The grapes I planted 2 years ago decided to give me some grapes. I needed a way to juice them after being crushed and sitting on some yeast.for a week.The grapes were not sweet and I figure
about 7 to 8% but what the heck to try any way. All this is a learning curve for me.



Real simple. Made with a 2x10 frame, an extra car jack which is bolted to the frame , a ss pot with a hole on side for drain piping, plastic 1/2" fittings and valve, a fresbie, a free aluim heavy pan,
marbles and some cheese cloth. Pot costT $12 at walmart, $7 for 2x10 8' , $8 for marbles, about $6 for valve and fittings and i had every thing else on hand(stain, varnish, glues, screws, 2 bolts/nuts./washers)
the jack was for my car but I don't need it.

This is how the piping looks. I set it up to work like a french drain. I used a conduit plastic male fitting with an oring on the outside so a tread plastic valve
can snug up all the way to the pot.

I added  marbles for the drain and use cheese cloth on top of that.

top view with the jack, then a wood ram which does not touch the juice, the aluim pot, then the plastic frisbie which fits the pot perfect,  then the grapes juice, cheese cloth to french drain set up.
It does work good. I still have a  couple of ideas to make it a little better.

What can I say. I grew my grapes with no spraying, we are in south la, and then crushed them in a homemade juicer and now I am making wine with it.
This was one of my projects I wanted to do. This ended up close to 3 gallons of wine to be. Next week i should get to make 4 to 5 more gallons.
The grapes were Black Spanish.

thats cool!





but cleaning those marbles must be a pain. I bet it will work without any marbles.

 

awesome

Where do you live in LA?

I sure could use that for some muscadine wine I am about to start.

What I did  was to place a layer of cheese cloth over the marbles then had a frisbie with a bunch of 1/4"
holes in it, The inverted fresbie sits on top of the cloth so no crushed grapes get into the marbles.I just scoop out the
pressed grapes off the fresbie.I just add the second fresbie after the first trail run.

I live in the New Orleans area.I  just picked my muscadines. I like to freeze them first.
This year I will do the 100% juice. Now what I did for the wine grapes is to freeze them, then defrost and destem
by hand. Then I crush them and put the crushed grapes and juice into a primary. After they have been gassed I add my
yeast, wait a week then I press them. All the juice goes into my secondary.

This year I am making wine from blueberries, muscadines, wine grapes and pears(I should pick that in a week or two)

If you came up with that design, kudos!  Even if not, great build out.  I'm sure many would be interested in hearing about any improvements you make.

I got the basic idea off the net. The french drain idea was mine.