How do I tell how much sediment I have?

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abefroman

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How do I tell how much sediment I have?

It all looks the same color to me, I even held a flash light to it, but couldn't see any sediment.
 
Is your fermentation complete? Do you see any more bubbles? How old is the wine? Maybe you haven't given it time to settle completely. If you've just moved it from a primary to your secondary it might take a while before the sediment collects on the bottom.
 
Is your fermentation complete? Do you see any more bubbles? How old is the wine? Maybe you haven't given it time to settle completely. If you've just moved it from a primary to your secondary it might take a while before the sediment collects on the bottom.

Thanks! It must not have collected yet, its still fermenting. I was at 1.002 this morning.
 
ahh..

it's still fermenting?.. I'm not sure if this is a kit or from juice? If a kit.. the finings will be part of the supplied kit.. usually bentonite and a chitosan variant..

the finings clear the kit quickly for bottling. Some people just bulk store their wines and allow the sediment to drop out naturally.

Allie
 
ahh..

it's still fermenting?.. I'm not sure if this is a kit or from juice? If a kit.. the finings will be part of the supplied kit.. usually bentonite and a chitosan variant..

the finings clear the kit quickly for bottling. Some people just bulk store their wines and allow the sediment to drop out naturally.

Allie

Its from juice, I think im going to try the natural way
 
If you are going the natural way, take a deep breath, relax and start another wine to take your mind off it. It will require about 6 - 12 months to drop all the sediment on its own. It can look clear, but continue to collect light dustings on the bottom.
 
If you are going the natural way, take a deep breath, relax and start another wine to take your mind off it. It will require about 6 - 12 months to drop all the sediment on its own. It can look clear, but continue to collect light dustings on the bottom.

Uh, I can't wait that long. Do I want to use bentonite and superkleer? Or just one or the other?

:a1
 
Uh, I can't wait that long. Do I want to use bentonite and superkleer? Or just one or the other?

:a1

You can use either of those two to clear up the wine. I would, however, recommend that you wait a couple of weeks to see if it clears. Do you have any idea if the fermentation is progressing? How much sugar do you have left in the wine. If the wine is still sweet, and the natural yeast is doing its job, then even if you clear the wine the yeast will just simple produce more sediment.

If the sugar level is where you want it, add some k-meta to kill off the yeast and then wait a couple of weeks. If it is still not clearing, you could simply try to cool the wine down and then rack. This might be a low cost/low impact solution. If these both fail to clear it up, then go ahead with the fining agents.
 
I agree - wait a bit longer. When fermentation is done - you should degass your wine - that will help the clearing process.
 

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