[s2000]

Hi Folks, the secondary is almost done with MLF and wanted to get going with Barrel soon. Besides prepping the barrel do I need to degass the wine or splash rack it into the barrel?

[ibglowin]

Add sulfites to protect the wine, rack to barrel. I am assuming this was fresh grapes of sorts? If so when you pressed that degassed things pretty much.

[JohnT]

Like he said, Add k-meta to help protect the wine. I would also fiter (if you do that sort of thing).

[Rock]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Like he said, Add k-meta to help protect the wine. I would also fiter (if you do that sort of thing).

Really John a wine this young filter already?Here goes a can of worms!!

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Rock

Really John a wine this young filter already?Here goes a can of worms!!

Talking about a corse filtration (blue).

[Manimal]

I would not filter. The light lees that precipitate during barrel aging will help improve the mouthfeel of the wine and may also keep the wine in a slightly reductive state which can help protect the wine against oxidation.

[s2000]

how much k-meta for 59 gal barrel?

we talking "Potassium Metabisulfite"?

[ibglowin]

Depends on the pH of the wine. A 6 gallon kit will come with a 4.8gm packet of sulfite. That's a lot of sulfite it seems but 50% will get tied up almost immediately and become bound.

If you extrapolate that out to 59 gallons thats 47gms of sulfite. I would add half, test, add 1/4, test, then add the rest depending on the results.

The level required depends directly on the pH of the wine though. Go to winemaker magazine and use their handy dandy sulfite calculator.

[s2000]

The ph on the 5 15gal demijohns vary from 3.5 to 3.6.

I'll take a look at that calculator

[Nobody_Special]

There's a useful sulfite calculator that I use here:

winemakermag.com/guide/sulfite

According to that, for a red wine at pH 3.6 going into a 225L Bordeaux barrel, you'd be looking to add 19.7g sulfite.