RJ Spagnols First ever attempt at Winemaking

Hi all,

I am currently making my very first batch of wine ever.
I put the yeast in my primary on July 22nd following the instructions to a tee and using a WS Amarone kit.

My initial SG reading was 1.110
Now, 7 days later, my reading is 1.010
The instructions say to rack to secondary in 6 to 8 days when SG hits 1.0

I will check again tomorrow night and if push comes to shove, I'll leave it in the primary a little longer. The airlock on the primary is still bubbling a little but much less then before.

If that progress normal so far ?

Thanks

Chaotik said:

Hi all,

I am currently making my very first batch of wine ever.
I put the yeast in my primary on July 22nd following the instructions to a tee and using a WS Amarone kit.

My initial SG reading was 1.110
Now, 7 days later, my reading is 1.010
The instructions say to rack to secondary in 6 to 8 days when SG hits 1.0

I will check again tomorrow night and if push comes to shove, I'll leave it in the primary a little longer. The airlock on the primary is still bubbling a little but much less then before.

If that progress normal so far ?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Assuming you meant June 22, then, yes, everything sounds to be on track! Good luck.

sour_grapes said:

Assuming you meant June 22, then, yes, everything sounds to be on track! Good luck.

Click to expand...

Yes... of course...

Thanks

Sounds like you are doing great. Tim Vandergrift the guru of kit wines always says that when you have a time period and a target SG you should always do the one that takes the longest. In your example this would mean if you hit 1.0 on day 4, you should still wait until at least day 6. If you didn't hit 1.0 until day 12 you should wait until you hit 1.0. Also keep in mind that all of the time frames should really be considered minimums. Time is almost always your friend when making wine. It will only improve the quality of your wine if you wait longer at each step. The one exception is that if you wait too long to rack from the primary bucket into a carboy it can be detrimental but an extra week or so is not likely to cause any problems.

I have nothing to add, other than to agree with the advice you've already been given and say welcome to the addiction.

The instructions did not mention opening the bucket every day to stir or push the grape pack down to the bottom.

As a result, when I opened it last night, the grape pack was floating with quite a bit of the oak chips dried up on the surface of the pack. I did push it down and flipped it over but I suppose it is likely that for the first 7 days, it wasn't as "efficient" as it could have been.

Is there something I should do to compensate for that or perhaps it's not a huge deal ?

Chaotik said:

Is there something I should do to compensate for that or perhaps it's not a huge deal ?

Click to expand...

If it were mine, I would squeeze out the pack a few times a day for the remainder of the time it is in primary.