Sunday, October 22, 2017

Helpful Conversions for Small Lots

When we first started making our Chenin Blanc, we counted our clusters and determined the number of pounds and then the number of gallons of juice we had. This doesn't take into account the losses that were incurred with each racking. Our first vintage consisted of approximately 355 clusters that weighed 65 pounds and produced about 5 gallons of juice. From the 5 gallons of juice, we produced twelve 750 mL bottles and nineteen 350 mL bottles that equaled 15.65L or 4.14 gallons.
It's a little difficult dealing with such small numbers. Last year, we had 1000 clusters of Chenin Blanc that weighed 100 pounds and turned into 12 gallons of juice from which we bottled one case of 750 mL and two cases of 375 mL plus 3 bottles. We totally had to pour down the drain approximately 4 gallons of juice that we messed up, so we ended up bottling about 4.76 gallons of wine.
We have been going to get our yeast supplies from Hartford and found two charts of helpful conversions for small lots that I took a photo of:

Those conversion charts are very helpful, so I reproduced it so that I could refer to it:
I was wondering why the pounds to gallons chart included what appeared to be an odd 36 pounds conversion.
When we went to get our yeast, the loading dock was full of grapes in crates. There were also crates of Barbera and since we are growing Barbera, I had to take a picture of the crates.
When I got home, I noticed that each crate was 36 pounds. So, if someone bought one crate of Barbera they could make 2.5 gallons of wine. To buy a ton of grapes, one would have to purchase approximately 56 crates!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for your comment. I think it is pretty accurate. We are using these conversion charts to figure out what size of tanks we might need next year for our first full harvest in our vineyard (crossing fingers).

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