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bjorn773

Can I feed my worms the fermented wine grapes?

17 years ago

I have 78 pounds of grapes in a primary fermenter making wine. I will be pressing them later today. Can I give my worms all the pressed out grapes or will the yeast/alcohol hurt them?

Comments (7)

  • 17 years ago

    Drunken worms? Hmmmm..... they won't be able to crawl in a straight line afterwards, lol.

    Joking aside, what I would do, I'll probably air the entire stuff first before adding it to the bin and start with just putting a pile in a corner and see how it goes. And your holding container for the rest of the stuff should be able to "breath". How much pressed pulp would that be volume wise? BTW, how big is your worm bin and how many worms?
    Please keep us posted bjorn. Have fun with your worms.

  • 16 years ago

    The short answer is Yes, you can use just about any organic material and have good results. The main thing is moderation, how much of each thing you put in there will affect how well things go. If you are able to press out as much liquid as possible for putting it in your worm bin that may help from it getting too wet inside.

    I imagine that the pressed grapes would be OK so long as you manage a good ratio of fruit to bedding. The alcohols would generally dissipate over time and should not be a problem depending on the quantity you're using and the room in the bin where worms can escape from anything unfavorable to them.

  • 16 years ago

    I don't know the first thing about VC that is why I was snooping around here today.
    Funny thing that caused me to do this is that about 1 month ago I too had about 20 pounds of grape must. I dug a hole in my raised bed & threw the musts in there & covered with soil.
    This particular area stays fairly wet as I am always dumping my dog's water bowl in there 3 times per day.
    Yesterday I was getting the bed ready for winter veggies & when I dug up the area where the grape musts were buried WOW! worms! hundreds of them in just one shovel turn. They were red in color. I quickly turned them back over to the way they were. I figured they must be good for the soil.
    Hence my sudden interest in worm composting.

  • 16 years ago

    "Messed up as a bucket of worms".

  • 16 years ago

    My worms loved grape waste. It was a popular hang out in the bin and did not last long.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    Just the information I was looking for katrina01 and derby98! Thanks!

    Paul

    Post script to the OP - They will LOVE the yeast and HATE the alcohol. However, pressing the must in a good press will remove most of the alcohol. "Aging" the must for 24 hours will remove A LOT of what's left. The amount of alcohol left after squeezing and aging will not adversely affect your worms.

    Paul

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