Compressing lees/sediment

[PierreR]

I posted in another thread the issues I was having with pulp in my dried apricot wine. I strained the must through fine cheese cloth, this took some time, but its done and in secondary. In a 23 liter demijohn, there is currently a layer of pulp sediment that is about 20% of the volume of the must.

I am curious/wondering, if a stout dose of bentonite would maybe compress the layer of sediment/pulp, and allow me to retain more of the original wine.

If this is not an option, how would you recommend that I top up, and not water down the wine? Will the additional addition of fluid continue to ferment to finish?

Any thoughts or discussion appreciated.

 

[Arne]

How long has it been in there? It takes some time for it to settle down and compress. If it hasn't been too long, give it some more time. If it has been a long time, rack it off to a smaller container. When you get down to the sediment, rack it to smaller bottles, let it sit and pour what clears off. Make sure you taste it before you add it to the main batch. Arne.

 

[BernardSmith]

Not really an answer to your question but some fruit (papayas, mangoes and apricots seem to produce an enormous amount of sediment. I agree with Arne, what you might do is transfer the sediment rich wine into smaller containers and perhaps place those bottles in the fridge. I think (but I don't pretend to understand why) the cold helps separate the liquid from the solids - but that might simply be a coincidence and what is doing the work might be the different liquid to solid ratio in the smaller bottles and so you have a greater mass of liquid now pressing down on a smaller mass of particulates)...

 

[Scooter68]

Not so sure I would worry about removing 100% the lees on the first racking or two. Like the suggestions of smaller bottles from the last part of your must to let it settle separately. On several of our wines I finished the racking topped, off the carboy and then set the remaining semi-liquid aside in a covered glass (Fridge sounds great) and let it settle. We found that after the fermentation had complete the very very young wine left after the settling had only one disagreeable flavor - the 'yeastyness'.
On subsequent racking I save the 'dregs' each time and filter or let them settle as well and found the mostly clear wine to be quiet good - but again not well aged of course. The whole thing that I was trying to do is track the progressing flavor change of the wine as it aged and cleared. The yeast odor and taste was typically gone by about the 3 racking.
About to do an Apricot wine so I will check my lees levels and see how it compares. Some of my musts had as much as an 1 inch in a one gallon carboy.