

[brewskiez]

Well I ended up putting 20 lbs because that was from what I could tell a half bushel of clean grapes. I will add more if I need to but respectfully I want to get this right because while it is a hobby I'm putting a year into it so I don't want the end product to be some screwed up garbage.

 

[kh54s10]

If a gallon calls for 6-8 lbs, then 5 gallons should call for 30-40 lbs.


It's a hobby. Don't get too crazy. Shoot for 35 lbs and call it a day.

^^^^^Here is your answer. If you have not finished with this I suggest you get 15 more pounds in there.....

Well I ended up putting 20 lbs because that was from what I could tell a half bushel of clean grapes. I will add more if I need to but respectfully I want to get this right because while it is a hobby I'm putting a year into it so I don't want the end product to be some screwed up garbage.

 

[brewskiez]

How important is the water initially. I did not have a 10 gallon container I just have a 6 gallon fermenting bucket 35 lbs of crushed grapes plus 4 gallons of water would be well over 5 gallons more like 7 or 8. Can I just add the water after a week or so when I remove the grape must. I only had room for 3 gallons so I'm 1 gallon of water shy.

 

[DoctorCAD]

You shouldn't need water if you are fermenting grapes...

 

[Chef-Ryan]

only water needed when fermenting fresh grapes is for your yeast culture rehydration and maybe KMetabisulphate if you are using that as opposed to Campden tabs

 

[brewskiez]

Strait from jack keller website which came recommended by multiple people on this forum

•1/2 bushel very ripe Mustang Grapes
•12-15 lbs. granulated sugar
•4 gallons water
•6 crushed Campden tablets
•3 tblsp yeast nutrient
•Red Star Montrachet or Lalvin 71B-1122 wine yeast

Destem and wash the grapes. While wearing rubber gloves, crush the grapes in a barrel, crock or polyethyline primary. Add water, 2 lbs sugar to start, nutrient, and crushed Campden tablets, stirring well to dissolve sugar. Cover and let stand 24 hours. Add yeast. Stir every morning for 5 to 6 days, or until all solids rise to top to form a floating "cap" of skins and seeds. Remove all solids and strain juice through a cloth sack. Add remaining sugar (10 lbs if using Montrachet yeast, 13 lbs if using Lalvin 71B) and stir well to dissolve. Pour (better yet, siphon) juice into glass secondary (do not top up) and fit airlock. When fermentation stops, rack, top up, and refit airlock. Rack again in two months and again two months later. Bottle without sweetening. The Lalvin 71B yeast will yield a higher alcohol content. May taste right away but will "mature" in 1-2 years. [Adapted from Poteet Country Winery recipe by Alvin Sueltenfuss, Boerne, Texas]

 

[DoctorCAD]

Oh, mustang grapes are not a traditional wine grape, so that's why. Understood...

 

[TXChas]

I realize this is an old thread, but for anyone who is interested, a Bushel is a measure of volume, not weight. One Bushel is 64 pints or 32 quarts or 8 gallons. Bushels vary, actually. A bushel of corn dried on the cob is different than a bushel of shelled corn. The reason being that a bushel of cob corn and shell corn will (about) equal each other in shelled corn (ie compensating for the cob, which is useless as feed). I'm sure that the same principle applies to stemmed and de-stemmed grapes. But as an earlier poster observed, we are probably getting a little too concerned about bushels for home wine making. I live in Central TX and make mustang wine every year and happen to use my own variant of the jack keller recipe in this thread. The correct amount in my humble opinion for this and most 5 gallon mustang recipes is 12 to 15 lbs, de-stemmed. That works out to about a heaping 6+ gallon home brew bucket for 5 gallon batch. Thats on the heavy side to what most recipes call for, and you got to water down the acid to within the high end of acceptable range, so you might get a little more final yield depending on the year. A really good wine maker I know down the road primaries on the stem, never had a bad bottle from him. Mustang about has to be sweet to balance the high acid. I prefer dry wine but will be pretty adamant about the observation that the best way to ruin mustang wine is to dry it out. Makes a really nice sweet wine though.

 

[brewskiez]

Can’t thank you enough for the reply. I was concerned about my wine but it sounds I may need to back sweeten.