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s0615353

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I have a question for all the wine scientists out there that I have been puzzled by. Regular still wine that is left to clear on its own takes months and months without the use of clarifiers or degassing. Yet when I add the same amount of yeast (one package to 6 gallons) to my batch of sparkling wine the yeast settles in bottle after only a few days to a week during secondary fermentation. Is this because there is less sugar for the yeast to eat, so less yeast is produced and as such in suspension?
 
Freshly fermented wine has a lot more floating around in it than just yeast particles.. Fruit solids, pectins and things... Most of this falls out with the gross lees & isn't seen again. But thats only most - not all of it, just the bigger pieces..

The smaller pieces, while some is yeast, some is still those fruit solids, pectin, and other compounds dealing with color stabilization and the like.. This is what takes so long to clear out. A large majority of the yeast colony is already out of the wine by the time you rack off the sur lees - the finer stuff.

Everything after that is basically a mixed up slosh-pot of residuals, across the board.

The sparkling wine clears faster because theres only yeast & CO2 which is dissolved, playing 'football' in the bottle.
 

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