4 week kit?

[Racinready300ex]

This is my first ever batch of wine, It's a orchard breezin blackbarry merlot 4 week kit. By the directions it says to bottle in one more week.

I was thinking of racking it to a second carboy and filtering it at that point and then let it sit for another week or two. Then bottle.

Is this a good idea? Is it worth doing? Finnally if I rack it, do I need to add any extra sulfite or anything at that point?

 

[NSwiner]

No , follow the instructions .

 

[wyntheef]

An additional racking can help clarify, but only leaving it sit one week after may be counterproductive.

If you are only altering your schedule by one week or even two, you would not need to add any additional sulfites.

 

[Runningwolf]

This was the first kit I made, It cost me severly. It was so good and went so fast I was buying kits 2-3 at a time to get the inventory built up. I followed directions exactly as I did not know about tweaking the abv at the time. Good luck! Start thinking about your next kits because they go fast once you get started (from drinking and giving them away).

 

[Racinready300ex]

An additional racking can help clarify, but only leaving it sit one week after may be counterproductive.

If you are only altering your schedule by one week or even two, you would not need to add any additional sulfites.

I'm really not going to be able to bottle it till the 5.5ish week mark. Would I be better off just leaving it as is until then.

I can already see what you mean Runningwolf. Between family and friends want to try it, it's going to go fast. I can't decide what I'm going to do next. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[ffemt128]

I personally would rack it off one more time then wait 2-3 weeks before bottling just to let any addtional sediment drop out. Order more kits, the first one will be luck to make it 3 months.

 

[wyntheef]

I'm really not going to be able to bottle it till the 5.5ish week mark. Would I be better off just leaving it as is until then.

I was going to say 'just let it clear' and then noticed doug (ffemt) has suggested another racking.
So by my count, you have someone telling you to rack, someone telling you not to rack, 2 telling you to go by the instructions, and I'm thinking your'e
wondering why all the different answers.

Really, you can go by any of the above. There is some small risk of failure in varying degrees no matter what you do. Also, regardless of what you decide, if you practice cleanliness and don't do too many things to it, your wine will most likely turn out good enough to drink. For a first try, that's success. One thing for sure though...you will be gaining some experience.

 

[Runningwolf]

Again not to confuse you, After you stabilize and degas, I would let it sit 4-6 weeks. At that time it should be crystal clear and all sediment should have fallen and compacted. Now you are ready to bottle. Rack the wine off the compacted sediment being careful not to draw any up into a clean container and then within a day bottle from this container. If you drew any sediment up you may want to wait another few weeks before bottling to let it settle and then bottle from a clean container.

Note: If you did pick up some sediment in a bottle thats fine. Just drink that one first yourself, it hurt you.