I'm making my first wine from actual grapes (Concord) from my garden.
They have been in the primary for 6 days, the s.g. is 1.025, and the
color of the must is fairly dark. The nylon bag now contains only
seeds and skins. I don't want to get too much tannin so I want to rack
to a carboy soon. When using concentrates, the lees were always very
minimal. But this time, with actual grapes, the lees (mostly pulp?)
are about 30% of the total volume of must. Is this normal? Should I
transfer some or all of the lees to the carboy (probably has a lot of
the yeast as well). Will the lees "compact" with time or will I just
have to discard this 30% eventually? Any help, comments, opinions, etc
would be very very welcome!

Roger,

I am also a beginner, but I just did my first wine from grapes and after the
crush I had about 2 gallons of juice to three gallons of pulp and skins.
When I transferred into a carboy I was showing 3.5 gallons of liquid to the
what was now mostly just skins. After I squeezed the solids through a net by
hand I got about 4.75 gallons of liquid. I hope this helps.

Roy

"Roger Wino-Nouvaux" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> I'm making my first wine from actual grapes (Concord) from my garden.
> They have been in the primary for 6 days, the s.g. is 1.025, and the
> color of the must is fairly dark. The nylon bag now contains only
> seeds and skins. I don't want to get too much tannin so I want to rack
> to a carboy soon. When using concentrates, the lees were always very
> minimal. But this time, with actual grapes, the lees (mostly pulp?)
> are about 30% of the total volume of must. Is this normal? Should I
> transfer some or all of the lees to the carboy (probably has a lot of
> the yeast as well). Will the lees "compact" with time or will I just
> have to discard this 30% eventually? Any help, comments, opinions, etc
> would be very very welcome!
>

They will compact. The first racking you should just get it off of the
really heavy stuff and pulp/seeds/.

Thanks guys .... that really helps. It is comforting to know that I am
not going to lose all that potential wine! I will rack into a carboy
and let the lees settle down. Thanks again for the prompt responses!
This is a really fun new hobby ... too bad I waited so long before
trying it. With all the help from people on this group (along with
Lum's book and Jack Keller's web site) a person really can make wine! !
!