Different instructions from different wine kit companies

I just compare wine kit instructions of WineXpert and Argentia and was very surprised to find 2 big differences.

Difference 1: Step after Secondary fermentation:
Argentia: Syphone the wine from the carboy on the table to clean carboy on the floor, being careful not to disturb the sediment.
WineXpert: Do NOT rack the wine before stabilising and fining. This kit requires that you stir the sediment back into suspension. Racking the wine off the sediment prior to fining may permanently prevent clearing. Please be sure to stir all of the sediment up from the bottom.
Me note: I checked multiple WineXpert instructions and most of them do not require racking. But I did find that kits with Grapeskins do ask to rack before stabilizing and clearing, but all other kits do not need racking.

Difference2: Step for clearing
Argentia: Add clean, room temperature water or similar finished wine into the neck of the carboy to within two inches of the bottom of the fermentation lock.
WineXpert: Do not add any additional water (`top up’) to your carboy at this time. Topping up will change the character of your wine. Your wine will not oxidise or spoil during the time remaining to bottling (me: 28 days or so).

To me this is big difference. Especially second step - to my first kit I made, I added water and regretted doing this. I consider buying marbles but to me it appears now that toping up carboy is not needed.

Yes I understand that different companies can have different instructions. But bottom line - they provide juice, almost identical chemicals, so I would expect instructions to be close enough.

So real question is - do you experts rake the wine before stabilizing/degassing (if you do not use grapeskins in your kit) and do you top up carboy after secondary fermentation? Maybe WineXperts identified that these steps are waste of time and do not add to quality of wine, so I can safely skip them on other wine kits too?

ViNesv said:

So real question is - do you experts rake the wine before stabilizing/degassing (if you do not use grapeskins in your kit) and do you top up carboy after secondary fermentation? Maybe WineXperts identified that these steps are waste of time and do not add to quality of wine, so I can safely skip them on other wine kits too?

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I am hardly an expert, but here is my take.

These WE instructions are new. I think that the instruction NOT to top up is to prevent what happened earlier to you: Topping up with too much water, and getting a thin wine as a result. They (correctly) note that, if you bottle in a few weeks, there is a greater danger from thinning than from oxidizing. (I believe that they DO say that if you are aging the wine for a long time, you should top up.)

I do not know the reasoning behind the instruction not to rack off the sediment.

To directly answer your question, I DO rack off the sediment, and I DO top up.

I follow the instructions and have not been disappointed with the results, that said Wine Expert is what most of my kits have been.
Wine expert is the only kits or other that I have added bentonite at the beginning, that being a clearifying agent, perhaps that is why they want the sediment mixed back in.
I can say that every WE kit I have done has finished crystal clear.

menerdari said:

Wine expert is the only kits or other that I have added bentonite at the beginning, that being a clearifying agent, perhaps that is why they want the sediment mixed back in.
I can say that every WE kit I have done has finished crystal clear.

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Actually "Argentia" wine kits also add bentonite at the start. I compared other ingrediants and they are exactly the same. There is difference in oak, grapes, grape skins, oak cubes, but that should not matter.

sour_grapes said:

I am hardly an expert, but here is my take.

These WE instructions are new. I think that the instruction NOT to top up is to prevent what happened earlier to you: Topping up with too much water, and getting a thin wine as a result. They (correctly) note that, if you bottle in a few weeks, there is a greater danger from thinning than from oxidizing. (I believe that they DO say that if you are aging the wine for a long time, you should top up.)

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You are right, WE instructions say that if you are planning to keep wine after the time it is scheduled to bottle (plus few more weeks allowed), then you should top up.

So next kit I am doing, I will not worry too much about topping up. It was big headache for me - these are the first batches I am doing, so I did not have wine to top up from previous batches. I was considering buying marbles or smaller carboys, but now I understand that this is not a big deal. For later batches if I'll have wine available, I will consider to top up. I believe WE experts did tests and know that topping up or no does not have much impact - at least that is how I read these instructions.

By the way, I already have my first wine batch done and even it is a cheap kit from Costco, I love wine that I made - I swear all my family members believe it is best white wine we ever tasted. My next 2 wine kits are in the second fermentation stage and these are made from wine kit were you do not need to add water (kit had 23L of juice) - I cannot wait till I'll be able to try this wine.

Duncan Hinze and Betty Crocker cake mixes have different directions too.

No big deal, each company makes their product and directions as they see fit.

DoctorCAD said:

Duncan Hinze and Betty Crocker cake mixes have different directions too.

No big deal, each company makes their product and directions as they see fit.

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Doctor CAD - for me making wine is not just about following step by step guide - I am trying to understand what I am doing. I learned about each chemical I add to wine and I learned about each step. When I see different instructions it tells me that there are more than one way to do the same step and my goal is to understand what impact this could do to my wine.

WineXpert: Do NOT rack the wine before stabilising and fining. This kit requires that you stir the sediment back into suspension. Racking the wine off the sediment prior to fining may permanently prevent clearing. Please be sure to stir all of the sediment up from the bottom.

I actually called them about this because I thought you SHOULD rack off the sediment and have less to clear up later. The very nice lady went into a long "positive / negative charged pieces" explaination and how they used two clearing agents to handle each type...bottom line...they want stuff floating around in there so the other stuff has something to grab onto...little stuff makes big stuff and then it all settles to the bottom faster and more completely.

Still seems odd, but the wine did clear real nice.