Wine in my airlocks

[Bostaevski]

Hello,

It's probably been a good month since I opened the cabinet to check on my wines - they've been bulk aging in the carboys since about Feb/Mar. Anyway I had an inclination to take a peek in there today and noticed the airlocks on two of them are full of wine. Is this bad?

 

[grapeman]

This is from changes in air pressure. You had them just a bit full and when the pressure increased, it pushed into the airlock. Take them off, dump out the wine, rinse and refill the airlocks. Place them back on. Normally if this happens I take a wine thirf and remove a half inch of wine out of the neck before putting the airlock back on. If you leave it in the airlock, it could get sucked back into the carboy.

 

[Bartman]

Are the carboys plastic or glass? It hasn't happened to me, but I would guess that plastic carboys are more likely to "inflate" or "deflate" slightly with air pressure changes than glass carboys would.

Bart

 

[vcasey]

Are the carboys plastic or glass? It hasn't happened to me, but I would guess that plastic carboys are more likely to "inflate" or "deflate" slightly with air pressure changes than glass carboys would.

Bart

I would imagine the BBs would be more susceptible to this happening, however it really does happen with glass as well. Every time we get those tropical rain & wind makers (tropical storms, hurricanes, sometimes major afternoon storms) the pressure will change enough for this to happen. Just follow applemans advice and you and your wines will be fine. I learned really fast to watch the fill level.
VC

Note: I do have 1 BB that I am currently using and its the only one that this has not happened to this summer, but I've only been using it for a couple of months and its been pretty mild here so the jury is still out.

 

[Wild Duk]

Just a guess, but as he started his bulk aging in the winter months, as the weather and his cabinet got warmer, the wine started to expand....Thus pushing up into his airlock.....I had it happen to my wine going from winter to summer also, so that was my understanding of what happened.....

 

[RickC]

Gas expansion may also be a problem. I had this happen to me on thefirst few kits I bulk aged when I did not do a good job of degassing. The last few kits I have paid much more attention to degassing and have not had a problem.
I also noted that you appear to have gone 6-7 months without adding additional K-Meta. The general recommedation from other postings has been every 3 months add 1/4 tsp to protect your wine.