Primary too fast, and other simple questions

[Impiryo]

I'm still a beginner to wine making - done a lot of reading, have my third batch in the primary now. First two were red kits, now I'm doing a hard cider.

My ambient temperature stays between 71 and 76. Everywhere I read describes fermentation going fast in the primary, slowing down, and running a week or two in the secondary. Recipies talk about timing how long between bubbles, and watching it slow down. I've never seen this - The primary starts in a day or two, then ferments fast till dry. SG goes down by a pretty reliable .01 to .02 per day, and if I measure a SG of 1.010, the wine is fermenting hard, and it'll be bone dry in 24 hours. Is this normal?

This concerns me. I don't want to run the primary till dry - I want some CO2 coming out in the secondary to flush out the oxygen. I'm also afraid to go to secondary too soon - even at 1.01, there's a solid bit of foam.

My cider was 1.02 as of 2 hours ago - I'm tempted to rack it late tonight to secondary, leaving more headspace than normal, and running a second, small secondary to top off with in a few days. Otherwise, is there anything wrong with skipping secondary? If the wine is dry soon, can I just go straight to degassing, maybe even in the primary bucked, and top off (obviously only if I see a SG of .995ish)? My primary has the option of sealing with an airlock (and a LOT of air space), but at least I can ensure no new air gets in during that last day or 2.

EDIT: degassing in the primary seems like a bad idea, too much oxygen. Scratch that - I'd rack most to a carboy, degass, rack the rest to a bottle, degass that, then top off with it.

For my other wines, I want to rack as little as possible - avoiding oxygen exposure always seems wise. That said, both have .5-1 inch of sediment. Any reason to not rack them?

Thanks for the help!

-Andrew

 

[andy123]

A few degrees cooler will slow things down some. I have had some angry ferments if temp gets out of hand. At SG 1.02 you should not need a lot of head space. The secondary is intended to be an anaerobic ferment. I use a utility sink with about 10 inches of water around the fermenter and rotate frozen 2 liter pop bottles to maintain 69 to 71 `F. My typical kits get 5 days primary and 9 secondary. Rack,degas,k-meta, 14 days, stabilize>bulk age or bottle. Scratch wines vary a bunch. I have always done 2 stage ferments with wines even if I drop below target S.G..

 

[saramc]

The yeast you use will also have an impact as to whether you have a rapid ferment vs. a slow one. Plus, some yeasts are foam producers while others are not. If foam is still an issue when you want to transfer to carboy/airlock, you can use a defoaming agent. Personally, my wines are never left in primary fermenter until dry--they go to carboy/airlock when the S.G. has dropped by 2/3. The only time I deviate is when I have made a kit & then I just followed the instructions with the kit. But kits are far and few between for me.