At what SG do you risk blowing the airlock off the secondary?

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if you even think there is an issue dont do it...in fact you may see slowing bubbles but when you rack to a carboy you aerate the wine and give the yeast more fuel..its not just the wood that feeds flames its the oxygen too


wait until you are under 1.02...and if you are seeking a dry wine then just wait until its 1.0
 
Its not the sg but the vigorous fermentation. When I made my jalapeno wine, for the first three days I could not keep a cap on my air locks. They blew off within a few minutes and made a heck of a bang. Scared the h*ll out of me the first time as I had just turned my back on it. I cosidered myself lucky with that little warning and just layed the lid on it instead of snapped down. I have read too many horror stories of people coming home with wine stain's on their ceiling and wine all over the place.
 
Get this, the kits say to go to secondary at 1.050, and in that range with EC-1118, is a very vigorous ferment.
 
I have never had a wine blow the airlock off the carboy, but I do NOT top up my carboys while fermentation is still ongoing. I have had kits that instructed to move to carboy at 1.010, and when I moved them at 1.008, they foamed up and spritzed thru the airlock, making a nice 'spotty' mess. So now I don't move until almost 1.000 or preferably below.

Steve
 
I have never had a wine blow the airlock off the carboy, but I do NOT top up my carboys while fermentation is still ongoing. I have had kits that instructed to move to carboy at 1.010, and when I moved them at 1.008, they foamed up and spritzed thru the airlock, making a nice 'spotty' mess. So now I don't move until almost 1.000 or preferably below.

Steve

Yikes!

Do you know what yeast that was?
 
I dont rrecommend following the Mosti Mondiale instructions unless doing so into 2 vessels with plenty of room or you are going to have a big problem. The reason for these instructions is sort of on the idea of why I dont rack my wine at all and ferment to dry in bucket as racking off wine at 1.020 can leave behind too much viable yeast making your wine struggle to finish fermenting unless you stir it all back up before racking and then you are trasfering all the big soids that settled out defeating the purpose IMO.
 
Do you know what yeast that was?
It was probably (about 98-99% chance) EC-1118, it's what is included with most wine kits.

However, the yeast is not important in this conversation. If the wine is moved too early, the activity can reactivate the yeast, and vigourous fermentation may restart. Because space in the carboy is limited, the wine will foam up the neck and out the airlock.

Steve
 
What SG do you use for dry? I've read anywhere from .990-.998, do you stop at a specific number?

It is very difficult to stop an active fermentation. I have never tried, and probably never will. I let the wine finish fermenting, usually by leaving the wine in the carboy without stabilizing for a month or more. Basically anything below 1.000 can be considered dry, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the fermentation is finished.

For Vineco and Winexpert kits, finished usually means about .992. For most RJ Spagnols kit, it's .995; but the Cellar Classic Winery Series kits used to finish about 1.000. (I haven't made a CC WS kit in more than three years). Other brands, other results.

Steve
 
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As cpfan said, you do not stop a fermentation in progress. Dry is considered 1.000 or less.
 
As cpfan said, you do not stop a fermentation in progress. Dry is considered 1.000 or less.

How do you know it stopped? In the secondary its 3 days of the same SG, but in the primary, you probably don't want to leave it stopped for 3 days.
 
I wait till sg is 1.000 to transfer to secondary. If u fill it to bout 4-5" from the top then take the extra and put it into a wine bottle or two n save to top up later. Save as much as u can n airlock. After a day or two if it dosent foam up then u can top up.
 
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