5 gal. carboy?

[100LL]

been reading and some online sources suggest that after you rack the wine from the primary to the secondary to use a 5 gal carboy since you will lose some of the wine with the sediment and all, that this makes it so that you do not have the problem of adding wine or worse (water) to make up for the headspace.......any experience with this?

 

[Runningwolf]

The problem is when you're making a six gallon kit and rack over to the carboy. Today carboys are coming from Italy and they hold approx 6.5 gallons of liquid. I tend to add a little bit more liquid up front during the initial fermentation and then add a like wine to fill the carboy up during the aging process. This is not as critical after the first racking when you are doing a secondary fermentation.

 

[Tom]

You should not lose alot when racking. If you do you either didnt wait long enough or are leaving to much behind. At MOST you should only need 1 750ml bottle of same wine to top off.

 

[Wade E]

I agree with Tom here, I used to come out short many years ago beore I discovered that I was just being impatient and not greedy enough. Dont be afraid to rack over some stuff especially with a kit as you most likely will be using a fining agent pretty soon which will drop it all out anyway. After youve used the fining agent let it sit longer to let the lees compact and tilting the carboy to one side while clearing so that you can rack off the shallow side. this will allow you to get the racking cane right to the bottom and get every drop out. I havent had to use more then one bottle in many years and really havent had to even do that in a few years.

 

[100LL]

ok, so if i understand right, its not a problem to pick up some of the sediment from the primary when you transfer to your carboy?

also...Wade mentioned that storing your carboy tilted will help when you rack before bottling, that's a good tip..thanks

 

[Runningwolf]

Yes that is correct. 2X4's work fine for tilting.

 

[100LL]

that's quite the collection going there Runningwolf

do you always tilt your carboy's and buckets? even during primary fermentation?

 

[Tom]

want to see what's "Fermenting" here. click my signature... LOL

 

[100LL]

want to see what's "Fermenting" here. click my signature... LOL

thats not just what you did this year....but what you have going right now? Wow...i see where this hobby leads

 

[Tom]

So far this year I started 11-6gallon batches of Wine AND 14-5gallon batches of Beer.

 

[Runningwolf]

100LL, no there is no need to tip the primary. That is an old picture right after I got done bottling a couple batches. Click below to see whats in my cellar.