Hi folks,

Nice group you have here!
I hope you can help me out.

I've been making a 50/50 blend of Alicante/Grenache for the past 4 years.
It's a total of 780 lbs of grapes that makes about 60 gallons of wine by the
time it's done.
I crush the grapes with an electric crusher into a large primary fermentation
tub.
I've always relied on the natural yeast on the grape for fermentation and never
sulphited.

I basically followed a simple, old Italian recipe passed on by a friend of my
father.

But .... I'd like to improve my wine and have been reading a lot lately.
I've figured out how much pot. meta. to add, but I'm having trouble trying
to come up with the quantity of yeast.

Problem is, most recipes I've found are for only 1 to 5 gallons and call for a
couple
of 5 gram packets of yeast. Extending the 5 grams/5 gallons ratio, I'm figuring
that I'm going
to need about 60 grams of yeast. Am I way off base?

Also, if I were to use the juice from the must to make a starter before I pitch,
about
how much juice would that be?