Norton brandy

[Jr-dist]

Anyone tried norton grapes to make a brandy? Currently can get them for 50 cents a lb

[still_stirrin]

Anyone tried norton grapes to make a brandy? Currently can get them for 50 cents a lb

How many pounds do you need to collect a gallon of grape juice? A gallon of juice will net you about a 1/2 cup of brandy. You do the math.
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[Dougmatt]

Weight required varies and is dependent on factors like Brix, and varietal. I expect it’s typical so around 13-17lbs per gallon. I usually use 3lbs per 750 bottle as an estimate thumb rule when buying grapes.

On Norton, it’s a popular grape for desert wine. You could Brandy some and use the spirt to fortify a nice desert wine if your brix is high enough (or you could backsweeten to taste). There was a winery in Tennessee I visited on the way to Nashville (Beans Creek) that does a Norton port style which I bought bottles of (http://www.beanscreekwinery.com/winelist) a look at the website shows they use the Cynthiana (another name for Norton) as the brandy so apparently I liked it as part of this concoction given I bought some to bring home.

I haven’t tried to brandy it personally so can’t directly comment on that.

[squigglefunk]

i have been reading 85 to 90 pounds (39 to 41 kg) of fresh grapes (still on their stems) to make five gallons of wine which seems to jive with above post

[Jr-dist]

Thanks

[Bushman]

I had similar thoughts with out the data. Getting your fruit for free is the best way to go and a member Cranky is the master at finding free fruit.

[Dougmatt]

Free is always nice, BUT It’s a pretty good deal at $.50 depending on where you live. I usually pay around $100 for 6 gallons of juice and a bag of skins during fall harvest season in Atlanta. It’s about $45 equivalent at your price not even factoring in a second press. When I was out in California I would see better deals on bulk buys, but had to take very large amounts.

With the grapes, you can do your crush, catch the free run and do a light first press, then like a gum ball head, add water, sugar and nutrients to do a deeper second press. This drives up the production. You could also do a full first press and chapitalize the juice to get a higher Abv.

If it was me, I would ferment the free and first press, brandy the second press and use it to fortify to create a port style (check out tasting notes on the beans creek link above for what to possibly expect), but if you just want to boost your brandy, ferment and run it all separately then blend or just chapitalize the base.

Just in case you are not familiar with the second press concept, here’s an article I found on a quick search that gives the highlights.

https://winemakermag.com/technique/620- ... techniques

Doing the math on the brandy batch…. Keep me honest on the math, but I think it works out to around:

$45 of grapes 90lbs
yields ~6 gallons of wine @12% Abv (estimate, not including second press or chapitilization which will ~1.5x to 2x this)
This would be .72 gallons @100% Abv
Or 1.8 gallons at 40% Abv
Assuming tight 35% cut you would get .63 gallons or 2.86 liters
Or 3.8 bottles of 750ml brandy @ 40%

$11.84 / bottle grape cost.

Before Output boosting techniques like seconds and chapitalization. (PM me if you want help with that). So you decide if it’s worth it.