Here’s a question from one our customers about a grape destemmer that is listed on our website:
We want to keep grape hulls and juice together for fermentation, does this grape destemmer allow the hulls to pass through and not the stems?
This is a great questions! Particularly when you are making red wine, you want to keep the grape juice and the pulp together during the first few days of fermentation. This is how a wine develops a significant portion of it’s body and color.
To answer your question, yes, the grape destemmer you are referring to does allow all the pulp to pass through it. Only the stems are taken away, nothing else.
Once a cluster of grapes goes past the rollers and are crushed, they then fall into a cradle that has fast rotating paddles which beat the stems. This knocks all the skin and pulp loose.
The stems get slowly pushed out to the side of the grape destemmer by the beating paddles. Everything else: the pulp, the juice, the skins go out the bottom of the cradle through a series holes, then out the bottom of the destemmer to be collected by a fermenter or bucket of some sort.
You may want to take a look at the destemmer he is referring to: item number FP170, Marchisio Crusher & Destemmer listed on our website.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.
