testing started on 25 gallons of 1 gallon batches.

[jamesngalveston]

Greg,
I know that wine making is 1000s of years old..
I know that sediment has been dropping for 1000 years.
We rack wine to get it away from the sediment.
Post after post, article after article, rack your wine to get it away from the sediment.
Reason....Live yeast cell, will feed on the dead, without fermentation.
And thats a nasty.
Even after racking 100 times, there is still live yeast cells, that lives, not being a sediment, but feeding on the sediment.
I are we, are trying to remove the sediment all at once.
If the yeast cells are dead, and dropping, what can we do to increase this drop to single racking.
Seeing a 1/2 level of must and racking, then seeing another 1/2 of must , then another seems silly.
What if we could do something and rack once..........period.

 

[Deezil]

Just to play along..

IF one COULD, effectively remove all the sediment and future-sediment in 1 racking, and you could do so without completely ruining the wine itself.. I think a few things might happen.

1 - You'd "get what you got"; see, its the living aspect of wine that keeps it changing as time progresses. I could wind up a little philosophical here but I'll try not to.. but, in essence, its actions and reactions between the living and inanimate 'objects' within the wine, that make the wine what it is... If you take the 'life' out of the wine, you might as well add vodka to juice and call it a day.

2 - You might actually get less than what you should have had; to remove ALL sediment, is to remove significant portions of polyphenols/anthocyanins/tannins, proteins & pectin, and yeast.. I have a hard time believing that hurrying the sedimentation process wont result in losses also of various esters/aromatic compounds, on top of already losing the complexity found in extending the amount of time given for polyphenols, anthocyanins and tannins to interact, lending themselves to the overall mouthfeel and depth on the palette, of a wine

You might find some unconventional way to make this dream come true, but, in a side-by-side comparison with the same fruit using traditional methods.. I think it's trying to take a step forward, but taking two steps backwards

 

[jamesngalveston]

OK...then why rack at all...why not move from primary to secondary, and just leave it...not rack all, just bottle when clear.
If you think the wine need to be on the lees in order for it to be a better wine...then just do not rack it...let it sit on the original lees.
So , you are saying that a wine has to sit on these dead cells, in order for it to get to its full potential...
Then why rack it at all..

 

[Deezil]

I'm not saying it needs to sit on the sediment. The sediment leads to break-downs, which create off flavors and can eventually ruin the wine.

What I was trying to emphasize, was the time. It takes time for the reactions to occur, for different facets of the wine to bind together, break apart and bind again.

We're both for removing sediment. I'm for letting it happen in due time.


Edit: Just a side note..

There are types of wines that do benefit from sitting on certain lees. Battonaged chardonnay is a classic example. Leads to an increase in texture/mouthfeel when done properly, especially when the fine lees are stirred up from the bottom occasionally during the battonage.

 

[GreginND]

James, I still don't understand what you are doing in your experiments to find out how to drop out all sediment at once. It seems to me you have 12 bottles with one yeast and 12 bottles with another. What variables are you changing in each bottle? What will this "experiment" tell you?