Beginners questions about tasting corks and Kmeta

[Chiumanfu]

I'm a complete beginner (wine-making and wine in general) and I bought a kit from my local shop to get started. The kit I bought is the Winekitz Ultimate Estate Reserve Chile Vieux Chateau du Roi (8 week).

My first question is the kit did not include Kmeta, only Diversol. If I follow the directions to sanitize everything using the Diversol properly, do I even need to use Kmeta?

Also about the corks that were included in the kit. From my googling, they appear to be tasting corks. Will these be ok to age the wine?

 

[cpfan]

I'm assuming that the Diversol came with the equipment kit, not the wine kit.

Diversol (aka pink powder) is NOT a prefered sanitizer for wine makers due to it's chlorine content, and the effort required. To sanitize properly with Diversol, you need to soak the items in the solution for a period of time. Some folks say 10 minutes, others 20 minutes. I was taught 30 minutes (at a Wine Kitz store). Then it needs to be rinsed very well.

Personally I would wander back and get some K-meta.

Just being nosy here, but which WK store/where do you live? [Please update the Location field in the User CO, so that I don't ask every time.] I want to know which store to avoid.

The corks are NOT good for aging the wine. They were probably included because very few first time wine makers age their wine, and most don't want to pay for a corker. Although I thought that most WK stores would rent you a corker (for free if you bought the kit from them).

Steve

 

[Chiumanfu]

Thanks cpfan.

Another question. Do those stick on thermometers work for glass carbouys and plastic primaries? I have a few from my aquarium days and was wondering if I could use them to keep track of temperature.

Cheers.

 

[Wade E]

I agree completely with cpfan, Use the kmeta that came with the "wine" kit and use the diversol to clean used wine bottles from any sludge that may be in them. Do not use those corks for aging, You can use them when you open a bottle and dont finish it that night. Yeah, like thatll happen!

 

[Dugger]

Re: the stick on thermometers, yes, they will work quite nicely on both your plastic buckets and glass carboys.

 

[Chiumanfu]

Thanks for the replies. This forum is truly excellent.

My wine has been in the primary for 8 days (Feb21). The fermentation has slowed considerably with only a few tiny bubbles every second or so. The SG started at 1.100. It has been at 0.995 for the last two days. I know from my research that these are all signs that it's time to transfer to carboy but the instructions say I should leave in primary for 14 days. What do you guys think? Follow the directions... or just go ahead and rack?

 

[Dugger]

Well, I'm not familiar with the Wine Kitz kits but I would tend to leave it for the 14 days - there are things going on in the bucket other than fermentation ( chemical change things that I don't pretend to understand) so I think it's better to leave it there. If you have a lid, snap it down tight.

 

[Kev]

Most wine kits would have you move to the Carboy sooner, but Winekitz proces is to leave it in the primary until dry . This saves them extra labour at their brew on premise franchise stores.

You are definetly OK to move from the primary to the carboy, and install the airlock with water.

Personally I would splash rack at this stage to give the yeast a bit of oxygen, and get that last bit of fermentation. Though you are pretty much done anyway .