Vendrixfly
Junior
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2011
- Messages
- 4
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Hi all! I'm new to the forum but have been a lurker for around a month. Thanks for the intelligent and informative posts! They've helped me out a lot with my first wine kits...
I'm making two Vino Italiano kits (Riesling and Cab/Merlot) I got cheap from Amazon, I'm sure some of you have heard of them. I recently got into the hobby because I'm getting married in June and wanted to have a couple bottles of homemade wine on the reception tables on the wedding day, and since the higher quality kits usually require more aging to reach their potential, I opted to make a couple "early-drinkable" wines so they'll (hopefully) be good in time.
I want to give an overview of what the wines have been through so far to see if it all makes sense to more experienced folk, I also tweaked the wines a little according to what I read about them from this forum and that:
Made them both to 5.5gal instead of the kit recommended 6, which gave me a SG of around 12-13%.
Added 1/2lb of black currants to Red and 1lb of golden raisins to White for primary, which took barely a week for both to ferment to 1.010.
Transfered both into secondary 6gal carboys which finished quickly as well to .993 for Red and .992 for White. Cellar temp was around 70 degrees for both fermentations.
When secondary was finished I degassed with a drill-extension (which still took hours) BEFORE adding stabilizer as the kit instructions stated. Added stabilizer and finings to both shortly after degassing and racked them into 5gal carboys to prevent headspace. I also topped off both with store bought similar wines, as I don't have another batch or any leftover and it was two glasses at most which brought me to the desired 1-3 inches below the airlock bung. I also added 2 oz of french oak directly to the Red.
The wines cleared very fast, 3 days and I could clearly see my hand through the White. The red is very dark, but I'm assuming it cleared nicely as well. I've tasted samples of both wines and they taste young, but pretty darn balanced.
Now I'm wondering what to do. The kit instructions state to bottle when wine is clear but I want to do about a month bulk aging. They have been sitting down there for just over a week since last racking/clearing and there's a thick layer of sediment on the bottom. Should I now rack them off this sediment/oak and age them in bulk? Don't know if letting them sit on it for too long would be a problem...Also, I added stabilizer (assuming sulfite) to the wine at last rack and am worried that if I rack again and add more sulfite it would be too soon and could give it off flavors. I don't think I'll be filtering this batch either, with all that I've done should my vino still be drinkable by the beginning of June?
Thanks for any input!
-Dan
I'm making two Vino Italiano kits (Riesling and Cab/Merlot) I got cheap from Amazon, I'm sure some of you have heard of them. I recently got into the hobby because I'm getting married in June and wanted to have a couple bottles of homemade wine on the reception tables on the wedding day, and since the higher quality kits usually require more aging to reach their potential, I opted to make a couple "early-drinkable" wines so they'll (hopefully) be good in time.
I want to give an overview of what the wines have been through so far to see if it all makes sense to more experienced folk, I also tweaked the wines a little according to what I read about them from this forum and that:
Made them both to 5.5gal instead of the kit recommended 6, which gave me a SG of around 12-13%.
Added 1/2lb of black currants to Red and 1lb of golden raisins to White for primary, which took barely a week for both to ferment to 1.010.
Transfered both into secondary 6gal carboys which finished quickly as well to .993 for Red and .992 for White. Cellar temp was around 70 degrees for both fermentations.
When secondary was finished I degassed with a drill-extension (which still took hours) BEFORE adding stabilizer as the kit instructions stated. Added stabilizer and finings to both shortly after degassing and racked them into 5gal carboys to prevent headspace. I also topped off both with store bought similar wines, as I don't have another batch or any leftover and it was two glasses at most which brought me to the desired 1-3 inches below the airlock bung. I also added 2 oz of french oak directly to the Red.
The wines cleared very fast, 3 days and I could clearly see my hand through the White. The red is very dark, but I'm assuming it cleared nicely as well. I've tasted samples of both wines and they taste young, but pretty darn balanced.
Now I'm wondering what to do. The kit instructions state to bottle when wine is clear but I want to do about a month bulk aging. They have been sitting down there for just over a week since last racking/clearing and there's a thick layer of sediment on the bottom. Should I now rack them off this sediment/oak and age them in bulk? Don't know if letting them sit on it for too long would be a problem...Also, I added stabilizer (assuming sulfite) to the wine at last rack and am worried that if I rack again and add more sulfite it would be too soon and could give it off flavors. I don't think I'll be filtering this batch either, with all that I've done should my vino still be drinkable by the beginning of June?
Thanks for any input!
-Dan