And yet another question....
Okay, don't laugh me off the forum when I describe this situation.
I did my first racking of plum wine today. SG 1.029-1.030. I racked out of a 5 gal bucket into a 1 gallon glass jug. The jug had been washed, sanitized and rinsed many times. When the gallon jug was full, I racked the remaining 1/2 gallon of must into a 1.75l plastic Rum bottle.
Now this rum bottle had just been emptied, and capped. I didn't even rinse it with tap water, because I figured the booze did a pretty good job of sanitizing, and my water is terrible. I was left with only about a 1/32" of sediment in the bucket. I put an "S" airlock on the 1/2 gallon bottle, and a 2-piece airlock on the jug.
Now, the 1 gallon jug is gently gassing away, and you can see the bubbles rising. The 1/2 gallon bottle, however, is acting like I threw dry ice in there!
There's a 1/4" head of foam on the top, and the airlock is popping every 30 seconds.
Why are these behaving so differently?
Possible explanations:
- The tiny bit of rum in the bottle is reacting with the must?
- The must near the lees had a higher sugar content, or more residual yeast?
- Lower volume = more action?
WTF?