A basic question...

[drainsurgeon]

Au contrair, as long as it is in the Carboys or whatever, you can just steal (wine thief) a bit now and then, and drop in a few clean marbles of course. Is that why I end up bottling less than all the tables tell me I should have?

LOL! A friend got me making wine about 7-8 years ago. He had me convinced that a kit only produces 28 bottles of wine. We would split kits so we each would end up with 14 bottles. He lost interest about 4 years ago so I purchased all the equipment from him and started making kits on my own. Well guess what....I have never gotten less than 30 bottles from each kit. I let him know that he was doing a little more "sampling" than he claimed!

Good thing wine thief's aren't longer or we would have only gotten 26 bottles out of a batch!

 

[Pat_in_TN]

That's interesting....actually I only get 27 bottles to a kit......I better start watching what I'm throwing away after I rack next time.

 

[drainsurgeon]

That's interesting....actually I only get 27 bottles to a kit......I better start watching what I'm throwing away after I rack next time.

Hi Pat, have you calibrated your primary to make sure you're topping off at the 6 gallon mark? My primary came with a wine making kit that had everything to make your first batch of wine (except the juice kit). I believe it's a 7 1/2 gallon primary that has a molded lip about 3" below the top. That, is my 6 gallon mark. I'm very careful when racking and even tip the carboy when it gets close to the bottom. I would guess that in all 3 rackings that I loose about 1 to 1 1/2 bottles total. I do a 3rd racking right before bottling just to make sure I don't get any "gunk" in the bottled stuff. I then pour the rest into a mason jar and let it sit in the fridge for a few days and usually get another glass or more of wine out of it.

If you are truly starting out with 6 gallons and only bottle 27.....there is a wine thief nearby.,,.muhahaha!

 

[Pat_in_TN]

Nice tips....thank you. I will take your suggestion and calibrate my primary fermentation bucket....I'll also do the tipping thingy......I now have gotten into the habit of running all my wines through a filter before bottling, so I guess I can be a little more generous when I do the racking.....

 

[Scooter68]

Beware of leaving too much to the filter. They clog quickly when there is too much floating in your wine. At least that's the case with my Crystalbrite filters and the gravity feed. I filter my wine but just to give it a final 'polishing' cleaning up.